Adventures in ARTography I

(click on image to enlarge)

Crusader castle ruin in Jordan (1993)

Distressed, bleached, colourized photograph

Charlene Brown

In November of last year I learned how to remix analog and digital artwork in a short course on iPhone/iPad ARTography at Camosun College here in Victoria. I’d never thought of drawings, paintings or film photographs as analog images, or the methods used to produce them as analog techniques, but for the next four blog posts, that’s how I’ll be describing them…

This picture was produced using only analog techniques, and these techniques only work on photographs printed by the old ‘wet’ method (4-colour CMYK separation).  This process is available at fewer and fewer printers or photocopiers, as we’re all switching to laser-jet printing, and such prints are getting hard to come by… unless you happen to have a shoebox full of old pictures that didn’t make it into an album because they weren’t quite good enough, but are too good to just throw away. Or because the printer talked you into ordering doubles – ‘Crusader castle ruin in Jordan’ was one of those.

Here is the process: Soak in water for about a minute, scratch with a needle or wire brush, immerse in 20% beach just until colour starts to move (Cyan will go first – try to time it so the whole layer doesn’t sheet off onto the tongs you’re using to try to get it out of the bleach), rinse in water, coat with gesso and let dry completely (overnight), colourize with pastels.