Coalescence — Josh Smiertka

These portraits were initially created as exercises in which I challenged myself to combine traditional and digital media. Because of my success in compositing these elements, they eventually turned into full-fledged works.

For the first portrait, I set up two canvases and laid down very thick, impasto acrylics, keeping track of how they would interact with the figure. With the second portrait, I experimented with photographing the interactions of food coloring, condensed milk, and olive oil in water. Once all the images were created, I composited them in Photoshop, masking certain areas and laying down digital paint to integrate the digital and traditional media.