Autumn light and life in shadows

I went for a walk around my new village yesterday. I've done it a few times, but not with a camera, and thought that in the twenty minutes that the gentle walk normally takes, I'd find a few interesting things to capture.

But, I was well out with my assumptions.

It took two hours! Two wonderful hours of being enthralled with light. Crisp clear light, with the golden glow of Autumn. But, added to that, was the joy of shadows and light working together and creating their magic. That, gives the land a whole new look. It adds contours and interest to create new interest in the picture. I know that going out with a camera when the light is flat and grey, is really a waste of time, as the whole image will only be of mid tones - and how can you get excited with sullen greys and sage greens, sad yellows, and dismal browns. I certainly can't! But when the light is crisp and bright, the sun is shining, and the Autumn leaves are bright with shining gold, Indian yellows, burnt siennas, dramatic scarlets, rich purple shadows on cream paths, the shadows come alive and become a thing of beauty in themselves, the way they create patterns on the stone walls, the paths and the warm red brick walls of old cottages. Even the colour white takes on a new life of its own - and becomes a shimmering brightness, or descends to a rich cobalt blue in deep shadow.

The place I was most fascinated with, though, was the church. Its old, and very solid, but pretty, small but full of character. I don't know how old it is, but without searching hard I found a gravestone with the year 1728 on it, but there were far older gravestones, with faded lettering worn with weathering and mossy decay. The sunlight and shadows on the stonework of the church filled me with delight, and the vertical graves themselves added extra interest with the low sun on them, creating more shadows and sharp relief against the damp sap green grass.

I shall be pleased to get the internet back. I've not had it at the new house, and I've been there seven weeks. So, I can't show you the images, I can only describe them at the moment. But, they are so inspirational. I want to paint them. And I will. Soon. I want others to see what I saw, to accompany me on that wonderful walk full of bright wonder and stunning light.........

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.........