Often I will just play with an image just to keep in practice regarding my Photoshop skills. I spent about 2 hours on this one, just trying different things, not having a particular agenda since it wasn’t commissioned. I like having some time to do that and it is essential for any artist to spend time just ‘goofing’ off so to speak. Without it your work can become so stale and uninspiring that you cease to do it any more.
We were in San Francisco for a mini vacation and took a tour of the south of Market
gallery area. This San Francisco gallery was airy and the assistant had great eyebrows
and there was an interesting painting with the word penis in it and there was a
colorful potted tree outside and a wall of tile and next thing I know I have a collage.
I went into a salon spa near my old house to get info and see the place. I have
passed by it for quite a while now. The manager showed me around and I dropped off
some Biz cards for her to give to people in need of photographic services. The light
coming in through the door was very luminescent (love that word) and the manager had
blue jewelry and blue eyes that really popped in that light. I asked her if I could
take some photos of her and she said yes right away (always a nice thing).
I was also on the hunt for old buildings and dilapidated structures as part of a
group assignment my local photography club was doing that month. After I left the
spa I went south into the town of Bixby, Oklahoma and found an entire abandoned ranch
off the road aways.
The manager’s color; of her eyes, skin, hair and jewelry were strong and I kept
finding similar colors in the new environment. The collage sort of made it self once
I saw the colors. I got the feeling of a musical score in colors while playing with
the collage and I had seen part of an old opera on a college channel the other night
so it was on my mind.
This woman was a customer at my hair salon. I had just got my digital camera a few weeks before and was anxious to try some ideas. She was actually getting her nails done, not her hair. I took some photos of her and the nail lady doing her work then asked her if I could take some close ups of her eyes. We walked outside in the shade (but with a very very bright parking lot right behind me as I faced her. She had the most gorgeous green eyes. I took photos looking straight into each eye so I could just see the side of her head at the same time. I combined the one in front of the right eye with the one in front of the left eye to get this look. I then layered the words, copied the collage onto a new layer and turned it grayscale, then cut out all the grayscale image that did not act as a background for the words. I then spent a great deal of time manipulating her face and eyes to get the color and depth I was looking for.