Current Progress

I am continuing work on my two main pieces. Almost everything is done for my first piece-- but the end seems to be nowhere in sight since I keep adding to it... At the moment I am trying to finish the panel with a drypoint portrait, which has changed since I spoke to Hung Liu. The one thing I wanted to ask her was to what extent should I manipulate the photographs, since she uses photographs as source material. She gave me some great ideas about cropping, selective coloring and most of all keeping the integrity of the photograph while inserting my own artistic vision. From that, I decided to color all of the apples in the photograph-- not on the transfer itself, but on the drypoint panel I will paint in detail each apple. Here's the drypoint so far:

Sorry for the weirdness, but I had to put something dark behind it so you could see the lines. I am trying not to get too detailed in the leaves etc. because I want to keep it simple and also I need to finish in realistic time.

The most significant thing that happened this week was when I went to pick up the panel that I had laser engraved... Turns out they engraved the text in the wrong spot on the panel. I would have started over with a new piece of plexi, but I had already done a transfer on the back and I could not realistically do it all over again. I'm working with it, and in the words of Deborah, I'll call it serendipity. Otherwise, the etching looks great and they didn't charge me for it since it was incorrect. Here's a look at the etching:

I also ordered the plexi pieces and made an appointment to print the photograph for my next piece...