Dots
As promised, here’s a photo of my first painting. Click on it for a bigger view. I made this piece in response to the cafe manager, Alli, declaring that the only art on display in the cafe during the month of March would be created by the staff. As I couldn’t rig up a projector or a plasma screen I couldn’t contribute a piece of video art, so I had to think of another way of getting at least one image onto the wall.

My piece was just one among many created by my comrades in Mishka’s.

Stage One:
> The original image was shot on a Canon XL2 digital video camera in 16:9 aspect ratio.
> This footage was captured onto computer.
> A single frame was chosen from the footage and converted into a still image.

Stage Two:
> The still image was fed through a process called “rasterbation.”
> This rasterbated image was printed onto a sheet of transparent plastic.
> The transparency was projected onto canvas and painted.


March 17th, 2006 at 7:33 am
I had a go at rasterbation last year but I used an image of Jessica Alba as Nancy Callahan in Sin City. Trouble is that I was too ambitious and the resulting picture is now too large to put anywhere other than a huge gallery space! This is a shame as it would look soo good.
March 17th, 2006 at 1:14 pm
I feel you’ve left out an important part of the process; the “painting” bit. I’m not entirely clear on how you put the image onto canvas. You’re not printing directly, as I’m told is more common in rasterbation, so what do you mean by “transparency was projected”? Did you sit in front of an OHP with a brush in hand?
March 17th, 2006 at 11:12 pm
Yes.
March 18th, 2006 at 7:55 am
Really?
March 18th, 2006 at 8:02 am
Yes. It took bloody ages.
March 18th, 2006 at 3:05 pm
I’m not sure it counts as rasterbation then. Perhaps rasterochism.
March 18th, 2006 at 3:45 pm
Next time I do one I’m going to look at silkscreening. I’ll be able to make more than one then, and vary the colours. But first and foremost I need to make sure I take good pictures to process.
I should have noted above that the girl in the picture is my friend Katrina, who works with me in the cafe. She’s moving to Calgary soon, and we’ll all miss her, so I decided to make her the subject of my piece.
March 19th, 2006 at 3:10 pm
Lovely!
Gidget
March 20th, 2006 at 1:47 am
Liam, I’m sure in your pre-Courtney days you heard this a lot (she’s probably bored of saying it by now): your’s may well be just one among many, but it’s definately the biggest!
R xxxx
March 20th, 2006 at 6:22 pm
Snarf
March 21st, 2006 at 3:25 am
So basically, you’re a tracer…? :)
March 23rd, 2006 at 10:29 pm
I feel like I just have to respond:
“Your mother’s a tracer!”
April 21st, 2006 at 8:06 am
I work in an art library, but I still think rasterbation sounds like a top shelf book ;)
maz