study - JUNE BLISS © Sharon L Hicks, 2013

CP ... 5 x 7

Bliss is defined as a stage 'beyond' an emotional state, characterized as peace, happiness, enjoyment, pleasure, and satisfaction.

The title of this little study conjures up feelings of warmth, serenity, joy. It's obviously a bright warm summer day, which brings with it the temptation to toss aside responsibilities and settle in on a deck chair, feet up, cold glass of something in hand, and just peruse the heavens above.

From the colours in this image, you can tell the sun is high in the sky, marking the time as being around mid-day, the warmest part of the day. The gradation from darker blues at the top to the softer and paler blues at the horizon provides this information.

           my photo                  after 10 minutes                 after 1 hour

I guess the most obvious adjustment I made to the information in this photo was to warm and brighten the colours in the sky. Photography often has a tendency to make blues look much cooler than they really are in life, and this must be taken into account when painting from photos. In addition to the colours themselves, the range of values tends to be 'flatter' in photos, and this also was adjusted in the study, with greater contrast between lights and darks.

Painting from photos can't ever compete with painting from life, but for the artist who has previous experience working from life, and who is aware of the various distortions created by photography, it is actually possible to paint from photos very successfully.

It helps, too, if you work only from your own photos, ones you have taken yourself. That gives you the added advantage of having 'been there' at the time the information was recorded in the photo. You were present, to feel the breeze, to smell the grass, to feel the warmth on your face. Using that additional memory information you can fill in the gaps which photos create.  When I look at photos I've taken, even many years ago, I am able to 'imagine' myself back at that spot, and 'recapture' the feelings and reactions which the scene instilled in me at that time.

Tomorrow - another day, another study. I hope you can join me then.

Cheers

Sharon