11" x 17"
Thaddeus Stevens graphite pencil drawing on paper print by Roy Kotynek.
Vermont-born Thaddeus Stevens, (1792-1868) was a Rebublican member of the House of Representatives (Pennsylvania) and chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee. As a unyielding champion of African Americans, he served on the Joint Committe on Reconstruction and is famed for his role in the Fourteenth Amendment (ratified in 1868).
My work is influenced by techniques of oil-paint glazing that allow for the layering of colors, which in turn create luminosity on the canvass. Appropriating this painterly technique, I bought a whole range of drawing pencils, light to dark, and, starting light, I worked layer by layer to achieve a glow on the paper. Influenced by photorealism this technique requires smoothness of application on the paper in order to attain the proper atmosphere of the subject and its deeply melancholic theme.
The prints offered in this series reflect this technique in that they have been printed in a layering process made possible by a digital-lithograph technique.