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New Portrait - Reverse Engineered Substrate

9/23/2019

For my latest portrait, I used a method I learned last year at the Mosaic School in Spilembergo Italy.

My reference was an original drawing, I did earlier this year for Julia Kay's Portrait Party, in graphite, water soluble ink pencils, and a touch of white acrylic paint.

I began by enlarging and printing the image onto six 8.5x11 sheets of paper. The image was then covered by clear plastic, allowing me to see the image as I adhered my tesserae (pieces), with a polymer modified mortar, directly onto the plastic.

My materials were a variety of colorful Italian & Mexican smalti, including some luscious large riven chunks which I love, dishes, and slate.

Once I finished laying all the tesserae, the real experimentation began. Flipping the work & reverse engineering a hangable substrate. Here's a time lapse of that process....

& Tada!

I wanted to go BIG, and this portrait is indeed, the largest mosaic portrait, of just a face, I've created to date.

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Quiet Influence

9/3/2019

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Thank you Zack!

Zack Baisden was a wonderful and prolific abstract artist. When we met, soon after I'd moved to Florida, he had recently retired from teaching art. We often gallery sat together, and chatted about all sorts of things; travel, relationships, and everything art.

Rest in Peace, dear Zack.
You will be missed!

One quiet morning at the Gallery, not long after I'd begun my daily portraiture drawing, he explained to me, in quite some detail, how to approach the human eye.

I've never forgotten those words, and refer to them often. His gentle voice and influence will always remains in my heart, hand, and mind.

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New Portrait - Reverse Engineered Substrate

Quiet Influence

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