FATHER AND CHILD PICTURE

My youngest niece and her husband (I posted pictures of their wedding some time ago) had their second baby on September 14th. I haven't seen the infant boy in the flesh yet but of the photos they sent, one in particular just cried out to be painted. So here's my version, digitally drawn on graphic tablet, from the photo below. 

By the way, in case you're wondering, I don't use photos as digital layers to trace and paint over or to make more 'painterly' by using filters. In this and other digital portraits I start with a blank page and look at the original photo as if it were a live model, drawing and painting directly from it onto my graphic tablet, using Photoshop brushes. I consider it cheating to manipulate a photo itself with digital processes in order to produce something that may look like a painting but is actually an altered photograph. 


Mother-and-child paintings are legion but, at least to my knowledge, there aren't that many of father and child. This one has got to be a contender, don't you think?

September almost gone already! Sorry for the long gaps between posts - have been busy offline. I will (really really) be posting more Vie en Rosé soon.

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FISHING FOR BIRTHDAY WISHES

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LATEST STATE OF DNA PAINTING AND PRE-BIRTHDAY REQUESTS

I've been working on it, hoping to finish before my birthday (August 7) but I can't predict what the painting wants to do. Here you see it in my studio and how it sort of flows into the surroundings. I think I'm going to change the title to PRISM . The colours in this photo do not accurately represent the real thing.

Speaking of birthday: can I have some requests as to what you, my loyal visitors, would like as my birthday post? You know, like those radio request programmes. I will try to comply with your wishes, unless they are awkward questions like, how old are you?. The answer to that, my friends, is blowing in the wind. 

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BLOGDAY ON BLAUGUSTINE

The real Blaugustine blog, of which this is only the somewhat blurred reflection, is seven today. So please pay us a visit over there and explore our seven year archive, if you haven't done so already.

BIRTHDAY BOOK

(We temporarily interrupt La Vie en Rosé to bring you Natalie's birthday, one day in advance.)


August 7, 2009 - BIRTHDAY BOOK

If I were to write one page
for every year of my life (UPDATE: I meant to say year in the video too)
that would be a very short book
even if I live to be a hundred.

A hundred pages! That's not a novel.
Maybe a novella
a long short story
or a slim volume of poetry.
Not enough for me.

To make a proper heavy book
a door-stopper
I'd need a lot of illustrations
even for those pages I can't remember
and those which must remain
silent, unwritten.

And where are all the people?
All those who took the pictures?
Who made me smile
or frown
or cry?

Those who shaped me.
Without them
who am I?


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