This animation was started 50 years ago. Wanting to practice on my new graphics tablet and explore Photoshop’s animation features, I used a photo of a six foot painting I did in my youth as a template to draw progressively, frame by frame, a new version of the painting.
As I drew them again I could not help but contemplate the days when I first painted this collage of faces. I could still recall the feelings, smells and space of that studio in the art department of San Diego State University. And I felt the journey from there to here knowing that many faces in my life have quit the earth during that time.
So, the old analogy of the formation of humanity seen in the development of an artist’s work clearly suggested itself to me. And all the faces I first used for that collage were drawn from photos of real people in that day – photos already from the past, faces I developed further for the original painting, and redrew 50 years later to develop as an animation.
