Blowing the dust off

I finally started to get some figure-drawing memories back. Took it long enough.

Four passes for this one. So far. Still not sure how exactly I'm going to ink it to make black-figure (or perhaps red-figure if it ends up looking better) Attic pottery.

Broke out my old pencil set and did action lines in red, drew roughs and guides in blue. Then anatomy (you usually draw nude then add clothes). Then outfits and features. Then a fourth pass to go slightly Attic with the linework. In particular, a typical eye form.

I'm being slightly annoyed now because the basis of both Attic styles (and even the later polychrome ware) is a silhouette figure on solid background, with details picked out on top.

In black-figure, the artwork is added with slip; this is a slurry made of finer-grind clay than the larger grained and more porous clay of the body of the pot. The pot is fired in three stages; in the second phase, the entire pot is already black with oxide formation and the finer-grained slip vitrifies, sealing in the color. The last re-oxidation stage brings the base clay back to reds and oranges.

Details were incised into the slip (presumably before firing) allowing the red base to show through. The later red-figure added details in the same slip as the background. In both, and especially in the later polychrome, specially formulated glazes added white, red, and yellow to the mix.

Thing is, I did line work. Typical of line art, the figures are outlined and the outlines carry through, becoming internal details. I'm not really sure how to best prepare it for filling in the solid color areas in Gimp.

The problem I'm having in the black v. red is that the black-figure is closer to the right period (I'm not duplicating the actual pot of the story in any way...it was painted in the Orientalizing period, barely out of the Late Geometric and prior to the full development of black-figure ware). Black-figure is harder to read, though. Also, traditionally (but not always) women would be picked out with that white overglaze I mentioned but whereas people of the period would understand this as short hand for the women having a slightly paler, less-sunlight skin tone, for us it looks like a white girl facing off against a black guy. Not what I want on the cover.

Red-figure also usually has that same symbolism but I feel better about omitting it there. Red-figure is also a lot more identifiable to the general public as "Greek Pot." The only real drawback is I'm intending a black backdrop so I need to be able to separate pot from background. Well, that and I really do like the look of the red background -- it has a lot of nice texture -- and less of that shows through if it is used for the artwork and not the ground.

And I might change the pot. The Calyx Krater has that wide mouth that casts a big shadow. The Column Krater looks to my eye a little late period. There's also the Volute Krater, with the really fancy handles. But at that point, why not use an Amphorae?