These pictures I have been posting are drawn from photographs that I have found. Most were found on the ground, in the gutter, on the streets of Regina. A few were orphaned and not quite thrown away but in old unwanted frames, lost and found drawers, recycling bins and places like this. So, I ask myself, who owns these images now? What can or cannot be done with them? Some of them are decades old, the people in them long gone. Does that matter? What are the ethical and moral codes in play here? I am a white, middle class, male person. Basically I mean that I am coming at this from a position of privilege and power. What restrictions and responsibilities are on me with regard to how I can use these discarded or lost images?
I am thinking that people of different generations might even think of photos and photography in different ways. There has been a very large shift in the idea of a photograph in the last decade. The access to a camera at any given moment has become an almost ubiquitous thing for most people. As in, there is a ready, accessible camera at hand in seconds everywhere. So a persons attitude toward a photo after it has been taken might be affected by this. I asked a younger person how they feel about the photos they have taken and they said they don’t really care about the phone camera photos they have taken but do care about film photos they have taken. Additionally, newer generations of people are much more used to the idea of their image being taken and that they don’t control how it might be used. Just some things I am considering when thinking about the audience for these drawings as they are based on photos I have found as opposed to have taken.
These drawings are working better now. I think the key for me is getting the eyes working the way I want first then building slowly from there.
I almost feel like there are two drawings going at the same time in most of these. That is because the face is done first, slowly and built up gradually. Then the hair and clothes are usually just fairly quickly dashed out in a quick, loose blast. I like the contrast in style and how they still feel unified. However, the real content of these drawings is more under the surface and behind the scene itself. After I have a reasonably interesting and compelling drawing, then ask who are these people, where do they come from, what is the context of the photo source, etc… I will discuss more next post.
Ok, after the last one, which I didn’t like how it turned out, this one is back to working for me. Its got a couple of issues but mostly its doing what I want. Sort of moving between a loose drawing and still having a sense that its from a photo. Sort of a sharpness but also a blurring of detail in some spots. With a lot of these the reference is very small and lacks detail so I am having to make some of it up. What I am interested in is making a picture that is a likeness of a person but of someone I don’t know, so the questions are: is this picture still convincing as a portrait? Does the representation have personality? and is it still of the person in the photos? I am interested in how these pictures can hold different realities that are in tension simultaneously. Like the looseness of the drawing and the obvious photo-ness. That its a real person but I have made up some of it because of a lack of info in the photos.
Ok so, seems like I might be being overly critical but this is just not doing what I want in this series of drawings. I think I went too far on the face and I have done something to the eyes that is just weird looking. I’m good with the hair but just had a hard time digging in to the rest. When working on it, I was just a bit out of motivation and ideas so it lost direction and I just kept going without stopping to check where it was. Sometimes this happens and you just have to accept a failed picture. I might push it further and go way too far sometimes you can also get something interesting doing that too.
This one was a bit tougher, really took a long time to build up the colour. Looks better in real life, less blothchy, more unified. I like the eyes. When you see it in real life, its so big, (30 by 45 inches) that it definitely tips over into being creepy.
Ok, going fine. Happy with this one too. Nice to have the bigger space, 30 x 42 inches. Not sure if I might still add background colour to these, will leave for now, until I get a few done. There is a nice solid but ephemeral, soft but sharp thing going on here. Somewhat realistic but still loose and brushy.
New stuff, bigger, 30 inches by 42 inches. Mixed media, this one graphite, charcoal, crayon.
Decent start, take longer, moved out to my studio for the bigger size. Trying to take on board and apply things figured out from the previous 75 drawings.
I first posted in this series a drawing of this girl back in mid Dec 2025, on a green background. I then forgot that I had done a drawing from this image and did another with a blue ground. When I posted it I mentioned that I had forgotten that I already had drawn it earlier. Now with this one I have forgotten that I had already done a blue ground one. None of this matters really, I always planned to do multiple drawings from these photos and the backgrounds are just colours that I pick at the time of doing them. I do 10 to 12 at a time and just pick colours that feel right at the time for each drawing. I will do 3 blue ones then add red and do some purple ones then add another colour and do darker purple and then add another colour and do some brownish ones for example.
Graphite, sharpie, brushed ink on this one. I haven’t used as many different drawing materials since I was in school on this body of work. I don’t know where its all going. It might all be heading back to oil painting, but it has been fun.
paintsmear 