Lollipop Guild

Even Munchkins Grow Up Eventually

A minor theme of this post will be technique.

I often work from photos I've taken. I use my camera as my sketch pad and get details and lighting effects I could never fully capture if I were painting on the scene.

Anyone who has ever taken note of sunlight and shadows will have an understanding of how fast the day moves along.

Artists good at painting outdoors (en pleine aire, the French called it), have developed a quick start on their compositions as well as a good memory of how the light looked 15 minutes ago.

The sun moves on its arc that fast. Shadows have lengthened or shrunk, lightened or gotten darker. Colors all around are now slightly different. Perhaps not as sharp as they were when the work was started.

So I try to capture that moment with the camera. Then the fun, and the "sketching", begins.

Using the Photoshop computer graphics program I can change the composition to fit a desired canvas. I can remove unwanted details from the image or re-proportion elements within the composition. I can even alter the colors to better suit a desired palate. Bla bla bla.

Shop talk. Edging on boring. But this technology is a great tool for the preliminary work.

Just for the fun of it, I scanned an old black & white photo of a neighbor kid and me from wayyyyyyy back in the dawn of time and turned it into "Lollipop Guild", above.

That image is not a painting. It's a direct manipulation of the scanned print.

I worked it just like a painting or pastel drawing, shaping the contours and adding color.

To tell you the truth, the photo, probably taken by my mother with an old Kodak box camera, is of a time so long ago I really have no memory of the other boy. I doubt that he has a picture of me, so I probably have been erased from his world.

I don't know when the picture was taken. My parents have both passed away, so the only clue to the moment is the notation on the back of the photo.

This other kid and me, maybe three years old. Best buddies for the moment.

Maybe it's Spring. It's in Canada. That small town.

A rare sunny day. The image is cropped closer than the photo. We were wearing wool shorts and long stockings. Fashions have changed for three-year-old boys.

You see, I can manipulate the heck out of that image, but nothing will ever bring back that moment. The world outside the frame of that image is gone forever. You can't Google it or book a flight to it.

You either have to have a good memory, or an old black & white photo.

And hope someone made notes on the back as well.