My technique

Inspired by the works of the American Photorealists, first revealed to me by the fifth documenta-exhibition 1972 in Kassel/Germany, I was drawn to this genre and have remained true to it ever since.

In contrast to the majority of the widely known Photorealists, who mostly produce largescale oil-or acrylic-paintings on cardboard or canvas, as well as applying different airbrush techniques, my preferred method is to start with coloured pencils on drawing cardboards from Schoellershammer, which I know of and got used to since my days at college. Over the years this was complemented with the usage of Guache- (Tempera-)colours.

And this is my procedure. First the cardboard is base-coated with Tempera, then the motive is drawn as a rough and the larger areas again prepared with Tempera. After these preparations layer after layer of coloured pencils, sometimes up to eight of them, are applied. The idea behind this is that the attentive observer should be able to recognize that the drawn picture is no photo, because my paintings are exclusive reproductions of original photographs.

On the one hand this technique is quite time-consuming, so I am very often confronted with the problem of not having the necessary constant natural light source.

On the other hand I still have the opportunity to make slight alterations to the original photo or to combine two or more photos into something completely new. Especially this trait of the process fascinates me the most, because simple reproductions are not my style of work.

In the last years one of my favorite projects was to convert old black and white photographs from the last century into a more modern coloured version.