Once again, I find myself falling forward and discovering a whole new way of creating portraits through UnGraven Image theory.

It began with my need to create a drawing for a charity event for, Artist's Space's Night of 1,000 Drawings. I needed a drawing – and one that would sell.

I had been working to create videos (and will go back to this soon) using photographic images and then painting on them, frame by frame, much the way cartoons are made using Flash. This work is foe a video/movie documentary, but I was exploring ways to create viable frames to turn also into prints. There is nothing really revolutionary about this, except for my creating my own drawn and evolving backgrounds, but even that idea is not new. Of course, I would bring my own unique twist to it all, as all good artists do. So I was thinking about how Andy Warhol combined a photographic image simplified and turned into a silkscreen applied onto painted or printed backgrounds

I wanted my drawing to be a success and sell. What sells? Andy Warhol sells! So I decided to experiment and create a la Warhol stylized image of Andy himself, only using UnGraven Image theory for strokes. It seemed a simple enough idea.

I found photographic images of Andy Warhol, simplified his features and using pen and ink created a drawing using Psalm 19 , my favorite Psalm, and because having met Andy, I think it suits his ideas and personality.

This worked well, so I experimented with Rembrandt, simplifying one of his own self portraits. For me, creating the image is not a challenge, but finding a good text to convey the heart and soul and life of Rembrandt is. For Rembrandt, I used  Psalm 22 .

As a work on Vincent van Gogh, I am also thinking of a whole show of these images that I can turn into prints on canvas and do all kinds of things to them, both digitally and by painting the canvas. I have a slew of gentlemen I met at the Met long before I was old enough to be allowed to date, but my relationships with them and their work changed my life beyond most of the people I have known.

After Monet, I create a drawing on paper, and then canvas of my granddaughter Anna Sara from photos taken last summer when she was 2 ½ years old. This is the first time I use ink on canvas, the new canvas that is primed especially for water media. It is another experiment that works. I cover the canvas with layers of clear glossy acrylic gel and it becomes a kind of black and white painting. Hmm…

Monet was the most difficult portrait to create. With all of the images of artists I was attempting to somewhat adapt my style to theirs, while still using the Torah font letters for every stroke. But, Monet is all about color and light and their interaction and turning his portrait into a black and white portrait was difficult. I ended up using pens with nibs of different thicknesses creating shadows and also adding in strokes in white acrylic, white on white. This was a close as I could come to color without color. The techniques and freedom I developed during creating Monet's portrait influenced my work on Anna Sara's portrait. Although I could continue to appropriate the style of the various artists, I had come to my own method, too.

As I worked on the portraits, I began to realize that I had fallen into a new way of creating portraits.

Basically there are two schools of portraits, and either can be very realistic or stylized, but where they differ is in what they are attempting to depict about their subject.

One type of portrait, and this can include the full figure, attempts to convey an idealized image of the subject. Late Greek sculpture of antiquity, Michelangelo's David and Botticelli's Birth of Venus are examples of this. Most portrait painters who earn their living creating portraits of the rich and famous tend to somewhat idealize their patrons. This version sells images, products, reputations and whatever else one can sell. Emperors, kings, dictators and the wealthy have used this kind of portraiture to promote themselves and become immortal.

The other kind of portrait shows the reality, and may even attempt to go beneath the surface to show a less classically idealized version of their subject. Many self portraits by artists easily fall into this category. Rembrandt, van Gogh and Warhol created incredible and revealing works of themselves. Picasso's paintings of Dora Mar are not flattering but revealing.

When I was working on the second portrait of Anna Sara on canvas, I began to realize the significance of creating a likeness by using a text for strokes, a text where the letters are purposefully overlapped and usually unintelligible. This new method marries the two schools of portraiture, at once presenting and idealized image along with the nitty gritty reality.

Since the letters are binary and represent the strings and branes of elementary physics, the portraits always refer to the underlying but invisible reality and potential of the person. We cannot see atoms (not even with the best microscopic equipment) and therefore not the pre-matter branes, which combine to form into electrons, photons and neutrons. Yet, when we look at a person we are seeing the pre-matter (energy) become particles – atoms – compounds – matter – flesh. On a physical basis if we could actually perceive this we would be seeing ultimate reality perfection of the moment.

For religious people of many faiths, using Bible texts in the binary Torah font also pertains to achieving the idea harmony. For Eastern religions, and for many Christians and Jews also, reaching a harmony, balancing dichotomies and seeing them as a part of the whole (how good can come from bad or evil) is a spiritual aspiration. Additionally, for Jews and Christians, we are created by the words of the Lord. Creating images of people from biblical texts illustrates that theology.

Yet, I am not fully creating idealized portraits. Look at the one of Rembrandt, or of van Gogh or Monet (who was really kind of a hunk when he was younger). Many people familiar with the works of these artists will instantly recognize these images, But, none of these men is idealized.

The portraits – theirs or mine – of these painters are not images of men that will move product like hair gel or deodorant or cars or even sell liquor, which they certainly used. The images of these artists do not convince us that they are going to solve the mystery, save the planet, rescue and get the girl, make mad passionate love to her and then win the day in a mere 24 hours the way a super-stud movie star – our idealized image versions of me – can. Michelangelo's David, were he to come alive on a more physically human scale (the statue is gigantic) could be a movie star, and athlete and in a Greco-Roman sort of way, is almost a god.

However, when I create a portrait of Rembrandt, van Gogh, Monet or Anna Sara using Torah font from original Bible texts I am creating an idealized vision as well as simultaneously one that is human and imperfect and less than heroic (although we have admit that Anna is very charming and pretty!) So, continuing to fall or at least trip my way forward vian UnGraven Image theory the new way of portraiture combines the two schools of portraiture art, both that which is idealized and that which shows the reality of the person.

I think Franz Hals, one of the men I “met at the Met” when I was growing up, would be proud of me. He is my favorite portrait artist. He can do more with his dramatic whirl and dance of strokes to convey personality that anyone. I sometimes think that Willem de Kooning must have also spent a long time with Mr. Hals. I'll be posting a portrait of Frans Hals in the future as I continue to fall forward.

Commissions for portraits of children and adults in the Essence series are currently being considered. Please contact Judy Rey Wasserman by phone (631) 259-3476 or email  or use the "Contact" tab on the menu at the ungravenimage.com website.

January 2, 2008