Coloring in Photoshop was an…interesting aspect of the class. For my first project, I attempted to color in an engraving of Frederick Douglass escaping slavery. Yes, I’m not an artist. Yes, the class spent quite a bit of time playfully (?) mocking my color choices. Frederick Douglass was simply a nineteenth-century James Brown? Check out those red pants! Well, thanks to a friend’s discovery, I can happily say that my inability to create a decent brown color in Photoshop wasn’t such a horrifying faux-pas after all.
Gerard T. Altoff, in his book Amongst My Best Men: African Americans and the War of 1812, quotes Douglass directly as to what he wore on that fateful day of escape:
“By donning ‘a red shirt and tarpaulin hat and black cravat, tied in sailor fashion, carelessly and loosely about my neck,’ Douglass obtained a protection certificate from a black sailor and boarded a train for Philadelphia and freedom.” (page 10)
What color shirt? R-E-D?! Obviously I’m just having some fun here, but it also proves a point about coloring in Photoshop (which I still have not bought into). A lot of research should go into a photo/engraving before coloring should be attempted. The thought that Douglass would wear red was laughed at, and what did I know – it was just the color I managed to squeak out. But it turns out it wasn’t so farfetched overall.
My other conclusion? I’m done coloring in historic images!
