When I was putting my post together earlier this week on exploring the Bloedel nature preserve on Bainbridge Island, I came across a couple of photos from that trip that I thought might be interesting to paint. I thought the photo below offered some things I look for when I’m choosing a subject to paint. I thought the colors and subject might also appeal to someone who has been wanting me to paint something to go in their bedroom.
The photo is a path through a garden gate near the Japanese tea house. It has a clear focal point with the path leading through the gate. It also has strong darks and lights which yields contrast that always makes a painting more interesting to my eye. And for a garden landscape, it has a variety of greens and other earth tones with browns of the tree trunks and the golden hues of the Japanese styled garden gate. I wanted to do this as a small study to work out any issues before possibly painting it on a large canvas. The problem with the photo below is that it needs to be cropped to fit on the canvas size that the potential customer wants for a specific spot in their house. I decided to crop the photo to fit an 11”x14” canvas for the study. Proportionally that is closer to the 20”x24” size of the larger canvas if I get the commission.
Unfortunately the crop took out most of the tree trunk on the left. Doing the small study will help me understand whether that will throw off the balance of the painting when considering the large tree trunk on the right. I usually process my photos through a software package called Brushstroke to get a feel for what it would might look like as a painting. It reduces some of the detail and helps me see the big shapes for when I draw and block in the painting. Drawing and blocking in are the first two steps I do on every painting.
I use markup on my iPad to outline the big shapes before I start to put paint on the canvas.
I didn’t care for the blown out highlights on the rendered photo (the bright yellow areas), so I toned them down in the final version of the painting. I also filled in the empty flower bed with flowers all along the path.
Doing this study certainly will be useful if I decide to do this on a large canvas. Hope you like it.
