Albany Workshop

Today I did a workshop for Gallery 500 in Albany, hopefully the first of many.

With ten keen and competent "students" and a wonderful workspace at Terra Verde Gallery, it was a great way to spend a few hours on a beautiful autumn morning.

I explained my approach to painting light in the landscape and everyone followed along as I demonstrated each step. With lots of good questions, exchanges of ideas and some good conversation, it was all great fun.

This is my painting, based on a digital image I came up with in my head a few months ago...

And here's a few pics of everyone hard at work as I cracked the whip...

Thanks to Brad and Jo of Gallery 500 for inviting me and to everyone who attended.

My next workshop is planned for late May. Contact Gallery 500 for details.

Woolorama time again

Yesterday I drove about 200km to Wagin to deliver some paintings for the Woolorama art exhibition which takes place in a couple of weeks. It was a hot, humid day with clear skies and a gentle breeze.

On the way home, I deviated down a few back roads looking for "something different" that I could stop and paint. I found it on the road to Woodanilling. The tree was interesting and the light blinding. There was space to park the car and a shady tree to stand beneath.

I had no excuse not to paint.

We normally think of shadows as cool and highlights as warm but these trees seem to have a warm, peachy glow about their trunks, even in the shaded parts. Finding a colour and tone that would convey that warmth whilst still allowing the strongly sunlit highlights to jump was an interesting challenge.

I'll post the finished image when I can photograph it properly.

Strange summer!

Large parts of Australia have been hit with extreme weather this summer. Northern Queensland was hit by floods and then perhaps the largest cyclone on record. Meanwhile, northern and central WA and Victoria have also suffered exceptional flooding. You need to visualise the size of the Australian continent to grasp the area that's been affected. It's ridiculously huge.

Whilst we haven't been personally affected by any of these events, this has been the weirdest summer we've had down south since leaving Perth over seven years ago. February is normally hot and dry, with temperatures in the forties not out of the question. This year, however, we've had the threat of a cyclone, though we're nowhere near the tropics, and of a surprise storm that devastated some southern towns but never quite made it this far. What we have had is day after day of drizzle and rain, often with gusty winds. I think we've only seen clear skies for about four days this month.

With only one week left before autumn arrives, I'm hoping for some opportunities to get out and paint some summer sunlight. In the meantime, I'm managing the odd painting indoors. Here's this week's contribution...

Evening glow, Porongurup.
30x45cm oil on board. 
© Andy  Dolphin 
SOLD

This painting was based on a couple of plein air works I did last month. I took a little licence with the lighting since I have seen it turn warm on previous occasions. I kept the mountains simple as I wanted the white sand track to catch the viewer's attention and for the large tree to stand out against an atmospheric backdrop.

Here are the two plein air studies I used as reference.

Porongurup track.  
20x24cm oil on board.
© Andy  Dolphin

Summer track, Porongurup. 
30x20cm oil on board.  
© Andy  Dolphin

Latest

Things have been a bit hectic lately but I finally managed to get some painting done.

(Inn Kitchen, Arthur River. 70x37cm oil on board. © Andy Dolphin)

This piece was based on a small plein air painting I did in March last year and "fixed up" a couple of weeks ago.

(Karri Light. 50x37cm oil on board. © Andy Dolphin)
SOLD

These will be on their way to exhibitions in the coming months.

Google Art Project

I just saw Google Art Project on Marc Dalessio's blog - it looks fascinating.

Take a virtual, 3D tour of any one of more than a dozen galleries/museums around the world.

It might take a bit of getting used to but if you've ever navigated Google Street View, you'll pick it up pretty quickly. Just click a museum link, choose to Explore then mouse around a bit, click on direction arrows, click on distant rooms or paintings, click on + signs, move the zoom slider in the bottom corner and eventually you'll find yourself staring at a close up of a masterpiece.

If you're the nervous type who's bamboozled by all this technogologicacal stuff, then there's instructions and videos to get you going if you click on the "Learn more" link.

I suspect people with a slow internet connections might experience some difficulties.

Looks like I can cancel that world trip I was planning now.

Digital landscape animated

I thought I'd have a go at animating the step-by-step digital painting process from my last post.

Here you go. Click to see it larger.

How to: Digital Landscape

Here's a  step-by-step breakdown of how I approach a digital landscape painting like the one I did this morning.

For this painting, I used a cartoony cross-hatch brush from Chris Wahl.

For this brush to work to full advantage, you need a pressure-sensitive stylus and Photoshop (other software might also do do this). The default settings for the brush work beautifully as the cross-hatch pattern randomly rotates as you paint. All I change is the brush size and sometimes I turn Other Dynamics - Opacity on or off. I do most of the painting with the Opacity setting on so that a light touch produces a translucent wash. This makes it easier to build blends and allows for a little variety within major tones.

Step 1: Rough outline to locate main shapes. Since this painting was right out of my head, with no visual reference whatsoever, some things will change as I progress.

Step 2: Rough in undertones. Lighter and cooler in the distance, darker and warmer in the foreground. I adjusted the mountain shape so it would fully contain the main tree. I use a fairly large brush here to get the surface covered.

Step 3: Add weight to all tonal areas. I use some of the sky colour in the mountain colour. I do this by painting a transparent patch of the sky blue over the purple from Step 2. Then I select this colour with the eye dropper and apply it across the area. This helps to "absorb" the mountains into the atmosphere, especially the more-distant peaks.

I introduce highlights in the background and mid-tones in the foreground. I re-establish the main tree and distant trees and some minor detail is added to indicate a fence and track. I've also introduced a foreground shadow being cast from a tree off to the left somewhere. This small detail instantly adds depth - plus I like shadows falling across white sand tracks!

Step 4: Highlights are added to the foreground and middle distance. I've strengthened the track and foreground fence posts. By this stage, I'm adjusting the brush size up and down as I work on different areas.

Step 5: I decided to change the shape of the main tree as the earlier shape looked a little "weak". I've also marginally brightened the sky and added my digital signature.

(Imaginary landscape 2. 1500x1000px digital. © Andy Dolphin)

Step 6: Finally, I flattened the whole image, boosted the saturation a little and tweaked some minor details here and there across the whole painting. I could have adjusted the saturation with an adjustment layer instead of flattening - but I didn't.

There is a about 30-40 minutes work in this. Note that at 1500 pixels wide, this image would only produce a high quality (300dpi) print about 12cm wide! If I wanted to do anything serious with it, I could work at this size up to around Step 4 then increase the resolution before continuing with detailing.