Photographer Brian Stethem came over this morning and shot photos of the three completed tarot paintings Death, Justice and Temperance. I’ll use the shots to produce small posters and prints for the Brand, and perhaps our University bookstore. It was a particularly easy shoot for Brian, and I’m almost embarrassed to have asked him to help me out, because he’s such a remarkable photographer. If I were to shoot the exact same scene with him, standing in the same spot, at the same time of day and using the same equipment I guarantee his shots would look better; and not just a little bit better, but wildly better! He’s got some special gift for photography that makes what his work radiate quality.
I added a glaze of Pthalo Prussian blue to the skeleton’s dark background because I noticed some inconsistency in the colour and a small patchy area that needed fixing. Large glazed areas can be problematic because if you try to alter anything in front of them or wipe around your work with a cloth to fix it, or even touch the background with a stray finger before the paint is truly cured, the gloss of the paint can become weird, giving a patchy finish that I find irritating. Using the same glaze I painted the wall behind the twins so it would drop back a little, being too contrasted and bright as it was. Next I think I need to work on the foreground, building up the nigredo surface the boys are standing on.
