Waterman Sunset

This is a work that started as a pencil sketch. I stood on the curb and sketched this simple view and then snapped many photos, bracketing the exposure to replicate (as closely as possible) the look of the shadows and highlights. It is entirely possible to capture the look of a scene very accurately with a simple camera on a phone as long as you can control exposure in specific areas. On my iPhone, I can essentially change the exposure infinitely (I say that that advisedly as my physics friends would really spank me on that assertion). I change the exposure for, say, the street. I take the photo then immediately check it against what I see in front of me. If it is off, I delete it, adjust the exposure, and take another. I repeat this process for each area. I took a photo with the exposure of the pale yellow area of the building in mind. I took one of the lower part of the sky and one of the middle and one of the upper. I took one of the brightly lighted orange area of the building, and one of the trees to the left. Each of these, I send to myself immediately with notes explaining anything that does not translate. Be sure to label each pic with the area that is correctly exposed. The pic of the street is labeled "Street" and so on.

The next problem is focal length. In wide angle photos, the scene is made small and distant. You can achieve a more correct look by simply zooming in. Ideally, you should use a 50-55mm lens to mimic what we see as humans. If you are on a camera phone, as long as you can zoom, you can get the right look.

Once you get these home on your computer, you can fix the perspective. If you are using a short focal length camera, such as a camera phone, you might notice that the buildings are tilted at crazy angles. You can fix this using Photoshop or a Photoshop knockoff known as "Gimp." Gimp is free and does most everything Photoshop does. I use the perspective tool in Gimp to fix these and to help with shooting art with a camera. In a future post I will explain how to do this.

Once I get all these all composed and adjusted, I begin to paint. I do not simply project the image, I am not attempting to become a photocopier machine. I sketch the image in raw umber with a bristle brush. I use the handle of the brush to do comparative measurement and find that I can achieve a solid drawing in a few minutes.

I then simply paint the block in and incremental refinement sets in. I'm not one of those people who attempts to paint every pore of an orange, though I could do it should I want to. The reason I don't is quite simple; there is a price-point to time-involved equation that says that those who want to make enough money to live as a painter and only as a painter will likely have to give up super fine detail for accurate but fast paintings. I will do a post on that later.

I know that the use of photos is controversial, and I don't really care. My point here is that it is not the development of detail that makes art, it is heart and soul. I've seen sketchy paintings that make me want to shout for joy and the most detailed perfectly rendered work that makes me feel--meh. And that goes vice versa. I can say that it is both easier and harder to paint from life.

This Richard Schmid painting captures that loose feel.

 To me, the point of a painting is that intangible thing which makes it catch and hold our attention, that makes us stop and not notice the passage of time. I could stare at this painting for hours. In fact, this quality is what makes certain abstract paintings wonderful and beautiful. It is certainly not the art theory that is pinned like a tail on the donkey as an explanation. In my opinion, if you have to explain it, you have failed. More on that will inevitably leak out later.

Anyway, that's all folks.