Stippling

"Stippling is the creation of a pattern simulating varying degrees of solidity or shading by using small dots. Such a pattern may occur in nature and these effects are frequently emulated by artists."

The Kid took art classes throughout high school, and now he's finishing up his first semester of art classes at American River College. The Kid's got talent, and I'm not just saying that because I'm his dad.

As part of his final project for one class, The Kid created a self-portrait -- using white on black stippling. I decided to make reproducing that painting today's photography exercise. What I ended up with was completely unexpected.

I set the canvas up on a the kitchen island and used the trypod and the available light to capture a dozen images. I wasn't much worried about the florescent sheen or the distortion in the shape caused by the camera angle. I picked one and came up with this.

The photo was converted to black and white, which eliminated color problems caused by the florescent lights; the Photoshop cropping tool's "distort" feature restored the rectangular shape; and the adjustment to the "levels" reduced unwanted glare. A red background with craquelure texture completed the image.

That was cool, but when I showed it to The Wife, she suggested that I invert the painting -- make it black dots on a white background. The result was simply amazing.

Richard has done a series of self-portraits for his class this year. (Three in chalk are online here.) All are good, but this is amazing. I liked the combination of the two drawings so much that I created a combo.

I've uploaded the full-sized file to Shutterfly and ordered a couple of 8x10s for the grand parents and a 20x18 print for myself.

Day 4 of 365.