| dc.description.abstract | Motivated by the need for strong female depictions in our culture, as well as the
desire to research and pay tribute to the women workers of World War II, the author
initiated the War Women project as the focus of this thesis. The objective of the project
was to create a series of large-scale paintings of the women defense workers of World
War II that could be used to pass down these womenÂ’s motivating legacy and reveal its
contemporary context. To begin the project, nine historical photographs were chosen as
source material for an original set of nine paintings. A problem arose when attempting
to paint these images because the photographs chosen were low in resolution, leaving
them vague and undefined. Though sufficient for creating the basic idea for a painting,
the chosen photographs needed to be enhanced and re-created to become useful source
material for the series of representational paintings. To enhance the images, props and
models were found, photographed, and, in one instance, three-dimensionally modeled to
replace their counterparts in the original photograph. Digital techniques like
compositing, colorizing, and color correcting were essential tools for reinventing the
source material. The resulting images were adequate source material for the series of
nine paintings completed for the War Women project. | en |
