Running Man. Please scroll to the first page

Running Man Please scroll to the first page

Running Man is a computer generated image I worked on for about a year. The original image is a digital file. I use an Epson Stylus Pro 9600 inkjet printer with archival (pigment based) inks. The 35 x 19.5 image is printed on Rag Paper. I used Photoshop to create the image which is amazingly close to my painting process.

Queen of the Desert is a 2002 painting with a figure similar to the one in Running Man. I often use figures over & over which have some mysterious significance to me.

This is the source of the original running figure - taken from an old Hudson s newspaper ad. I use pictures like a dictionary or thesaurus. They provide information & ideas & like all research can often pull me in new directions.

I often refer to the photographs of Eadweard Muybridge who took consecutive pictures of people & animals moving past cameras - long before stop-action photos.

Muybridge was born in England in 1830 but moved to the US in the early 50s. He was famous for proving that a horse runs with all 4 feet off the ground.

This is an example of his figure studies. One of the small pictures was part of the inspiration for Running Man.

I actually started with this combination of 2 running figures used as a reference for a painting.

When I decided to add another picture I flipped the original & began seeing it as a background. The top image is transparent so the original shows through.

I cut out the main figure when I realized this was the direction I wanted & added a foot since it was covered by packages in the original picture. The color you see is from the original black & white which really isn t added but found by increasing the Saturation.

The top picture is from the original photograph & the bottom one shows the final work.

This is another before & after picture of his hand on the left. This process involves many proofs because the color viewed on a monitor is different from ink on paper.

Another before & after picture where I changed the position of the hand because the original wasn t working.

Now I m starting to see him in a 3 dimensional environment. The original Muybridge photos are stretched and flipped. The dot pattern from the printed image is used to negate the characteristic flatness of inkjet prints.

Since I started thinking of him in a large room I decided to try adding windows. This is all created in layers (like pictures on acetate) so I just had to cut them out.

I have some odd connection to Florida so it often appears in my paintings. This is a picture from a calendar you can still see a hole at the top.

With Florida in the background I m beginning to see him in an airport running with a bouquet of flowers. The red line on the bottom is a failed attempt to create the illusion of a floor.

The bouquet of flowers was created by cutting and pasting from the scanned photo on the right, which I had used in a painting recently.

Wild Flowers, oil on canvas, 2004 - notice the flowers next to the men in the upper left corner.

The original flowers are the source for all of the flowers in the print with many tiny adjustments to colors & shapes.

As an idea develops the image needs to be refined. So when I began to concentrate on his face I got sidetracked into starting a separate piece.

I changed the image to black & white because I wanted more contrast. This makes it easier to cut away the light areas to create texture.

I also tried changing the colors but couldn t seem to get what I wanted.

Finally about a year later, after finding an old photo of my grandfather s house in Florida, I went back into the image and the result was a new print Matinee Idol.

Back to the original image I began adding more figures 4 now - including the very pale green ones on the left & in the center. Although this seems to be a logical progression in reality much of it is by chance something happens & it works.

Now the pale figure on the left is brighter but that doesn t last either.

To focus on the main image I made a white matt to temporarily cover the edges of the piece.

So now it s getting closer to what I want - the 4th figure in the center is changed to red & flowers appear in the upper right corner.

Then finally the perfect accident the flowers land on his hat like it s raining flower petals.

THE FINISHED PRINT Running Man comments on our fast paced, ever changing society, with it s flowering dreams & attendant negations. A chaotic & beautiful world where petals rain & words float randomly, ignorant of meaning - creating a background of static we scarcely notice.