Pauline Chapel - 8x10, Oil on Linen

This one was fun! I am pretty excited about being able to use HDR photo’s for references when it it tough for me to get outside to paint. The more information the better and HDR photos definitely have more information to work with. While painting this, I was really just concentrating on translating the feeling of light on the face of the chapel to the canvas, which is what motivated me to take the photo in the first place. The painting session was filled with a bunch of back and fourth as I would check one note against the next and then make adjustments when necessary. I found myself stepping back to see if that feeling of light was coming through and then darkening areas selectively to create the contrast that was required for the effect. The dome on the tower is the brightest spot so everything else in the painting had to be relatively darker. I have to say that when I look and this piece, it provides me with feeling I had the day I was there. In the end, For me, that is the goal. I am looking forward to see the other versions you are working on. It is always fun to see how other see!

Initial Sketch for Pauline Chapel Painting

Is it me or would it seem impossible to wing this? I made a few mistakes in the process of drawing the chapel while giving it my full attention. I can’t imagine heading right into this piece without setting the bones in place first. I had to get a three -foot piece of aluminum angle from the garage to project the perspective plane to the left vanishing point. Thinking about the vanishing points really helped me keep the perspective in check and I think the drawing is better for it. I am sure I will need a few more miles of canvas under my belt before drawing with a brush will come to me as second nature. Anyway, I think the mistakes are mostly fixed to my satisfaction except for the roofline on the face of the chapel, which I will fix when I start painting. Now for the fun stuff! I will first give this a coat of workable fixative spray to lock down my two hours of sketching and then I plan to put a warm wash down to tone the canvas. I will start and hope to finish painting today!

Please take the time to click on the artist’s name and visit their website. Words of encouragement are powerful sources of inspiration!

Original Photo Reference above (click photo to enlarge)

March 2010 Challenge Gallery Submissions

Dana Cooper - Visit website

Lee Brown - Visit website

 

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Pauline Chapel in Colorado Springs

What? Another painting challenge you say? Well I had to offer one after photographing this pretty church near the Boadmoor in Colorado Springs, Colorado last weekend. I was driving by when I saw the really cool interplay of light and shadow on the face of the chapel with the tower in full light. Ripe ingredients for a sweet oil or watercolor painting!

I would like to think that this is a better than average photo reference for people to paint from because I used a high dynamic range (HDR) photography process to capture the colors. Please note the warm light up against the cool shadows in their near-to-life colors.

I am planning to offer a high quality license-free photo up once per month for people to paint. If you are interested, let’s have all entries in by March 31 and I will post them to a gallery page right here on ADNW. I will promote the entries with an ad type thingy on the home page.

I promise to post only what I deem to be high quality HDR photos for you to paint. Sedona, Switzerland and Italy painting challenges are possible in coming months with my current travel plans. I hope to see a few fun and beautiful paintings!

Oh, and just click the picture for a higher resolution version!

Please use the form below to submit your painting. Your picture should be a high-quality jpg image that is at least 480 pixels along its longest dimension at 72 pixels per inch.

Let me know by comment if you need anything else and let’s see what happens!

Sincerely,
Lee

See the current gallery of submissions here GO>

Shove Memorial Chapel at Colorado College

After hearing my wife’s sister sing for the Colorado Springs Vocal Arts Ensemble at the Colorado College Shove Memorial Chapel last Christmas, I have been wanting to make the short trip to downtown Colorado Springs to capture the beauty of the Chapel’s interior. In the depths of the Great Depression, Colorado College built this long-awaited Chapel that is considered one of the finest examples of Norman Romanesque architecture in Colorado. After stopping to grab a cappuccino Saturday morning, my best friend Ric and I were lucky enough to slip into the Chapel about an hour before a wedding party arrived. The Chapel is quite beautiful and meticulously maintained. The basic lighting allowed me to take nine separate exposures for each picture. I am quite happy with how they turned out and they really do give an accurate sense of the mood in the Chapel during the shoot! I honestly believe that HDR photos can serve as excellent references when taking larger plein air work back into the studio for finishing.

The pipe organ at Shove Memorial Chapel

The chapel received the 40,000-pound Welte-Tripp concert type pipe organ shown above in 1931. A representative of the firm once stated that the instrument was the “finest organ ever built by our organization.” It was crafted “with emphasis on features of tonal and physical beauty to coordinate with the new Colorado College building.” It looked quite majestic in its setting an provided an awesome focal point of the interior photos.

Shove Memorial Chapel Exterior

As fate would have it, my son is planning to get married here is just over a year. Considering that, I am sure we will have a few more pictures of this beautiful building before we are done!

Historical content provided by Colorado College.

Take the following image for example. If you were painting this scene, what color would you mix for the center square on each of the sides in light and shadow? My first inclination is to say, “brown on the top and yellow on the bottom.”

What color would you mix for the center squares?

Using a simple mask layer in Photoshop reveals that the the center squares in light and shadow are actually the same exact color! To paint this scene accurately, we would need to use the same color and understand that it is what surrounds the color that creates the visual impression. Look at the image below to see proof through your own eyes. I am sure experienced painters can process this phenomenon subconsciously, but for newbies like me, this is powerful information!

Our ability to see is why artist's are awesome and people pay for paintings!

In the next example, look at the grays in both light and shadow within the stripes. How would you mix them?

What value are the gray stripes?

Using the same masking technique reveals that the dark grays in light and and the light grays in shadow are actually the same, but what they are surrounded by creates a completely different illusion.

The alarming truth of the grays is revealed!

I feel that having a better understanding of these principles will help me dial in color more accurately and limit my wandering down paths of color that lead nowhere. I will certainly work harder to to see more accurately after considering the power of illusion. If you want more heavy reading on this topic, I encourage you to visit the Lotto Lab site for more information.

Images courtesy of R. Beau Lotto

As I have said before, the odds are good that Apple’s iPad will breathe new life into the publishing industry. Having been involved in marketing and advertising for the past 20 years, I have seen with my own eyes what the web has done to many trade magazines. Most seem to be scrambling to come up with ways to make money as consumers become accustomed to getting their information for free. I suppose in some small way, I am contributing to the chaos by self-publishing this blog.

With tight advertising budgets, I don’t buy print advertising anymore in favor of highly targeted online lead generation programs via conversion-based advertising. For a fraction of the cost of a print advertisement, I can market directly to my target audience and provide potential customers with a clickable path to a web-based micro site filled with relevant information about my products. If they are interested, they will provide contact information in order to download a white paper or other product related resources. In the end, I have a reasonably qualified lead that the sales force is eager to follow up on and a happy boss that likes the way I am stretching the company’s advertising dollar. Pretty simple really and quite effective. I am sure the accelerating trend toward online advertising is why many of the magazines I have dealt with over the years are a fraction of their thickness today compared to years past and several have gone out of business.

Arguably, art magazines are quite different than the technical trade magazines I have dealt with in the past. I personally subscribe to two print magazines, which are Art of the West and Southwest Art. Frankly, they seem to be doing reasonably well based on the amount of ad pages they have month after month. I particularly like thumbing through these magazines to read the articles and to see who is moving and shaking in the art world. This is all well and good but they, in addition to countless other magazines, will need to prepare themselves to step into the new era of digital publishing or risk getting left behind.

You see, I believe we are heading into a digital publishing era that will provide an opportunity for established magazines to regain some of the ground they have lost to the web. On the flip side, they will also be forced to compete with the inevitable onslaught of self-publishers with increasingly sophisticated tools at their fingertips. Just look at the recent democratization of the mobile gaming industry. Although major companies like Electronic Arts are represented among the providers of iPhone gaming apps, there is a huge number of small gaming developers that have been put in business by Apple’s iPhone software development platform and distribution model via the App Store and iTunes. It’s not just the big fish that can create, market and sell their products anymore.

Just as iTunes and the iPhone have enabled garage bands and garage software developers to distribute their products globally to an enthusiastic customer base, the addition of the iPad will enable established and self-publishers alike to reach their readers at a price and on a scale never before imagined. Would I gladly trade my print subscriptions for content-rich digital versions delivered directly to my iPad each month? In a heartbeat! Especially if they were published in a way that actually elevates the reading experience. Imagine flipping though a digital version of Southwest Art on an iPad with touch scalable high-resolution paintings embedded in both the articles and the advertising. Then just touch a gallery ad to instantly see the latest inventory of paintings by an up and coming artist. Better yet, the magazine could embed geo-located advertising that displays local gallery ads based on where the device is being read. What’s more, all of the content including past issues would be fully searchable, thereby increasing the overall value of the subscription.

I am not talking about browsing art magazine web sites. I am talking about paying for and downloading professionally produced digital content that mimics and enriches the magazine reading experience. Frankly, I am a bit concerned that some, will in fact, get left behind. If you browse the websites of some of the prominent art magazines, they are pretty bland and technologically sterile. To me, that indicates that they are clinging to a branch of hope that the print versions will thrive forever amid the sea of change occurring around them. I firmly believe that in order to flourish, art magazines will need to seriously consider how they are going to truly embrace technological change to retain and grow their audiences. Keep in mind that, assuming this publishing model takes hold, I too could band together with a few of my closest art aficionados to create a magazine that could be distributed globally along side established art magazines – just like the small entrepreneurial mobile game developers do among the giants. True, we would have to build a respected brand based on good journalism and compelling content, but that would boil down to enthusiastic writers, an effective marketing strategy, and time.

I think publishing development platforms for iPad are imminent. Just as WordPress revolutionized click publishing for bloggers, publishing tools for devices like the iPad will enable the rapid development of premium digitally published content for smartphones, computers and slate type devices. E-readers may not be for everyone but I am increasingly convinced they will take hold. For Christmas last year, we bought my wife’s not-so-tech-savvy mother an Amazon Kindle. We were not sure how she would like it since she usually buys her books used from garage sales. Well the results are in. She recently told us that she really loves her Kindle and has been buying a ton of books from the convenience of her couch. As much as some would like to disagree, I think heading to Barnes and Noble to by a book or magazine will eventually seem as antiquated as heading the Best Buy to pick up a CD.

I would love to hear your perspectives on this topic.

If you have time, check out the following video that highlights Wired Magazine’s take on the future of digital publishing.

The Golden Gate Bridge from Fort Mason

My goal was to take two shots while I was in San Francisco last week. One of the San Francisco skyline at night and another of the Golden Gate Bridge from the the quintessential money shot location at Fort Mason. Unfortunately I was not able to get the skyline shot from my target location because hotel security would let me on the roof. Imagine that, even after I asked nice! I stayed at the Grand Hyatt at Union Square, where on the 36th floor of the hotel they have the most premium view of downtown San Francisco with the Transamerica Pyramid in the foreground. I highly recommend eating there one night or grabbing a drink in the bar just to take in the view. Just go into the lobby, board the elevator, and press 36! I didn’t want to shoot through the glass of the restaurant so I ordered a drink and marveled at the skyline that can only be San Francisco.

So, reeling from my defeat at the hotel the night before, I was determined to get the best shot of the Golden Gate Bridge I could, which would mean a trek across town to Fort Mason. Light was dwindling, so I decided to grab a cab at 4 o’clock in the afternoon to the base of the bridge. If you ever want to go yourself, just ask the driver to take you to Fort Point.

Although I have driven past Fort Mason before, I did not realize that there is an awesome walking/jogging trail all along the water leading up to the base of the bridge. I had the driver drop me off short of the bridge so the view would reveal itself as I approached it. The light was a little flat due to the unpredictable cloud cover, but armed with my new HDR photo knowledge, I shot quite a few compositions and exposures to try and capture something worthwhile. I did not think I was going to get much while shooting but when I returned home to process the images, I was very pleased with the shot above. I wish the cars and motorcycles were not in the image but I thought the police would not take it too kindly if I told them to scram because I had some shooting to do. I am continually amazed at how much data the camera sensor picks up in the way of color and detail. Tis a great time to be a photographer! One reason I think I like this image so much its visual path. The old rusty chains take my eye along the path to the base of the bridge tower and up and over the water.

Late day at the San Francisco Ferry Building

Just above is another fun shot of the ferry building at the Port of San Francisco. It is a really neat looking building and a great place to walk around. In 2003, the building reopened as an upscale gourmet marketplace, office building, and re-dedicated ferry terminal. The restoration project spanned several years, with an emphasis on recreating the building’s 1898 ambiance. San Francisco’s most well known farmers market is held there on Saturdays from 8 am to 2 pm, and on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 10 am – 2pm, year-round. The blue and yellow caught my eye so I set up the old tripod and snapped the picture!

Jet-powered commuter vehicle

Perry Brown's "Out Work" 23x19 framed, Oil

I was pleasantly surprised to find a note in the mail today from Breckenridge Gallery letting me know about Perry Brown’s upcoming one man show in Breckenridge Colorado on March 13th, 2010. They sent me three pictures of Perry’s latest rural and urban landscapes, all of which were very nice paintings. One, called The Pond, was painted of the very place I was taking pictures last week in Central Park. I already own one of Perry’s New York paintings and encourage you to take a look at the gallery’s inventory. By the way, I love it when a gallery knows what you like and takes the time to write a note and send some pictures of the paintings! Oh, be sure to check out Perry’s fine art site and blog – you won’t be disappointed!

I am off to San Francisco tomorrow morning…camera in hand. Hoping to find something interesting to bring back on the memory card. Time will be tight but there will be a ton of subject matter. Have a good rest of the week!

Photo credit: Breckenridge Gallery