October 20- How to Make a Lousy Photo into a Wonderful Painting

I'm no photographer and maybe you aren't either. I usually end up with four different kinds of shots: the really horrible ones that might as well be thrown away; the occasional winner, that probably should just be framed; a certain percentage that are okay and seem like they can be used for paintings just as they are, and all the rest that are pretty awful but are too good to throw out. 

That last type is what we're going to look at this week. These awful photos usually have some promising elements, parts that could become an interesting painting, but miss somehow.  Maybe the composition is blah, needing a little tweak, or the color is dull and needs some oo-la-la added to it. Perhaps you took it from a moving car and the foreground is blurred, or it reminds you of the time and place and is your only shot, so you want to make it work.

I’m going to share several of my own relatively awful landscape photographs with you and discuss how we could go about making them into good paintings. We'll look at how you might use elements from different photos to improve the composition, or add ideas from your own experience or memories to make the painting more successful than the photo. You can use any subject, of course, but because I've worked in the landscape for so long I'll be examining that.

 

Look through your photos for some awful inspiration of your own. If you have multiple shots of a subject, or a series of the same subject taken at different times, bring them along. If you have only one photo, that's okay too. Bring along a sketchbook and pencils or whatever you like to use to draw, so you can do some preliminary sketches. Any size or color paper is fine, any medium will work.

As always, the class is $25.00 payable at the door.  The studio opens about 11:00, and class is from 11:30-2:30.

Please RSVP <---(clickable link) if you haven't signed up already. Because these are my last few classes (ending on November 17th) I've had a little more participation, and our space is limited. If I know you're coming we can arrange things so everyone has enough room. Thanks.

 

See you Thursday!

Deborah