20140424 - Hatteras Lighthouse at Sunset

Well, today I passed another milestone in my painting "career". Isn't it an axiom that anyone that paints somehow feels compelled to paint a lighthouse? Yup. That's exactly what I did! As you can see, I decided on this beautiful day that the Hatteras Lighthouse on the NC Outerbanks would be an excellent subject.

My compliments to Dan Carmichael, who took the photograph on which this painting is based. Please note that I will NOT in anyway sell or make a profit from this rendition of his work. Instead it was intended as a teaching exercise. It's neither legal nor right to just copy the work of another and take credit and/or pay for it. In this case, since I'm only using it as a teaching exercise, it is "fair use". But all rights to the image remain with the original photographer.

While this could be better, I'm fairly pleased with this rendition. It does a pretty good job of capturing the spirit of the original. I changed the sky to make it a little more early / late in it's feel. The scan does not do justice to the subtle shading. The sea oats don't have the glitter that is in the original painting. Capturing and maintaining the highlights in the original sea oats is beyond me at this point. I might try another pass at this painting using Hot press paper and seeing if I can reserve some of the white paper to help preserve the highlights. I also need to work on the foreground vs. background a little more. Well, it's another example of how I learn by doing.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy!

20130925 - Pacific Sunset

Some of the most attractive settings to paint are sunsets. This painting is based on a photograph a friend took while on vacation.

I can't say that I spent a lot of time on this painting. However, I was trying to capture the different layers that you see in a sunset over the pacific ocean. You of course start with a darker sky the farther it is from the horizon. You often have light clouds reflecting the sunset. And of course there are often clouds closer toward the horizon line. Then the ocean line has several layers. The first is a deeper zone where the waves show a darker color. Then you have a lighter zone which typically reflects the sunset. Finally you have a wet beach before you reach the vegetation at the beach line.

And if you frame it just right, you'll have the edge of a tree in the upper left or right corner.

Here's hoping you enjoy this painting. If you hear the breakers rolling into the shore, don't blame me! It just seems to come with this type of setting! :-)

20130923 - Setting a Mood

This week the lesson for art class is how to create a mood for a painting. For example, a misty coastline in Oregon provides a great example of how you need to create a unified painting that expresses a mood more than just "capturing" the setting.

While I think I accomplished that in this painting, the scan does not convey the subtle misty blue sky. Oh, and as you can see from the reference photograph, I decided to emphasize the misty, lonely mood of the original setting.

While this is nothing to write home about, it definitely is better than my first attempt, which while it captured more of the detail of the setting, failed miserably at capturing the mood I wanted to convey. It was hard edged and did not have that misty, lonely feel. This one does capture that feeling.

Of course my wife wondered if those were boy scouts camped along the shore. Next one that I do like this, I will need to try to incorporate that idea into it. Hmmm....

Anyway, I hope you enjoy my ramblings as much as I enjoy creating these paintings.