Yesterday's opus

[Bartc]

So there I was with my painting group in what was lovely as a place but very blah as a subject to my thinking. What to do to make a nothing view into something worth viewing? I remembered some of Ian Roberts' works and advice and came up with this 12x9" pastel on white PastelMat. Unfortunately, the photo is not good. It is more contrasty and oversaturated than the original and it obscures all the more delicate color variation in the tree shadows. But you'll get some idea. Maybe I can take a better pic later.

 

[Terri]

What a lovely piece! I'm not familiar with Ian Roberts, so I'm curious what advice you were thinking of while you working.

This has turned out beautifully! Very soft and pretty. I know how hard it can be to get a good photo of our artwork, so if you want to re-post, go ahead. But this looks wonderful right now.

 

[Bartc]

Thank you, Terri.

Ian Roberts

Ian Roberts has been painting for over 40 years. He taught plein air painting in Provence, France and Tuscany, Italy, as well as in the U.S. through his school Atelier Saint-Luc. His books and videos: Creative Authenticity, Mastering Composition and Plein Air Painting.

www.ianroberts.com

He has an excellent free series of YouTube videos on composition. His works tend to be simple, subtle and effective, so I've found his advice helpful.

What I was referencing was compositional "lines", value & shadow play, simplification. The scene just struck me as similar to the kind of compositions he works that take an uncluttered landscape and make a good painting out of what is otherwise either cluttered or unspectacular, until a good artist interprets it.

 

[Bartc]

This is a little better, but nothing seems to get the photo right. Need a pro setup. Ah well....

 

[JStarr]

Oh I like this one very much- lovely use of colour-value with some excellent use of the same hues all over providing harmony.

Good stuff!

 

[Jo Castillo]

This is great. Love that you went out with friends. Yay!

 

[Bartc]

This is great. Love that you went out with friends. Yay!

Every couple of weeks I organize our plein air group on a jaunt, Jo.

 

[ZenDruid]

This is a little better, but nothing seems to get the photo right. Need a pro setup.

Bart, I don't think you need a pro camera setup, your pictures look fine. What I think would work better, and cheaper, is a photo editing program that lets you adjust color balance and brightness/contrast. There are probably a lot out there for free, or cheap, in the cloud, wherever. I'm still using a 25 year old version of Photoshop 7 that I use to tweak every image I make. Whatever camera you, or any of us, are using isn't going to capture the nuances of color and value that we see in our minds eye. This website is the gallery that I present to, so I only worry about what the image looks like here. Tweaking the photo of my painting is the final step in my creative process. Just my 2c worth.

 

[Bartc]

Zen, I'm using Photoshop 6. It still doesn't do the job well. I find that my cell cam over emphasizes blues, contrast, and edge detail. My scanner has some of the same biases, but not as pronounced, but can't handle more than letter size. So I end up diddling the resulting digital and still can't get the range nor the balance right. Many years ago in my photo business I could take highly accurate shots with a setup designed for that purpose, but no longer have pro equipment. What I see onscreen is often disappointing.

 

[ZenDruid]

Many years ago in my photo business

I didn't know your background experience, didn't mean to be presumptive in offering advice.
Photoshop 6 might be the reason they developed Photoshop 7. I find that program covers everything I can think of, it's huge.

 

[Bartc]

I didn't know your background experience, didn't mean to be presumptive in offering advice.
Photoshop 6 might be the reason they developed Photoshop 7. I find that program covers everything I can think of, it's huge.

I'm not claiming proficiency with color grading digitally. Believe me.

 

[Bartc]

I didn't know your background experience, didn't mean to be presumptive in offering advice.
Photoshop 6 might be the reason they developed Photoshop 7. I find that program covers everything I can think of, it's huge.

I'm not claiming proficiency with digital color grading. My business was decades ago in the analog world. Probably don't have the patience.

 

[ZenDruid]

My business was decades ago in the analog world.

I got started with B&W film photography with a primitive developing and printing set-up in the basement. I was terrible at it, every print looked like sludge, sort of. I decided I wanted to be a photographer, not a darkroom technician, so farmed out my film to custom labs. When digital cameras came along, with unlimited image count, and then editing images on my desktop computer...well that was a dream come true. Same thing earlier with word processing. No more typewriters.

 

[Bartc]

Used to run a color darkroom. Early digital tester too. Despite all the old experience, these days it feels more of a chore and a challenge.

 

[Artyczar]

This is fantastic! I especially love how the sky is blended. Or maybe I love the leaves on that tree. The whole thing sings!

 

[Bartc]

Thanks, Ayin.

 

[Donna T]

Beautifully bright and very plein-air fresh! I learn a lot from Ian Robert's videos and am in awe of his sketching ability as much as how he paints. He just connects the areas of a landscape "shape to shape" and makes it look so easy. Ha!

 

[Bartc]

Thanks, Donna.

 

[Puapka]

The shadows in the photo look kind of like a waterfall out of grass, im very impressed by the way you did the tree too. 12x9 of what? what is the format

 

[joe1It]

Wonderful