Curriculum Materials: Art in America
|
|
|
Image 27 Chuck Close Questions: |
Technique
To make his monumental portraits,
Close used the painting techniques
of contemporary billboard painters. He laid down a grid over
the 8- by-10-inch photograph in order to transfer the image
to a proportionate grid drawn on the 9- by-7-foot canvas. He
created the image with a commercial
AIRBRUSH, which expels
paint by means of a compressor.
Close's airbrush was filled with a
thin mixture of black acrylic paint and water. Over the
course of many months, the artist applied many thin layers
of paint to build up the dark tones. He made some of the
white highlights with white paint and formed others by
scratching away excess paint.
|
|