By drawing out a face from a 50’s mag cover I made a discovery which seems so obvious I’m almost ashamed to write it down.  The image is of a pure and wholesome beauty, this is the original intention, however, as i was attempting to draw to draw out the image my first attempt at the eyes resulted in her gaze being directed at the viewer rather than in the original photo where it is directed slightly to the left of the camera’s eye.  The effect of this miniscule change is profound as the intention becomes shockingly provocative/perverted.  and i asure you the face is exactly the same except for this shift in gaze, the eyes even have the same look.  which suggests that she has not changed, its just our position relative to her awareness, therefore the change in effect is solely down to the fact that she is “making love” to us, the viewer, rather than to an invisible person to our right. but her intention is the same so i find the impact of this small change to be really fascinating.  This resultantly shifts the painting from one of mild pastiche to a subject more contemporary and necessary, particularly if i resist the temptation to change the painting in anymore obvious a way from the original photo.  Hopefully this disipline will come through in the final image.  But this is something that i worry about, and my weakness for wanting to impress people often causes me to make unnecessary additions to my paintings.

Its also curious to note that i was very unsure whether to find some way to negate the drawing stage, by projecting or gridding for example, but ultimately i couldn’t resist the challenge that drawing the image imposes.  If i had decided to do this I wouldn’t have made this discovery.