Transfering Photos

As an artist, you never really get time "off." Vacations are really photoshoots, running errands become reflections on what the color blue is, and in the studio there is always something to be done: a panel to be sanded, another application of ground, last weeks photoshoot to be pieced together. It can be endless. So today while I would have rather left my full attention to my team beating up on the bolts, instead I was splittng my attention, happily on the couch transfering the photo image to my next three painting panels.




First I cut and piece together the photos, then cover the back in charcoal (which acts like carbon paper), carefully place the photo over the panel and tape it down, then trace. Each painting is different, so there are different shapes to focus on, but for this little painting I focused on the dark areas of grass and the reflections.




By focusing on the negative
shapes of dark, the blades of individual grass get outlined. In the water I focused on outlining value shifts (light and dark) which are closely related to topographical maps. Finally to minimize the confusion of lines, I added the vertical straight lines (shown here in the horizontal) to the water. More lines equals darker water and less lines equals lighter. Now I have a pretty good road map for my next three paintings!

-jb.