Raw Scans of Black and White Art

Before I desaturate the image, adjust the levels, and clean the art with the eraser tool, this is what the scanned image of my black and white art looks like.

Creating an "Immaculate Reality": Researching History, Applying Technique, and Creating a Fantasy

For this personal project, I'm setting the scene in Chicago circa 1921. I needed to use a grand theater to open the narrative, and my research led me to The Chicago Theatre and the movie palaces of Balaban and Katz. Like most artists today, I start with searches on the internet. My initial search was for Chicago theaters 1920.

After finding some images of The Chicago Theatre's exterior and interior from 1921, I composed a page by warping and scaling the images in Photoshop, and printing the composition in the method I discuss in my previous posts. The 1920's have always been an obsession, and it is important that the work I do be informed by an understanding of the period's history. When I began my research, I had no idea who Balaban and Katz were, and on top of that I had two low resolution images of an ornately detailed theater that I wanted to use as a backdrop.

The next phase of my research led me to the book "The Chicago Movie Palaces of Balaban and Katz" by David Balaban. What I found in the book is the real research. Everything surrounding the creation of the theater and the people behind it. I also had the high quality images I needed to bring the setting to life.

Above is the page in its initial phase. The final illustration will require that the scene take place at night, and will require a change to the lighting of the reference image I started with.