No Archibald for ELK

@nice_enough http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zVG-z_kKvR8

Will they bite the bullet and finally just give it to a 5-year-old next year?

sorry nice-enough – you DO sound like a jealous party pooper… what have you created lately?

I saw something on TV which showed Luke / ELK doing this portrait and it did not look at all like a ‘photoshop’ job…. I saw heaps of ‘craft’ and ‘art’ going on (have you seen the size of the portrait?) and think he captured Fr Bob’s spirit beautifully. Good luck in the people’s choice – I say!

At the end of the day – choosing a ‘winner’ in a subjective field of art is impossible…

The winner is Luke and the other artists in that field who had a chance to get their foot in the door and use it to get a bit further up the food chain.

Congratulations to him.

and if nice_enough could post a link to some of their own work, would love to offer you some support as well if you’re exhibiting in town anytime soon – good luck with your career too. Its hard work, but too many people let it turn them bitter… try not to hey.

At least ELK’s painting has a face in it unlike the thing they chose as the winner of this alleged portrait competition.

Are they serious?

Stenciling is difficult and time-consuming… if you do it manually. However you could choose to tackle the process by posterising & vectorising a photo on a computer before cutting the stencils on a plotter and painting onto a canvas. Depending on the level of detail, that process could take less than an hour. I’m not suggesting ELK does this, but if so it would make little/no difference to the final product.

Cue the argument about the use of technology in art being tantamount to cheating.

nice_enough said :

Don’t want to be a party-pooper, but all ELK does is takes a image into Photoshop and adjusts the threshold settings this takes about 1 minute, then prints out the stencils on mylar or something like that.

Where is the craft in that??

I think his work is way way way over-rated.

Each to their own but it sounds like you’ve never tried to cut your own stencils. It’s bloody (literally if you slip!) hard work and the greater the detail the more complex and difficult it is. I stencilled a Muhammad Ali canvas for my brother-in-law’s 30th (as he painted something for me for my 21st). Cutting those bad boys out takes time if you don’t want it to look like total crap and needs a steady hand. I only did 3 layers – I can’t imagine cutting more than that.

Also, it takes more than just adjusting levels to make a good worakable stencil. Just sayin’.

at least it’s a portrait

Don’t want to be a party-pooper, but all ELK does is takes a image into Photoshop and adjusts the threshold settings this takes about 1 minute, then prints out the stencils on mylar or something like that.

Where is the craft in that??

I think his work is way way way over-rated.