Step 3, Frederick Douglass

I'm using two entirely different "wet" techniques with the colored pencil for this painting. The background is done using the Derwent Inktense pencils, applied in a wash and allowed to run. The figure is done using a Tuscan Red Prismacolor Artstix, which contains wax, so even though the watercolor wash was applied in the background and allowed to drip, the area done with the wax-based pencils resists the wash, so it doesn't stick to the face. I've reddened the background somewhat with this wash layer. Also, the tones on the face and hair have been blended a bit using odorless Turpenoid, which has served to fill them in and intensify their color.

Frederick Douglass, Step 2

I've started to add more tonal areas now. The figure has been laid in so far with a Tuscan Red Artstix. The background is Derwent Inktense pencils, "liquefied" and applied with a two-inch brush, then allowed to run. At 24" x 24", he's a fairly imposing figure in my studio!

Taking a break from Sarah

After many days of feeling that I was finished with my most recent piece, this morning I hit upon an addition I wanted to make -- and now it really does feel finished. So it's off to the photographer's, and once I get the professional digital image I'll post the actual, final version. (As a result, I renamed my last post "Stage Seven", rather than "Final".

For Sarah Emma Edmonds II, I will be working with the stage of her life where she creates and adopts her new, male identity. I have a visual image of a shady pine forest that I think will play a strong role as a setting for this piece, since Sarah Emma travelled by night and hid in the woods by day, until she had grown accustomed to her new identity. Beyond that, I have some research and brainstorming to do. So in the meantime, I've begun a large -- 24" x 24" -- close-up portrait of Frederick Douglass. I've already completed portraits of Harriet Beecher Stowe and John Brown, two key players in the anti-slavery movement; they may be viewed on my website at http://www.civilwarfineart.com/. But as passionate as they were for the abolitionist cause, their experiences would have been very different from those of a man who had been born into slavery and managed to escape its bonds to become a dynamic and eloquent abolitionist speaker.

There are many photographic images of Frederick Douglass, and I am nearly finished with a small piece depicting him in his later years. But for my large portrait I wanted to focus on a much earlier image, taken in the 1850's, at about the same time he would have met with John Brown in Chambersburg, PA, to discuss Brown's plan of an attack on the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry. This image shows a much more intense, almost fiery expression in Douglass' eyes, and it is the eyes that I believe will be key to the success of this portrait.

I am working on Gessobord again, and began by doing an underpainting of watercolor pencil sprayed with water and allowed to drip. The basic drawing has been laid over top using a Tuscan Red Prismacolor Artstix.

Stage Five, Sarah Emma Edmonds: Departure

With the help of my computer scanner and printer and a product called Lazertran (waterslide decal paper), I made and applied a custom "decal" of an open book to the composition. In Stage Four, I had tried to represent an open book through drawing, but I quickly saw that it wasn't having the graphic impact I wanted. On the other hand, as it currently appears, I'm much happier with the book image but I truly believe it's too strong at the moment. I will study it some more but currently plan to use drawing techniques to tone it down, make it flow into the rest of the composition a little more. It is definitely too much of a focal point at this stage.

Stage Four, Sarah Emma Edmonds: Departure

I'm finally moving closer to the composition I want. There are things still to be worked out, but I believe the main components are there. I'm really teetering on the edge between literal and symbolic and haven't quite resolved the direction. Rather than comment any further at the moment, I think I'll post this image and see how it impacts me -- hopefully that will provide the answers I need, or at least point me in the right direction.

Stage Three, Sarah Emma Edmonds: Departure

This image was shot earlier today. I have made a fair amount of progress on the water imagery since the last image posted, and have now begun to include some of the other elements; most notably, the suggestion of birds flying up out of the water and to the top and right sections of the format. As the birds are meant to be symbolic, my intention is to keep them minimally described, but I'm not yet convinced that they're as developed as I'd like them to be. Part of what I like about posting things online is that it enables me to look at the composition in a slightly different way than when I'm looking at the actual work-in-progress. So I'll study it a while and contemplate my next move.

Stage Two, Sarah Emma Edmonds: Departure

This view is from October 10, 2009. Progress has been slow, for several reasons. First, I'm experimenting by using a different type of surface -- a product called Gessobord -- for this piece, which measures 18" x 24". It's a very rough, hard surface, much different from the paper surfaces I normally use, and requires a lot of pencil pressure and many layers for the pigment to really stick to the surface. Second, while I know that I want the format to be dominated by this view of choppy water -- symbolic of Magaguadavic Lake -- on whose shores Sarah Emma grew up and whose waters and character, I feel strongly, greatly impacted her, I am uncertain of the best approach to take to convey the mood I'm hoping for. Also, there are other elements which I want to incorporate into the composition and am struggling with how best to do that. So there are a lot of unanswered questions, for me, and I have a strong tendency to let it sit and focus on other things -- commission work, new images for my Christmas card series, local Gettysburg scenes. Those things don't seem quite so demanding.

Early Stage, Sarah Emma Edmonds: Departure

The piece that is currently commanding my attention deals with the life experiences of Sarah Emma Edmonds. The view seen above is from a very early stage of its development, in early August 2009.



Born on a farm on the shores of Magaguadavic Lake in New Brunswick, Canada, Sarah Emma Edmonds grew up with the constant awareness of her father's deep resentment that she was born female rather than male. As a child, Emma tried to prove herself "worthy" by assuming many of the more difficult tasks on the farm and becoming proficient in riding horses, canoeing and other skills traditionally associated with boys. When at the age of 17 her father tried to "marry her off" to a much older neighbor in order to reduce the number of mouths he had to feed at home, she had had enough. Though specific accounts vary, the record shows that she left home and in less than a year, reappeared having assumed the clothing, mannerisms, lifestyle -- and name -- of a man. She was now living as Franklin Thompson, and became a successful traveling book salesman.



Her work eventually brought her to the United States and she was living in Flint, Michigan when the Civil War began. When the first call for Union volunteers went out, Emma (now Frank) saw many of her friends enlisting and wished to do the same. After training in Washington, Emma Edmonds (alias Frank Thompson) was assigned as a male nurse to the hospital unit of the 2d Michigan Infantry, a position she held at the time of the First Battle of Manassas.



Lest readers draw the conclusion that Emma was suffering from ambivalence toward her gender identity, or perhaps was simply a cross-dresser, they should note not only that she secretly revealed her true identity in late 1861 to a fellow hospital steward with whom she had fallen in love (only to be rejected), but that in 1863, for fear of having that identity discovered when she developed malaria, she deserted the army eventually to resurface in Oberlin, OH where she resumed her life as a woman. After the war she went on to marry and give birth to three children and adopt two more. In the 1880's she petitioned the government for, and eventually became the only woman ever awarded, a full soldier's pension for her service during the Civil War.



I am finding Sarah Emma Edmonds to be an extremely complex and sometimes mysterious character and want to create a group of works to try to understand and describe her nature at various points in her life. This first piece deals with her early years, leading up to her escape from a dicatatorial father. It is not taking the form of a literal portrait, but rather will contain elements of her early experiences to give an impression of her nature during this time.