Old lines brought forward

I met a man in Ludlow on Sunday. He was selling witches, giants and fairies. He thrust one under my nose along with a magnifying glass so that I could see it clearer. I looked. And looked again. I couldn't see the fairy he was pointing out to me. He pointed again to it, and I saw her then. "Ah, yes, I see. You're doing camouflage art" I said with a smile. He looked non-plussed at me. "Am I?" he queried. "Yep, I do that too, but I'm an artist, not a photographer like you". He wrote the phrase down, as he'd not heard it before. And we chatted for a bit as I looked at more of his photographs and asked how he'd created them - I knew it was done in Photoshop, I could tell by the effect, but they had a slight unnaturalness to them, I felt. He'd taken a lot of photos and "stitched" them together to make a panarama, but had also used a lot of layers within the photos to create the slightly weird effects that the photos were depicting. Having said that, the old castles needed that strange eerie effect to depict the Gothic feel he was aiming at, and he'd added witches and giants and fairies to give more creedence to the old features of the landscape. I liked them, but still felt that if I'd done it as a painting, it would have looked a lot more cohesive as the whole picture would have been started and finished as a whole design, rather than photos that were stitched together that didn't quite work fully as a whole image somehow.

Ludlow is a lovely town, really pretty, with lots of interesting old architecture, a castle and oodles of history creating a nice atmospheric feel to the place as it rises up from the banks of the pretty River Teme. But it was whilst I was having lunch, that I should have felt insulted. The middle aged couple next to us were sitting eating their lunch as we sat, they smiled, we smiled, and we chit-chatted about the town, the food we were eating, and other pleasantries. She said that they'd moved there recently from Nottingham, and were pleased to note as they  themselves were tall, every time they saw a tall person the people were obviously intelligent. OK. I felt that was rather a sweeping statement, but didn't comment on it. But I smiled secretly to myself. Because no one would EVER describe me as tall (Well, except in Japan, where I did actually tower over some of the little Japanese women there). So, if I was easily insulted, that would have done it. But, I had to smile to myself, as the couple got up and left the table to continue on their walk, that she left her umbrella behind on her chair.......................... and had to be reminded of it as she walked off, oblivious to the fact......................

It still amazes me where things from my past are suddenly brought into the present. Last night I was chatting to the landlady of the Bulls Head pub in Repton, and she mentioned in passing that she had only recently started having the parish magazine delivered there, bearing in mind that she has lived there for three years near enough. So, as she knows me,  she was interested to note that it was my name on the image of the picture on the front cover. Yes, I nodded, I did a set of them, but it was in the mid 1980's that I did them, and it was great to know that they were still being used, and was a great advert for me even now. But people tend to think I've done them recently and are astounded at how long they've been used for. So I'll show you a picture here that I did around the same time - its of the Church and Cross in Repton and is done with pen on cartridge paper. I used a rapidograph pen to make the fine lines and have always liked this drawing for its clear and simple lines - they always work well for architecture.

And before you start looking, there's nothing hidden within the picture, no witches or faires or goblins. Well, not that I know of!

Selling a painting's a night mare!

I'm always looking at ways of selling my paintings. And in a recession, other ways need to be looked at.  That's why I've decided that I need to investigate more about making prints of my work. Because not everyone wants to buy an original picture. Sometimes you just want to buy a picture because you LIKE it, not because you want to invest a large amount in it. Not that my paintings are expensive for the work and expertise that goes into them. The prices are incredibly reasonable. But then I'm trying to cut out the middleman - the one who takes his "cut" out of the selling price. He's the one who puts the prices up. And the customer ends up paying for it. Having said that, some people believe that they've got a BETTER painting if they pay a lot for it. It's perceived value, for them. I understand that, and would quite happily put a nought, or two, on the end of every price if it would get me more sales.

Mmm..... Perhaps I should DO that............................ !!! :)


But at the moment, I'm concentrating on prints. And double checking the quality of the pictures on my website by putting them through Photoshop to enhance them. It brings out the colours that the original  photography in some cases has flattened and lost.

I'm totally in love with Photoshop at the moment, it is making some real gems out of some of my previous paintings. Take for instance "Nightmares". Its a painting I did a number of years ago and the original is now hanging on a wall in a far off land, near the Mediteranean, where the sun shines far more than it does in England!

Nightmares is three horses racing each other by moonlight. Hence the title, which I've always liked!

The original painting has some nice blues, and purples, greens, and deeper shades of burnt sienna and red in it. I've always liked this painting as it was painted using the "pour on paint" technique that I've always loved using with watercolour. The horses and the moon were masked with masking fluid, then the paper around them was wetted with clean water, and the watercolours poured on in various places and allowed to weave their own magic by mixing with each other on the paper, their colours staying fresh and vibrant. And just to add to the magic, I flicked some gold metalic paint on it too, to add to the movement of the horses, and to add a gleam of bright colour to the finished painting. The details of the horses bodies and faces was painting on afterwards, adding form and definition.

The movement in the paint adds to the magic air of the finished painting.


But it is with photoshop that all these lovely effects shown here have enhanced the painting and given it a new life altogether! The picture stays the same, but the colours have been brought out, or lessened, accentuating the magentas or cyans, pulling out the highlights or the shadows, tipping the colour balance one way or another. And just to add to the fun aspect, on some of them, I have added more artistic effects to them too. Making the picture look more painterly, subduing the colours, or adding an ink effect to them.

And just in case you're wondering, which is the original..... Its the last one.

But I think they all stand up as a beautiful painting in their own right.

So, which is your favourite..............?

More than papering over the cracks

Other than buying diamonds for Goddesses I'm also in the process of learning Photoshop in my spare time. An easy occupation you would think, and yet the more I do the more I see there is to learn. I've always been interested in photography but only as an aide to producing a painting. I'll see a scene I like and capture it on film (or digitally, now) with the bare thought that it would make a good painting at some point. I might be aware that the lighting is right and the scene is fine, but would be better without the guy on the scooter, or the roadsign next to the little cottage. But that doesn't really matter because I'd just take them out of the painting. Well now I'm finding out through Photoshop that minor things like roadsigns, men on scooters or even cars can be removed totally from the photo itself to improve it.

And this weeks lesson was even more interesting for me - as I delved back into history to find some well beloved images that hadn't quite stood the test of time. Well, to be more exact, some old photos that were torn, scratched and had had indefinable liquids spilt on them at some point in the past,  infact, the word "knackered" would describe them perfectly!!! LOL

The one of the puppy was the easiest to deal with. The labrador puppy was the dog I grew up with and the photo was really cute, but at some point the black and white photo had acquired some bright pink felt-tip pen on it, and the edges were torn and ripped. So it was just a case of scanning it as a black and white image (shown here) that deleted the pink and then re-building the grass and adjusting the contrast a bit to make the picture whole again. Perfect, and still verrry cute!

The picture with the people in it (all the women in it are related to me but only the youngest one is still alive and she's in her 70's now) was really interesting to do as it was in such a bad state to start with. But bit by bit I got rid of the scratches and creases, the tears and the discolouring. And this is where the "artist" gets to work. Because its very like painting a picture - you have to choose the size of the "brush" and the "tone" and "texture" and  "opacity" of all of that, and apply them in the right place to hide whatever needs hiding. All very specialised and difficult, and long winded, even for me, and I'm used to doing it when I paint a picture. Fascinating work though, to see it building up and then to see the whole picture complete again. I'm delighted with the end result and can see that all my hard work has paid off for the end result. The picture took hours to complete as there are a myriad tiny little scratches in it. It's a bit like rebuilding time!

Now all of this is great, and I'm really loving learning Photoshop, BUT its not the same as painting a picture at all. It doesn't capture the essence in the same way. I love photos but a painting picks up more of the feel of the image I think.  My way forward is still as an artist.

Back to the Goddesses now.........