How to Make a Lousy Photo into a Wonderful Painting class results

A less than perfect photograph gives you, the artist, the opportunity to add to what you see, bringing your own vision into the process. Whether you're combining several photos into one, or simply have one of those photos that has something you like but isn't quite satisfying, I encourage you to experiment and see what you can come up with.

Here's one of my awful photos. It has such beautiful shapes in it, but the color and values are awful. Compositionally it needs help, but not a lot.

I suggest doing several credit card sized thumbnails to help you see. Start by drawing what is there, in order to be able to find exactly what it is you really find visually stimulating and interesting. I suspect you will easily spot things that don't please you.

I'm not at all happy with the tall dark tree. Half or less of an object never seems to work very well, plus the shadow it casts really cuts off the entrance to the picture. You can't enter it easily. But I love the massing of the bushes on the left side and the curve of the dirt road. The middle and far planes need work, but they should support the foreground, where I believe the interest lies.

After playing around I found this composition seemed most satisfying. I further refined it in a final thumbnail sketch:

This would be a good starting point for the painting, and from here I would do a more complete drawing, somewhat larger in size and further developed.

'Awful photos' demo, Pans/sticks on gray Pastelmat, 9x12"

 Here is my unfinished class demonstration painting, which combined five photos into one composition. All the photos were taken on the same day in the same location, yet each had different aspects that contributed to the success of the whole thing.

At the moment I wouldn't call it a "wonderful" painting, but I think it holds the promise of becoming one, given a bit more studio time.

You can see the three key photos I cobbled together, and my finished sketch, which is 4x6" in size. I like to sketch in pencil first, then move to the Pitt markers for the values they provide.

I believe that sketching from your photographs will inspire you, whetting your appetite to paint. It should help you see the beauty and rethink the problems.

Often using 'awful' photos as resources results in the most beautiful paintings, perhaps in part because the struggle helps you see more clearly.

Keep painting, gang!
Deborah

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

Fall Mountain Vista Paint Along class results

This class turned out to be most interesting. We all painted from the photo below. It has so much going for it, but it's not perfect. We discussed at length what was of interest, what seemed weak, and possible ways to recompose it.

Photo (c) Jeanine Patterson.

Strengths:

• beautiful colors in sky, lake and trees
• excellent contrasting values
• nice shapes in the lake and middle hillside

Weaknesses:

• low horizon
• two tall and two medium trees
• trees the same height

This is a "here and there" painting. In other words, it has trees right up here in front, and a distant view out there. There's little linking here with there. We discussed using one big spruce tree right in front to establish where our feet must be, as well as possibly using one aspen as a 'pointer' to guide the eye up toward the area of greatest interest. The question was, which ones and where?

We agreed that the area of greatest interest is the sheen on the lake surrounding the curve of the hillside. The complex positive and negative shapes, the contrasting values, and curving shapes draw the eye.

It's best to make some sketches to see what looks good, of course. I tried using one large tree on the left side, but it seemed unbalanced. Then I tried one medium tree on the right to break up the large mass of the middle hill, but that seemed stunted. I liked the higher horizon line.

In the end , as a result of our discussion, I decided the composition worked well with a high horizon, a pointer gently guiding the eye into the area of interest, and the large pine tree establishing the footing for the viewer.

Demonstration (in progress), 9x12" pastel

My students took off with the idea and reinterpreted it in different ways to suit their own style and thoughts. It's always fun to see how the class discussions feed into the resulting paintings. Each one is unique.

Keep painting, gang!

Deborah

Photoshop for Paintings class results

As I prepared for this class I realized that there are a lot of tutorials out on the Net devoted to Photoshop Elements, but most of them are for people using it for advertising or photography. Yet in the last few years I've interviewed a lot of artists in my role as writer for art magazines and many, if not most of them, use this program as a tool to manipulate their pictures to use for paintings, in some way or another. Perhaps there's more online about how to do this than I found, but nonetheless this class turned out to be quite interesting to teach and instructive for my students.

Basically I outlined the various functions found in the Options Bar, Toolbox and Palette Well, before beginning to show how each feature can be used. If you're fumbling around in PSE, don't forget to use the online Help menu. It's worth your time to find information on the work area functions. For instance, this photo helps you understand some pretty basic but very important tools if you work in PSE 2.0:

(Adobe Photoshops Help photo)

I mentioned that I'm no expert, but there are certain things I do creatively that anyone can do to revive a dark, uninteresting photo, often making it into a colorful and unique painting subject.

My first tip (not original to me): start with a duplicate copy! Once your original photo is tucked away safe and sound you'll be far more inclined to just play around to see what you can do. I also suggest that you try whenever possible to use a high resolution photo so that when you crop you still have a clear, if smaller, print. I often crop several compositions out of one large photo and play with each one to see how I can tweak it, flipping them horizontally, changing the color scheme, heightening contrast, and even rearranging or adding elements.

Here's the photo we used for most of the demonstration and lecture I did:

It's a pretty dull image but it has some interesting parts to it. I like the variety of angles in the overall composition, from the line of each of the banks, to the angle of the hills, and the implied angle of the clouds, hinging at the slightly leaning vertical tree on the left-hand side. That foreground tangle is blah as it stands, but could benefit from  more color or contrast, and might even add another interesting angle if handled properly. The whole photo would benefit from cropping.

In the course of our explorations, when we reduced the photo using Image > Adjustments >Threshold and discovered that there's a small rectangle of light in the geographical center of the photo. Sometimes the simplest tools reveal something so basic! That will need to be addressed in the composition, either by cropping or by changing some of the values.

Probably one of the most useful tools is the Enhance >Adjust Color >Color Variations function. I routinely push the Color Intensity slider all the way to the right so that I can see the extremes of color.

I simply analyze what the image will look like if I add red, add green, add blue, add cyan, add purple, or add yellow. (The menu uses increased or decreased red, green and blue.) Of course, I can slide it back so it isn't so bright, but this way I know what will begin to happen, even if it's only adding a bit of subtle yellow to the mix. You can do this multiple times, choosing to add a little bit of red, or a bit more blue, or some purple, before saying okay.

After some quick playing around together, we came up with this outrageous version of the original photo:

And another version looks like this:

We just touched on some of the wonderfully fun things you can do in this program, but I hope it launched a few people into their own further explorations!

Have fun, gang!

Deborah

Vloothuis's “No Fly Zone" class results

Cool Morning Mesa, 12" x 8"

Although this was a lecture class, not hands-on, I think it was a very enlightening time. I saw some wonderful work from my students,  which we critiqued with the following in mind.

To quote Johannes Vloothuis, who calls a narrow region along all four edges of the painting the "no fly zone":

The most critical zone is the bottom rail. All of the other three sides are important but not quite as critical. In the no fly zone:

1. Mute saturated colors.
2. Reduce dark-light contrast
3. Reduce texture
4. Reduce hard edges    

Let these taper off as you enter the no fly zone. Use gradation as you enter from all four edges.

(regarding composition) A Landscape painting should contain a center of interest, which is the most predominant and beautiful area in a painting. The center of interest can be further enhanced when it contains a focal point creating a "bulls-eye" effect by adding a touch of purer color, and/or value contrast. This area will become the star in your play.

The surrounding area should be subordinate. A well developed center of interest contains:

• The strongest color and if possible complementary colors.
• A strong shift in value contrast (Light-dark or vice versa)
• Preferably, not essentially, it should take up a good portion of the picture plane and gradually become subdued while withdrawing.
• Man-made structures, animals or human figures will further enhance the center of interest. They take the role of main actors.
• The subordinate and surrounding elements should direct or lead the viewer to that center of interest by means of pointers and visual paths.
• It should not be placed in the center nor halfway in the picture, preferably in any of the 1/3 portions.
• This area should not be blocked, not even partially. This will diminish its importance.
• An effectively designed center of interest will grasp and hold the viewer's attention.

I found his thesis idea a good one, clearly referring to peripheral vision in painting. 

Painting is different from photography. Most of the time photos make everything clear from foreground to horizon. A photograph will seem particularly satisfying to most people because they want to look at each element and examine it closely, something the camera does well. But as artists we want to express the world as seen through our eyes, and as we want our viewer to perceive it.

You can control how people view the world in your painting. You can add as sense of peripheral vision to the painting to enhance the sense of a real world experience for the viewer. You should paint the way you see, thus creating a sense of periphery by manipulating the elements of your painting.

It’s fairly easy to see that as things recede into the distance there’s a visual shift. Remember Carlson's Law of Aerial Perspective, which states that all colors become cooler in color and lighter in value as they recede from the eye. As one looks into the distance:

• Colors become cooler.
• Colors become less intense.
• Detail is lost.
• Edges soften.
• Value contrasts diminish.

A very similar sort of shift occurs in the periphery of your painting, except that the colors are not cooler, only less saturated. Thus the pictorial elements located along all the edges have slightly more muted chroma; become softer and slightly out of focus; are not as crisply detailed or as highly textured; and have less distinct dark-and-light contrast. Why? It’s how our eyes work. 

Your retina - the light-sensitive lining at the back of your eye - is packed with light-receiving cells called rods and cones. Only the cones are sensitive to color. These cells are clustered mainly in the central region of the retina.

When you see something out of the corner of your eye, its image focuses on the periphery of your retina, where there are few cones. Thus, it isn't surprising that you can't distinguish the color of something you see out of the corner of your eye.

The rods are more evenly spread across the retina, but they also become less densely packed toward the outer regions of the retina. Because there are fewer rods, you have a limited ability to resolve the shapes of objects at the periphery of your vision.

In the center of your field of view is a region in which the cones are packed tightly together. This region is called the fovea. This region, which is surprisingly small, gives you the sharpest view of an object. The fraction of your eye covered by the fovea is about the same as the fraction of the night sky covered by the moon.

Generally, you are not aware of the limitations of your peripheral vision. You think that you have a clear view of the world because your eyes are always in motion. Wherever you look, you see a sharp, clear image. (My bold added.)

http://www.exploratorium.edu/snacks/peripheral_vision/index.html

A small trick that Albert Handell taught us years ago, one he cautioned us not to rely on too heavily, was to feather lightly all around the edge of the painting using a long stick of soft vine charcoal. Depending on the size of the painting, he might feather up to an inch of space, assuming that a mat of some kind would cover a portion of the edge. This created a sense of the image disappearing along the edge as it slipped away under the mat. However, don’t think you can just blur or soften everything along the edges, which looks odd, nor fall back on the old photographic trick of a short focal length, where only the subject is sharp and clear and everything else is blurry. Those are tricky and ineffective and are not what we’re discussing here.

This manipulation of the four basic elements in the "no fly zone" of your painting is not meant to be a hard-and-fast rule, a “never do” law of painting, but a suggestion about how you might control the way your viewer perceives things in your painting. Use that lovely sense of convergence that focuses on an area of the painting by creating a softened area that suggests peripheral vision to your viewer. It’s a fine line, one you must find in each painting, so don’t start holding yourself to some false ruling. Consider it another tool that you can draw on when it will be effective.

In this example I've pushed the four elements to the extremes to help you see the differences. In the "no fly zone", outside the area of greatest interest, I muted the chroma, contrast, texture and edges, and added the red line so you have no questions. The size of the no fly zone is entirely up to you, and may be most critical along the bottom because that is the area we're most prone to use details of this sort. It's true that saturated colors, tight edge details, lots of texture and high dark-light contrast exist in the foreground, but the question you must answer is to what degree it needs to be used before it distracts the eye from the area of interest. That's the fine line I mentioned. Personally, I feel that some further exploration of those elements could benefit this painting.

Look at each of these paintings and analyze whether or not you think the four elements of the no fly zone have been controlled well. There's no right answer, only your best opinion!

1. Mute saturated colors.
2. Reduce dark-light contrast
3. Reduce texture
4. Reduce hard edges    

San Carlos,  8" x 8"

Almost Spring, 11" x 17"

Visit Johannes's web site for free online webinar classes.

Class 4— Feb. 3 – Vloothuis’s “No-fly” Zone

Almost Spring, pastel, 11" x 17"

Recently Johannes Vloothuis used a phrase that caught my attention: the "no-fly" zone. This is the area along the bottom and the edges of a painting where elements are subject to the effects of peripheral vision. I'll discuss the details with you and we'll spend some time looking at the successful use of this idea in other artists' work.

This is really a lesson in looking and thinking, so I invite you to bring one or two of your finished or unfinished paintings, unframed or framed (but only if you're truly open to a critique), so that we can examine how to apply this idea to the nuts-and-bolts painting. 

The studio portion of this class is open. Bring whatever pieces you're working on, and please bring last week's Value of Value painting to show me at your easel, as well.

See you on Thursday!

Deborah