All of Close's works are based on photographs he takes himself. Close always follows the same guidelines in planning a painting. The source photograph is a tightly cropped head and shoulder shot. The subject is a family member or friend. The finished work is always titled by the subject's first name alone (with the exception of "Self-Portrait"). This decision was intended to project an aura

Close's work falls into two periods, the early and the middle, in which he is now fruitfully engaged. It is easy to divide the two periods on either side of Close's 1988 stroke that left him unable to hold a brush. (He paints with his brush tied to his hand by a metal and Velcro device.) Close started to work with bolder, more expressive and colorful marks before his great physical trauma. The new work is both the same; they're recognizable as works by Close and could be by no one else He still uses the grid and he still paints heads. Although the amount of information the new pictures carry is less than the old, the characters depicted seem warmer, more immediate, and more exuberant.

In brief, Close's exploration of color has been equally thorough and systematic. He began by imitating black-and-white photograph

Some common words found in the essay are:
Chuck Close, source photograph,
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Approximate Pages = 2 (250 words per page double spaced)