Digital manipulation of photographs

Pendeen Lighthouse, Vivien Blackburn

I've been looking at the photographs from last week, to assess their potential for painting from - I simply didn't have enough sketching time being away with extended family but I'd like to get some paintings done.

The simplicity of the image lent itself to posterisation/find edges techniques, with some erasing and tweaking and use of layers to combine the edges/posterised colour.

This photograph, below, is ok - but I really like it above - simplified and made cool and airy (though it was a vividly blue day). I think it has potential for development - printmaking maybe?


original photograph

I need to work in pastels today to get some work ready for an exhibition so maybe not this image..

Comments

Julie Dunion said…
I really like the effect you have created with this. As you said it's so fresh and airy. The feeling of isolation is making me think of some of Hopper's work. I hope you develop it, I would love to see what you do with it.
7:13 pm
vivien said…
I thought of Hopper too :>) but was really tired and there was a blank between my ears where his name should have popped up!
10:06 am
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Eye, Urban/Rural exhibition

Image
Vivien Blackburn's work in the Urban/Rural show We've just hung a group show at the The Eye Project, Urban/Rural show.  If you want to come and see it it's on for a month - well worth seeing, 11 lovely artists and some fabulous work. Those large canvasses are 40 inches square. There are rural landscapes, flowerscapes, intriguing textile work including a large knitted building, abstracts .... something for everyone. It's in the gallery below the cafe in the Adult Education Centre at the top of Wellington street, Leicester, opposite Fenwicks.  Meet the Arttists day is Saturday 1st April 10-2.  Come and have a chat with us?
Read more

paint or sketch trees: challenge

Image
Close up of tree bark, Marqueyssac, France. photo: Vivien Blackburn Another challenge Rather than another update on the seascapes I've decided to run another challenge in response to feedback from the trees post. Feedback from people said they got a lot out of the skies challenge and I'm sure you will out of this one :>) click the image on the left to link to the original post on trees and you can check all posts with the tag 'trees' here The challenge is to produce sketches of trees done from life. These can be: close ups, extreme close ups, whole tree, part of tree, distant views - whatever you want. Style: anything goes - photorealism to impressionism but with underlying observation Medium: your choice, anything goes :>) oil paints, acrylics, watercolours, mixed media, charcoal, graphite, coloured pencils, pen, oil pastels, pastels, pastel pencils ....... etc etc etc Timescale: we'll finish at the end of July and I'll post links to your blogs t
Read more

playing with watercolours and coloured pencils

Image
This is a page of watercolour studies of pansies, not intended to be 'a painting', I did a while ago that I came across. It's a grey rainy day and the light isn't good to get on with the canvasses so I decided to try to pull it together as a composition. I used a bit more watercolour and coloured pencils and cropped it and added the soft blue green background to cool it down a little - the colours felt too hot. The deep dark pansies were really velvety and intense and maybe not the colour scheme I would have set out to use with the orange and pale yellows - but the background helps to knit them together. Bringing the soft mauves into the darker flowers also helped. I also took another look at a mixed media woodland that was unfinished and worked a little more on that. It has a little oil pastel in the early stages, watercolour and then coloured pencils.
Read more