Petra Nimm is the alter ego I know the least of, therefore I decided to take apart the Double Portrait: Self and Petra Nimm first in hopes of learning more about her, and about me.
I began by enlarging portions of the scanned collage.
Next I printed the enlarged portions onto an inexpensive Canson 90Ilb cold press watercolor paper cut to 8 1/2 inches x 11 inches / 21.25 cm x 27.5 cm. After printing I scanned the prints.
Then I began to paint over the prints with watercolor and gouache.
This print I first painted over the blue with a clear acrylic gloss medium. Then I painted with the watercolor and gouache over the slick surface of the medium.
After the first round of painting over the prints, I scanned the images shown above and printed them onto a bright white inkjet paper. Those prints I cut into pieces using a number 11 x-acto knife blade. The pieces I reconfigured into a series of collages glued into a standard, 8 1/2 x 11 black cover, ring bound sketchbook. Then I scanned each collage.
After scanning the collages I printed them onto the same type of Canson watercolor paper.
After scanning each print I added another layer of watercolor, primarily to the negative space on the page, but occasionally to the printed space too.
This process could continue on, but I've decided to stop here for now, to step back and look.