Goya

Goya (watercolour dyes on watercolour paper)

Masking fluid in excelsis!
The inspiration for this piece was Goya's mysterious thumbnail image in an Edwardian encyclopedia - complete with gothic font caption - and blown up out of all proportion. The Harmsworth's Encyclopedia has been a constant source of reference and delight. A complete set was given to me by a friend of my father's when I was in my teens. When I left home to do a degree, my brother took it on permanent loan and I never got it back, but rediscovered it in my local Reference Library and used it copiously for early Beginners books. Alas!...one day I went in and the encyclopedia was no longer there! On enquiry, I was offered the entire set for very little and once more my studio plays home to these profusely illustrated volumes. The Goya illustration was of a strangely degraded visual nature and at the time I was using photocopiers and an old (very hot) epidiascope to manipulate and hugely enlarge images. Hence the wraithe-like features which emerge from washes of colour. Since the advent of the internet I have been able to source pictorial source material on a global scale.