Thursday, July 24, 2008

Man on the Moon #1


graphite & putty eraser/20x30cm
original source: 'The Times' 23/06/08 (facsimile of edition dated 21/06/69)

Following on from the recently-posted 'Whistling in the Dark' drawing transcribed from a facsimile newspaper source, this drawing was processed from related images on the same page, of individual portraits of the three astronauts involved in the first moon walk by man.
Given that the facsimile has all the appearance of a monochrome photocopy - of an original itself produced using 1960s mass-printing technology - the images have an interestingly degraded quality about them: the reproduced newspaper photographs themselves would have had the rough, grainy, dotted quality recalled from one's youth (prior to the smoothness achievable through the inkjet printing process, for instance), & the copying process has reduced further from this source such factors as what tonal subtleties & specific details might have been originally apparent, resulting in a stark source image offering little but transitions from black-mid grey-white, with vary slight variations discernible in the grey. Consequently, the drawing as processed attempts, necessarily & sympathetically, to convey a more roughly-hewn & textured, broadly-realised ('painterly') result.

Listening to:

'Test Match Special' Eng v SA, 2nd Test

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