Sunday, June 18, 2006

Self Portrait #5, Chorus in Red

Self Portrait #5For Sparky's Self Portrait Marathon.

Update: Surely our self-portraits are versions of ourselves, and it looks like I've done versions on an image. Wonder how that happened? So far this is my favourite self-portrait. It took the longest; is more complex than it looks with something like 87 layers in photoshop. There were the photographs, one of which I chose, printed in black and white and inked in the outline and coloured the dress with a red and wet watercolour pencil; I traced this version in ink on tissue paper, and painted that dress with the same red and wet watercolour pencil and stuck it to the printed one. My daughter likes these 'two Brenda's' best, kind of a collage. Then I photographed the collage and layered it with the original photo plus another one. I crudely cut out dolphins and used them as patterns, decreasing the size on some (that's where all the layering is); then I wrote a couple of words from the post in; drew some right angle red lines and enhanced the red in various layers and posted it. It probably does "look" like me - in that if you saw this collage & you knew the Summertime me you'd recognize me. If you know what I mean! But then, hey, it's a photo, and a take-off on a photo, and a take-off on a take-off of a photo...

I kind of look like a chorus in red, don't I? :grins:

Yesterday's post: On the steaming city day, a high and dusty South wind, I walk miles breaking in new shoes that break in my feet. Red spots that threaten blisters that never arrive. Returning other shoes for exchange, I walk in a ridiculously skimpy red sundress and put the brim of my hat low because I don't care and don't want to see anyone's disapproval. Aging women shouldn't have to hide themselves, and so I don't. It's too hot to wear anything else. Finally on the way back, walking very slowly, I stop at Future Bakery for a coffee. The patio is large, partially covered with a Corono Beer tarp and a couple of tables have Corona umbrellas. Wherever my skin touches anything it sweats. The backs of my legs, behind my knees, the soles of my feet. Somewhere birds impossibly chirp. The sounds of the voices of the people around me chirp. It's a good spot, where students and writers come to drink, to study, to write. It hasn't changed in 20 years. Near me is Ye Olde Brunswick House; across the street my favourite Indian restaurant, Nataraj; an ice cream booth; and on the other corner, By The Way Cafe, which hasn't been a vegetarian cafe in at least two decades but whose sign still says it is. And now I must make my way on to buy fruits and vegetables and then home. Where I will ask my daughter to photograph me for another self portrait...

Of multiples. Duchampian. It was actually fun tonight, playing, thank you Jean!

8 comments:

  1. This is a great series of portraits -- I love the playfulness here. And you look wonderful in that dress!

    Your description of your surroundings brought back memories for me of Cambridge, Massachusetts.

    Pamper those feet....

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  2. e_journies, thanks... you haven't joined the self-portrait marathon, it's not too late, ya know. That's a neat self-portrait profile pic!

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  3. I really like this one.

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  4. Fabulous - I would LOVE to do something like this one day. All the different layers and kinds of image make it deep and subtle as well as bright and fun. Was it without the dolphins when you originally posted it? If so, I think I liked it better without. Feels a bit to me like too much busyness having the frame of repeated images around the main images. But then I have a lower over-stimulation threshold than average.

    I hope your feet are healing up from the assault of the new sandals - mine are, just about, only now...

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  5. I'm so enjoying watching the development of the series, Brenda. This is lovely .... great fun indeed!

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  6. Hey, Dave, thanks.

    Jean, photographing & printing and drawing & tracing onto tissue paper and re-photographing and layering it all was really enjoyable! Do try it, I'm sure you'll find it a pleasurable journey in itself. My daughter didn't like the border either (good taste, you two, eh); but I like the sillyness of it, sort of, and don't ask how, Bavarian style - maybe a take off on that famous red stitching. The shoes, despite overnight vaseline softening, still not yet... sigh. Is it that we have sensitive feet or that our feet are not quite regularly shaped? :)

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  7. Thanks, Mary! It's interesting from the other side of the mirror too -:)

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  8. I've been enjoying your series.

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A Pulsing Imagination - Ray Clews' Paintings

A video of some of my late brother Ray's paintings and poems I wrote for them. Direct link: https://youtu.be/V8iZyORoU9E ___