I got Gene to take some screen shots to show the development of taking a canvas image from photograph to a high quality digital image.
After I complete a painting, the first stage is to take several photographs. He then opens them up in the compositing program Nuke (used for motion pictures), here are some visuals so you can get an idea of the process:

width=”450″ height=”281″ class=”aligncenter size-full wp-image-1414″ />

This part takes Gene about an hour for each
piece, he came up with this process himself and is often tweaking it as software develops.

Here is the final result:

‘Phia’

Amazing.
LMM

It’s been taking a long time to get this one finished because I needed parts of it to be dry before I could work on it again. The above photo shows progress of the fourth and final layer of stripes on the top. It is now complete and is drying on my easel. Then my wonderful
man, Gene, will take a photo of it and translate it into a digital image for me.

I think this time I will take some shots to demonstrate what he does to make them look as close to the real thing, as it is quite a process. It’s taken years for Gene to develop this technique ( I didn’t ask him- he’s a perfectionist, I’m not complaining though!!) and it’s quite complex- I will probably never really understand what he does. But he does it and he does it well.

Lily Mae
x

Last night I went to the Salon Session that Dr Sketchy‘s run here in Berlin. The model was a performer from Australia, La Viola Vixen.

When I arrived last night I quickly remembered how much I miss life drawing, I used to do it all the time when I was pregnant: PROOF.

I enjoyed the atmosphere at this session and I really hope to do it again! The Dr Sketchy’s sessions usually have a
performance and lots of photography, but to my joy there were no cameras and no one was permitted to take any photos, all that left were our drawings.

( As much as I love photography the immediacy and accessibility sometimes seem to overwhelm the human experience. Sometimes I’m pretty sure the photograph matters more than the actual experience- now I am deviating from the point of this blog post! )

The next session is in June: INFO

Lily Mae
x

I thought I’d share some recent drawings from Berlin Domestic – they make me gush with pride.

Above is a drawing of a miniature tea set which I wrote about here: PORK CHOP

This is a drawing of my first house in Wales. Which is probably one of the nicest houses I have ever lived in.

L
x

She has eyelashes now!

My friends have been telling me that my exhibition, Brutally Beautiful, was being advertised on the trains here. I don’t catch the trains much because I have Anja and the endless stairs prove quite the challenge with a pram, but a friend of mine took a snap of it the other day:

Thanks Toni!

New drawing:

Thank you so much to Nicole for sending me these!

Here’s a link to the digitalized version- you can read the interview with me and the other four featured artists: http://issuu.com/curvy/docs/curvy-eight/47

L
x

Here are some photos of a painting I started the other day:

Both these photos are details, the actual painting is much larger but I’ve only been working on the face because it is the most important part of the painting. If I ruin the face- then I’ve ruined the whole thing.

This is part of a new series which is a bit more lighter and optimistic than my previous paintings. I haven’t got a title for it and I haven’t quite articulated it in my head, but I’ll find the words as the paintings take shape and develop.

-L

Claudia & Daniel from Front Row Society came to my studio a couple of weeks ago and interviewed me as well as took some nice footage to make this video:

It’s part of their Creative Diary series which I think is awesome and am very honored to be part of- they also took the photos that I am using on this post too.

Thanks Claudia & Daniel!