A super hot day today, 25 degrees in my room. The morning was spent photographing some completed painting so that I can enter them into competitions. I wish I'd completed more, I can paint a lot in one day now, but no! Salomé has stopped this.
I've 'scanned' (photographed in sections) Hand Of Destiny, Self Portrait As Tripod, and The Wheel Of Attraction And Repulsion. This takes hours, much of which is taking things out and putting them back. Here's a glimpse at the setup:
The camera points down on those rails. The results were as good as ever. Exposure time is about 3-4 seconds, with ISO 100, and an F-stop of 22. One change I made today was colouring the ends to make it easier to see exactly which end of which tube goes in which hole. My aim is that the same tube always fits in the same hole and that everything is kitted out identically each time. The camera shuttle glides relatively smoothly, but not perfectly, its steel rubs at times against the soft aluminium tubes, so if I use the same arrangement each time then, over time, things will hopefully 'sand' down to a smooth action. If the tubes were different each time, they would never evolve into a smooth action.
I'm careful to write down the exact procedure for operations like this, and analyse them, work out how things could have been done better. This is the way, over the long term, to improve. Everything I do, each painting, album, performance, action, is noted and considered in this way. I don't rely on memory or instinct, but rigour.
Self Portrait As Tripod has been 'finished' a few times. I glazed this with 3 layers, which is unusual, normally one is enough, but the violets were very transparent and I wasn't happy with the finish until later. Oil paintings generally do look better with more layers, but not always. You can't at all see the finish here, the degree of smoothness to the paint, but the last one is a lot smoother, plate-like, than the first. These photos of each complete glaze do show an evolution of the colours with each layer:
The middle layer in particular was a little flat and had a strange glowing artifact near the figure.
After scanning, I checked the projections and ran through the Salomé music for tomorrow. I can now play it all from memory. I also transcribed the music for one of my favourite game themes, Xenex from Amiga, which I play often on piano.
