Charlie
A Work in Progress
Copyright Laura Hardie 2009
Not much more to go now but thought I would show another work in progress stage before unveiling the completed portrait which, all going well, should be finished tomorrow.
The more I look at this scanned image and those on my website (some of which are terrible) the more determined I am to find out how to get good photos, or scans, of graphite pencil drawings. Surely there is a way that isn’t too technical for me to deal with.
I like to keep a record of every drawing or painting that I do and that includes a good copy of the original, either scanned or photographed, which can be used on such things as my website, for advertising and marketing purposes, for exhibition entries or to be turned into prints. The image therefore needs to be true to the original in colour and detail and while I do need to work on photographing artwork as a whole I feel I fall way short when it comes to my graphite drawings. A bad scan or photo isn’t helping me and doesn’t show my work to it’s best potential.
So with the above in mind I’m going to dedicate a couple of days playing with my camera first and seeing what I come up with. I can’t help feeling that a lot of the work will need to be done in Photoshop – my Achilles heel – in which case it could take a lot longer than a couple of days to get right. My main problem, as I see it, are the white backgrounds that are a feature in the majority of my drawings and getting the camera or scanner to keep them white while keeping everything else in the drawing correct and true to the original. Large white areas can confuse the camera – not sure what happens with the scanner – and it should just be a case of getting the right exposure and light to take the photo in. Right?
I can tell this could take quite a while so any helpful advice would be gratefully received. And of course anything I learn on this journey will be shared here for all to see.
