Wow, what a busy day I’ve had. I felt like I was rushing all over the place. But, it’s no big deal because I can move mountains so getting through a busy day is simple, right?
One of the many things on my agenda today was attending the first Friday gallery opening at Greenbank farm. My first stop was the Raven Rocks Gallery. I always go here first because Windwalker and Mary Jo are super nice and wonderful to talk to. Next I headed over to the Artworks Gallery and had the pleasure of speaking with John Ursillo, a local artist on the island with amazing works. John and I had a great conversation about how to take professional picture of artwork and within the few minutes of our discussion I learned so much about taking photos of my work that I’m going to probably bug him a bit more and write the valuable info in a post on my blog.
Then before I lost all my light I walked up the hill from the galleries with my supplies and sat down to paint a landscape. It was 7pm when I started, which is really late, I knew the light would move fast and I only had at most one hour to get something on canvas so I was rushing to paint.
I didn’t have much time to figure out a good composition and what I was looking at wasn’t the most exciting. Now, I need to explain this because looking at the beautiful mountain ranges that surround us is always exciting and grand. But when you take a photo of them you get this…
You can barely see the mountains! The same is true if you were to paint this scene as a perfect copy, the mountains would only be a tiny line amongst the whole canvas. I wanted to paint the mountains but I didn’t like the land that was surrounding them, but I did like this part of the scene…
This was a bit more interesting, but no mountains. Then like an idiot stumbling into an obvious sign, I realized that I as an artist can change anything I want! So I moved the mountains.
I guess I’m so used to struggling to just copy exactly what I see that it takes a bit of a shift in my thinking to realize I can change things so drastically, yet keep it characteristic.
After about an hour of painting my light was completely different, but even more dramatic. I love the early morning light, and the late evening light but I will have to plan for it in the future by doing a landscape multiple times through the summer and planning the painting so that I’m ready for those precious 10 minutes of light that I want to capture.
I have to admit, it’s kinda nice having super powers, 😉
It’s also the perogative of a fiction writer, too! Wait, a city with our exact characteristics and scenery doesn’t exist? No big deal, we’ll just make it up!
And as we approach summer, the light stays a bit longer, so you will have more time to work on your art if you wanted.