The Gatehouse

The Gatehouse is a hybrid image I made in 2006 from a number of digital photographs, combined mainly by abusing the Photoshop healing tool. During my late teens most of my work was made in this way, using Photoshop to combine scans, sketches and photographs to create this kind of lyrical gothica. The Gatehouse was the first such image I had made for a couple of years, and I was pleased to find that working with 'real' media (drawing and painting) had improved my Photoshop skills. Mammon and my Collapsed Notebooks notwithstanding, I have yet to return to digital imagemaking. During the next round of The A Game, my current project, there will be ample opportunity to rediscover what is possible; the progress I have made over the last few years with my penmanship will, I think, stand me in good stead when I come to experiment with web-based work. The most challenging part of this next phase will be learning about vector graphics, a whole new breed of digital techniques far removed from playing with pixels.