From an Arcade Card

Great 30's era hairstyle (bob?) from an arcade card. Groovy gaze too, kind of faraway and out of frame. Not really sure what all these pencil sketches will amount to right now. They are just a nice sideline to the paintings. A good way to keep the hands going when I can't spend a full day at the studio. The portraits keep re-appearing in the paintings, so I'm sure I'll find ways to recycle the work... but they are interesting as a daily practice of drawing and image-making too. Why am I taking cheap antique photographs and ephemera and repeating them in pencil? Why do I change details? Alter beauties and sour faces to a kind of baseline? What does it mean to use arcade cards? Cards given as "rewards" or giveaways that are starlets' images or pinups.. alluring handouts for busy hands... I'm asking something of the portrait, of the photo-object, of ephemera, of beauty, but I'm not always sure what. I kind of enjoy not having a defined relationship to the image, to my project. If I explained it all it might become something I didn't want to do any more.