The Blue Boat (as per Winslow Homer)

I started painting again once I was able to move around a bit in my sunroom/studio, (recovering from a broken hip and surgery), and continuing on with my art classes at the U of A extension department. I'm in my second watercolour class, and the assignment was to do a copy of a famous watercolour artist's painting. I chose Winslow Homer, a well known American artist at the turn of the century. This is my copy of  "The Blue Boat", which Winslow Homer painted in 1892. Here is a copy of his actual painting:

So I generally don't like to copy other painter's works, but it was an assignment for the class. I was fairly happy with the outcome, though, and feel that I did capture the essence of his painting. I like this style of painting, which is quite impressionistic, yet it does retain a feeling of realism.
I think that the watercolour is quite suited to this style of painting, and I am growing in appreciation of this medium.

San Juan River Overlook, Utah

I finally got back to posting an image from my trip to Arizona and Utah this fall. I've experienced a bit of a setback recently, having suffered from a broken hip due to a fall. But no matter, I will be back to getting out as soon as I can to do some more photography, as well as some painting.
This photo was taken the last day of my trip, on the San Juan River near Butte Utah. It was taken early in the morning at sunrise, with the sun at our backs. This shot I decided to process as a black and white image. The colour image was nice but it lacked something. I think I have a tendency to favour black and white images anyway, harkening back to my film shooting days with the Monochrome Guild guys.
The downside to this image was the cloudless sky, which is always a problem for me. The sky is just a blank area in the image which does nothing for the composition, so I cropped it quite a bit.
It is a nice composition with the S - shaped river in the centre of the shot, which is always a good compositional element. I also like the variation of tonality of the trees in the centre of the image.

Coal Mine Mesa, Arizona

I recently went on a trip to Navajo land in northern Arizona. My companions were also photography enthusiasts who shared a similar interest, not just in photography in technical terms, but in photography as art. Our teacher is Alain Briot who lives in Arizona and conducts photography workshops that are a bit different than the average photography workshops that focus mostly on equipment and location. Alain teaches us to approach photography as an art form, helping us to develop our personal vision of the art we produce.
This trip took us to little know Navajo locations in Arizona and Utah, that few photographers visit. Several of these locations are also considered sacred by the Navajos that live on the reservations, so they are not always enthused to see photographers encroach on their traditional lands. This was one reason that our group consisted of a limited number of people, so as not to draw attention to ourselves.
Coal Mine Mesa is a beautiful place where coal seams are evident in the strata of the canyon. The colours we see here are created by the soft morning light just before the sun rose over the horizon.  The colours change dramatically as the sun rises, from a rosy colour to a golden yellow colour. The window for taking these types of photos lasts for maybe an hour and a half. After that the terrain is bleached by the hot Arizona sun.  

Cathedral in Bourges France

I liked this image because it has an abstract quality to it, that I didn't notice until I processed it in Lightroom. I like the tonality of the image very much, which I intentionally created by reducing the saturation of the image, greying it down somewhat. The abstract quality of the image is that it looks very much like a face looking down at us. Almost alien in nature. You can see the head, the eyes, and mouth of the alien face.  Shots like this are hard to take without distortion due to the extreme height of the interior of the cathedral inside, and having to take the shot from the floor level. So extreme curvature is created as a result. Problems like this can be overcome with a large format camera which allow movements of the front lens and the back of the camera, a sometimes complex operation, that can eliminate or correct curvature. In this digital image, I resorted to using a "distortion" filter to correct the curvature as much as I could.

Montmartre and Sacre Coeur Paris

One of my favourite areas to visit in Paris was the district of Montmartre, near the Sacre-Coeur. Here you will see, among many other attractions: side walk cafes,  galleries,  and artists selling their paintings on the sidewalk, and also willing to do a portrait of you, for a price of course. The atmosphere here is unique,  a few minutes away is the Sacre-Coeur (Sacred Heart Basilica), which is the second highest viewpoint in Paris after the Eiffel tower.

It's a bit of a climb to the top of the stairs to the Basilica, but the view is worth it. 

The French government commissioned the building of the Basilica in 1873 to symbolize the return of self confidence after the devastating years of the Commune and Franco-Prussian war. The architect was Paul Abadie, and he employed Romanesque and Byzantine styles of architecture. Construction continued through world war I, and was consecrated in 1919. 

Eiffel Tower

I took this shot from the roof of a tour bus in Paris. The conditions to take a shot from a moving vehicle is not always ideal, since you are moving while taking pictures. I did have to make a few adjustments in Lightroom and Photoshop to correct some lens distortion that did result from taking the shot under these conditions. Pictures like this are always challenging to take since there are often people in front of the desired image that you would prefer not to include in the shot, and it is hard to hold the camera still while moving. However I was fortunate that this was not a major problem in this instance. The light for this shot was quite nice, and I always prefer to have a cloudy sky similar to this case, whereas a clear blue sky can often be uninteresting and dull. The people in the middle distance created an interesting feeling to the overall image.

Le Mont Saint- Michel France

Recently my wife and I took a trip to Paris and central France. Our tour included Paris itself, and central France. The Paris part of the trip was mostly done on foot and by the metro, while central France was seen by bus. Much of the trip included seeing much of the cultural aspects of France, such as the Louvre, several cathedrals in Paris, museums, and several well known tourist attractions. The central France tour was an education in French culture and history.
I brought my Leica M9 with me to document the trip, and take as many scenic photographs as possible, not only for the photography itself, but also as future reference for my watercolour painting. The Leica is the perfect camera for a trip like this. It  is light weight and not too noticeable by people you want to photograph. I brought only one lens, my 28 mm Summicron, and it worked very well as an all purpose lens. It is a wide angle lens, but I tend to take more wide angle shots anyway.
This is a shot of the cathedral at Le Mont Saint-Michel, which is on the coast of France, on a sort of Peninsula. This is a close up of the cathedral at the top of the rock outcrop, in evening light.

Vasabron Bridge Stockholm, Sweden

This is a painting of the Norstedts Publishers building on the Vasabron bridge in Stockholm. I was fortunate to be able to visit Stockholm on a business trip in March. The day was a bit overcast but relatively warm, during a walk that my fellow traveller and I took the last day of our trip to Sweden. I took a photo and had it in my mind that I would like to paint this scene at a later date. My choice of paints was watercolour, and the paper I chose was a 300 lb Arches. A 300 lb watercolour paper does not really need to be stretched beforehand, and so no preparation was required. I used a muted palette by using complementary colours of Quinacridine rose and Viridian, with a little of orange mixed in. The yellow I chose was naples yellow, which is a bit muted to begin with. The cooler tones were a mixture of Ultramarine blue and Ultramarine violet, muted a bit with their complements as well. I'm settling in with a more earth tone range of colours that I mix myself, using Steven Quiller's palette, which includes about 26 colours. I like how the bridge stands out from the background. I think I achieved this by leaving white highlights on the lamp supports on the bridge, as well as the higher contrast that is created between the white and the darker portions of the bridge. I also like how the water seems to sparkle below the bridge. Starting to feel better about my paintings.

Watercolour Painting - Utah landscape

This was an image I photographed a few years ago during a trip to Page Arizona. Page is located very close to the Utah border, and this location was just across the Colorado river. I was on a photographic workshop with Alain Briot, and his workshops never fail to please. This was an amazing location to photograph, and the terrain is very much as you can see in the painting. Unfortunately there is no human figure in the image I took, so the scale is hard to evaluate, but the boulders in the centre of the image are about 6  to 10 feet in diameter. The hoodoo to the right is at least 15 feet high.
I am becoming more familiar with the water colour medium, and I do not have to mentally focus on how to do so as much as I did a year ago. It becomes more natural and instinctive as I spend more time painting. I did use strong colours on this painting, but the actual colour scheme of the real thing is also very bright and colourful.
With watercolour painting it is important to leave some of the white of the paper to create that sparkle that a good watercolour painting should have. I think I could have left more white than I did, but once the paint is down, you can't go back. However, I am relatively pleased  with the effort.

Bighorn Country

This is a recent painting I did of the Bighorn River just as it approaches Crescent Falls. I often go here to take photographs, and the timing was perfect. The sun was just setting in the north. The aspen trees had already turned yellow, and winter was not far off. I am striving to improve my watercolour painting skills, and finally I have a fairly decent painting, after having trashed at least 4 or 5 in a row. It definitely takes time to master the skills required to do watercolour. I hope to improve that as I take a watercolour course with the U of A as part of my Visual Arts program, starting this week. I used a tertiary colour scheme, employing orange, green and violet. The picture plain consists of three layers, the foreground which includes the boulders, the river in the middle distance and the trees and sky in the distance. Most artists use this technique to create a sense of distance in the painting. I don't think that the actual colour translate very well to this upload, but it's close. I think if you look elsewhere on this blog you might find the original photograph.