Finally Finished

Well, I've been in a pretty deep creative funk for awhile. Trying to brute force through it doesn't seem to work much but you can't beat emotion as a motivator. On top of the usual depression over still being broke and working for a pittance in a job that bores me after 3 years of this damn economic depression, the plain truth is I was missing the kid. So I finished my painting of her.

New techniques reveal just how tacky our ancestors were

Original Greek statues were brightly painted, but after thousands of years, those paints have worn away. Find out how shining a light on the statues can be all that's required to see them as they were thousands of years ago.

Although it seems impossible to think that anything could be left to discover after thousands of years of wind, sun, sand, and art students, finding the long lost patterns on a piece of ancient Greek sculpture can be as easy as shining a lamp on it. A technique called ‘raking light' has been used to analyze art for a long time. A lamp is positioned carefully enough that the path of the light is almost parallel to the surface of the object. When used on paintings, this makes brushstrokes, grit, and dust obvious. On statues, the effect is more subtle. Brush-strokes are impossible to see, but because different paints wear off at different rates, the stone is raised in some places – protected from erosion by its cap of paint – and lowered in others. Elaborate patterns become visible.

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