Posted by Bill
Before digital photography took over from film I had a lot of experience with darkroom work, product, architectural and and advertising stuff. I knew all about depth of field, ISO etc. These days I am happy to let my little Canon digital do all the thinking. Just point, zoom and click.
Except for family gatherings, all my photography is done with future paintings in mind. Sometimes I am thoroughly underwhelmed by available scenery, but will go ahead and shoot some anyway. Later I'll start cropping the photos and find things I really want to paint. And then, there are exceptional places like the beach at Bandon, Oregon. Our last visit was on a cloudy day, but I shot dozens of frames because the rocks, ocean and atmospheric effects were really exciting.
One of my favorite scenes is shown in the photo at the top of this blog, which I have now painted twice with different approaches. You'll notice that everything in the photo except the sky is almost monochrome black and grey. The first version is an 11x14" on white Richeson Gatorboard with a solid orange underpainting on the bottom third and a medium value ultramarine blue on the top two thirds. I used Ludwig pastels and Turpenoid for the underpainting. I let a lot of the blue show through on the rocks as I added subsequent layers, achieving the rather cold effect that I remember feeling when I was there in the wind. The orange sand added some needed contrast.
Above,
Bandon Sands, 11x14 pastel, ©Bill Canright
My next version involved a faux plein air approach where I put the photo at a distance from the easel and worked in acrylic on a 5x7" canvas board. I didn't do any preliminary sketching, just painted "bravura" with three brushes. I strengthened the blue and added enough brown to the rocks to achieve a more sunlit effect.
Left,
Bandon Sands II, 5x7 acrylic, ©Bill Canright
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