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One of the things that Patrick Edwards has always done in the level one course at ASFM is to have the students do a self portrait. The school keeps one copy and gets to have a visual record of all the past students. I really like that part and plan to incorporate it into my new level one course as well.

With my first group of students arriving next week, I decided to do a dry run to see how my photoshop skills were for producing the high contrast print that the students will trace for their self portraits. I used my wife and myself as guinea pigs.

ASFM students are instructed to take a "less is more" approach when producing their tracings and I will offer the same encouragement to my students but as I had already done that when I took that course, I decided to take the opposite approach at least with my wife's portrait, just to see how it would work.

I learned a couple of things.
The first is that the positive (light ground, dark shadows) always looks good but the more detail you include the worse the negative looks to the point that the very detailed cut of my wife is hardly recognizable as a face in the negative.
The second is that the line drawing never looks like it is going to work out well at all. Again it is more depressing with more detail.

You gotta have faith in the process however because they actually all work out when cut and assembled. You usually can't believe how good they do look.

The bottom line is that I think I can do the prints well enough and I got some rather nice family portraits out of the experiment. ...... Makes me a happy camper.

Thanks for looking.

Paul

Gallery

Comments

· Premium Member
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Very nicely done, Paul!
 

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Paul,

Looks great!

How do you transfer the Photo to the wood?
Type of printer, ink, toner, paper?
Mirror printed?
Iron on?

Really COOL…

Very good project for your Students on the new Equipment classes…

Thank you!
 

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You can even make just 2 veneers look a million dollars. looks great!!
 

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Incredibly realistic replica of the original photo!
 

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These are excellent! I'd love to see your devices in action (I've forgotten what they're called and can only think of 'marquetry clampy things'). You've done so much work in preparation for this course. I really hope this takes off big time!
 

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magnificent work Paul. French marquetry is something i want to do, and this post gets me more interested in doing something about it.
Eyal
 

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Thanks again for the kind words.

It's marquetry Joe. The picture is traced on a light box, the tracing is glued to the veneer packet, and it is cut and assembled from the two colours of veneer.

Klaus, OK, if you insist. No more hair cutting.
 

· In Loving Memory
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Excellent work on both likeness Paul.
 

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Paul,

The range of you talents put me in awe. I wish I lived close enough to you to be student. I admire your work and your willingness to share your knowledge. The final product on this project is a great likeness to the pictures you started with. Keep up the good work and keep sharing.
 

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Significantly more complex than the one you cut at ASFM! They both turned out great. I like your conclusion…you just gotta have faith!
 

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Brilliant Paul! You would never guess from the line drawing.

Very interesting!
 
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