Artist’s Journal
Morton Brown
3.26.07
Details, details, details…from here on out, I suspect that I will be much involved in the details of this painting. I have continued to play around with placements of figures and their portraits, but now is the time to bring the details into focus.
I received a very nice picture of Florence Mattison-one of Conway’s most memorable public school educators, and have decided to make her my third historical figure. This truly seems to work, now that I have Asa Robinson (founder of Conway), JJ Doyne (founder of UCA) and Mattison (instrumental figure of the Pine Street School, an African American public school from Conway’s past).
As you can see, I have made several adjustments to these figures. To date, I have kept them over to the lower right side of the painting-suggesting that they are sitting on a park bench and watching the children playing. I tried several poses, but was very limited by the very few photographs that I have of these characters. I finally decided that they look too awkward in that corner, and moved them over to the left side of the painting. I have decided to keep them in period clothing, so that they will remain points of conversation after the mural is complete, and not merely dismissed as “extras” in the cast. Besides, this painting is still very magical, even surrealistic at times, and could allow some ghostly figures standing about. The most difficult task remaining with these figures is to capture a likeness when the actual portrait is about an inch tall (and to imagine what JJ Doyne looks like smiling…he looks too creepy in this painting without at least a Mona Lisa smile…).
I have taken most of the week this time to work on the pixilation. I want the figure to pop out from the background, but I also wanted to connect the flying kid to the pixilation in some direct way. I chose to pixilated her in certain places, forming a pixel-edge that still allows her to step out of the background, but be integrated with it. I jumped back on the computer to study pixilation once again, and I noticed that while they don’t vary in size (in relation to one another) I could play within the painting and make some smaller pixels on the figure that may help pop her out. Would a mixture of small and large pixels work in a painting, though? It did-it is almost like there are two projections running over top one another. The smaller pixels on the edge of the flying kid make her stand above the larger pixels in the sky, and it doesn’t seem to confuse the painting.
I am looking for something to place in the lower right side. It is almost okay with it being sort of open-ended over there, but it seems a little bare for now. I did remove the airplane-flying kid to make room for the three figures…maybe he will resurface on the lower right side.
I will be getting some pictures from children of Conway Boys and Girls Club, in which they will be posed to resemble the kids in the painting. I hope to replace some of these characters with those models, keeping the costumes intact, of course. I am also going to place the Pine Street School and some sort of reference to the cotton industry for next week.
Thanks again for your continued participation and support, and I’ll talk to you again next week.
-Morton
Morton Brown
3.26.07
Details, details, details…from here on out, I suspect that I will be much involved in the details of this painting. I have continued to play around with placements of figures and their portraits, but now is the time to bring the details into focus.
I received a very nice picture of Florence Mattison-one of Conway’s most memorable public school educators, and have decided to make her my third historical figure. This truly seems to work, now that I have Asa Robinson (founder of Conway), JJ Doyne (founder of UCA) and Mattison (instrumental figure of the Pine Street School, an African American public school from Conway’s past).
As you can see, I have made several adjustments to these figures. To date, I have kept them over to the lower right side of the painting-suggesting that they are sitting on a park bench and watching the children playing. I tried several poses, but was very limited by the very few photographs that I have of these characters. I finally decided that they look too awkward in that corner, and moved them over to the left side of the painting. I have decided to keep them in period clothing, so that they will remain points of conversation after the mural is complete, and not merely dismissed as “extras” in the cast. Besides, this painting is still very magical, even surrealistic at times, and could allow some ghostly figures standing about. The most difficult task remaining with these figures is to capture a likeness when the actual portrait is about an inch tall (and to imagine what JJ Doyne looks like smiling…he looks too creepy in this painting without at least a Mona Lisa smile…).
I have taken most of the week this time to work on the pixilation. I want the figure to pop out from the background, but I also wanted to connect the flying kid to the pixilation in some direct way. I chose to pixilated her in certain places, forming a pixel-edge that still allows her to step out of the background, but be integrated with it. I jumped back on the computer to study pixilation once again, and I noticed that while they don’t vary in size (in relation to one another) I could play within the painting and make some smaller pixels on the figure that may help pop her out. Would a mixture of small and large pixels work in a painting, though? It did-it is almost like there are two projections running over top one another. The smaller pixels on the edge of the flying kid make her stand above the larger pixels in the sky, and it doesn’t seem to confuse the painting.
I am looking for something to place in the lower right side. It is almost okay with it being sort of open-ended over there, but it seems a little bare for now. I did remove the airplane-flying kid to make room for the three figures…maybe he will resurface on the lower right side.
I will be getting some pictures from children of Conway Boys and Girls Club, in which they will be posed to resemble the kids in the painting. I hope to replace some of these characters with those models, keeping the costumes intact, of course. I am also going to place the Pine Street School and some sort of reference to the cotton industry for next week.
Thanks again for your continued participation and support, and I’ll talk to you again next week.
-Morton
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