Apotheoun (Tom Livezey at Eleven)

Garth Herrick · 10-25-2005, 11:13 AM

Today I decided to see how closely Apotheoun conforms to the original 1981 slide image, with a GIF animation.

Well the result is it does not perfectly conform, which is interesting, and human, I suppose. There is some distortion which suggests I at least did not project the reference or paint over a photo. Maybe that's a good thing

.

Anywhere there is movement apparent, the painting varies slightly from the photo reference. This technique could be instructive in the future with other portrait projects.

Gosh, is this too revealing?

Garth

Alexandra Tyng · 10-25-2005, 11:54 AM

Garth,

Now, how did you do that? You are full of tricks. It looks like the boy is breathing and his mother is tapping her feet to the radio. I would be totally scared to do that to one of my paintings!

Seriously, I think it's good that they are not excactly the same.

Alex

Garth Herrick · 10-25-2005, 12:04 PM

Hi Alex!

Actually I found an animation palette in Photoshop yesterday. It's hard to explain and not user friendly until you "get' it. At least in version CS2 it is in the Window menu heading. One must construct the image in layers in the animation palette and save it as a GIF file. Great care must be taken to keep the file small enough to post here, which means some compromises to the image quality, which is also why I posted the original images along side the animation.

Thanks,

Garth

Garth Herrick · 10-25-2005, 12:22 PM

I am looking at the painting on the wall in my studio, and it looks like it conforms better than the GIF animation suggests, at least to my naked eye. It is more than possible there is some minor distortion present in the photo of the painting here, though certainly none is intended. It seems the raised bent arm and the blue shoe are more in line with the photo reference, than in the animation.

Garth

Garth Herrick · 10-25-2005, 05:36 PM

To mark 6k hits, I am adding another GIF detail. Perhaps it's back to the drawing board for me!

Garth

Garth Herrick · 11-10-2005, 02:11 PM

I know Apotheoun has attained oversaturation status here at the Portrait Artist Forum, but there is still more: The Outwin Boochever 2006 Portrait Competition has chosen this painting to be among the competition semifinalists for the inaugural exhibition of the reopening of the National Portrait Gallery, on July 1, 2006. So there is another round of jurying coming up in early March 2006. Wish me luck!

Garth

Michele Rushworth · 11-10-2005, 06:07 PM

Oh my goodness - you must have just been blown away when you heard! A HUGE congratulations to you !!!