IB Art- Project #1 research

Name: Painting on Photographs

Description/Idea:
    Recently I've been intrigued by photographs that have been manipulated after they have been printed. One artist that does this is Angela Deane. What she does is take old digital photographs that she has found and painted ghost's over them. I love how she uses mixed media and by doing this and painting ghosts on the subjects it allows the viewer to put themselves into the moment and find deeper meaning in the piece. What I plan on doing is emulating her and taking the concept of painting on top of a black and white image that I will be taking digitally.

Research:
     Painting on photographs is called hand-coloring photos, or it is also known as hand-tinting. This process is usually done on black and white photographs painted on a sturdy matte or pearl finish photography paper.
     Most artists tend to only hand-color certain aspects of a photo to make certain aspects stand out. For example, a photograph with a rose as the subject may only have the rose colored, while the rest of the photo remains black and white. Once the artist determines what areas of the photo to color, the rest of the process is fairly simple.


  1. Using oil paints on photographs:
Example:
Hand-colored cabinet photograph (c. 1875) from the State Library of New South Wales.

      Supplies:
  • Microfiber cloth
  • Oil paints
  • Cotton swab
  • Colored pencils
  • Mineral spirits (or other oil painting diluents)
  • Artist palette
    The basic photograph painting technique with oil paints is:
  1.    Before doing any painting, make sure the photo is clean by wiping any dust or grime from the photo with a microfiber cloth.
  2. Place a pea-sized dollop of paint on the artist palette and mix the oil paint with a few drops of mineral oil. This will make the paint transparent so that the lines of the photo will show through.
  3. Load the cotton swab with paint and start painting the top of the subject. Paint the subject as if you are coloring in a coloring book. Stay in-between the lines of the subject, covering the surface from the top to the bottom.
  4. To add washes of color for skies or larger areas, load a cotton ball with paint and smear the color onto the photo with light, even strokes.
   Finishing a Photo Painting:
  1.    Clean up any areas that are accidentally painted by rubbing the area with a clean cotton swab. Mistakes that won't come off often can be covered up with a dab of white paint.
  2. When the painting is done set the photo aside to dry. The drying time will vary depending on how much paint was used on the photo.
  3. Once the paint is dry, use the colored pencils to outline the subject or to add extra color. Outline any details to make them stand out.

2. Other tips & things to test out/try:

  • To prep paper before painting, try using a thin layer of clear acrylic gesso or a matte-finish spray fix/polyurethane, this is usually okay for developed prints. You can paint right on it, but it may buckle.
  • Casein, also known as milk paint. This paint should give you a very flat, smooth, matte color-like gouache, but is less expensive then acrylic paint and a bit easier to manipulate.
  • Any paper less than #300 weight is bound to warp according to the amount of water/liquid absorbed in the painting process. Synthetic papers generally do not warp at all. 


Websites with more information on Painting on photographs:

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