Martha Lake Morning Light

[Bill Foehringer]

Sorry about the reference photo. I keep gettin caught up in starting a paintin and forget to take a shot of the inspiration. The clouds had moved in and stolen the light.
Anyway to the left is the headland I placed in the left foreground. The little island does not really show up in the photo but it's just to the right of the headland but further away. The point of land coming in from the right is a little more visible.
I took quite a bit of artistic license. The main thing I did was compress the subject horizontally. I made the right side (east shore) of the lake much closer. In the plein air I don't think I created enough separation for the far shore so the illusion of depth was not enough?

Ref photo taken from where I anchored the boat to do the plein air.
http://www.wetcanvas.com/Community/images/02-Sep-2006/51770-Soft_LIght_Ref.jpg

"Soft Light" Plein air 11x14 Pastel on Wallis
http://www.wetcanvas.com/Community/images/02-Sep-2006/51770-Soft_Light.jpg

"Morning Light at Big Martha" Studio Oil 9x12 canvas panel
http://www.wetcanvas.com/Community/images/02-Sep-2006/51770-Morning_Light_At_Big_Martha.jpg

BillF

[Bill Foehringer]

Diagram of ref photo
http://www.wetcanvas.com/Community/images/02-Sep-2006/51770-Soft_Light_diagram.jpg

I brought the east shore, marked by the rightmost vertical line, closer to the island, middle line. The far shore, marked by the bracket was in deep shade because of it's alignment to the sun. So it was difficult to gauge the value and the atmospheric perspective. In the plein air I think I should have blued, lightened and used less detail in the far shore.
Plus I grabbed what turned out to be a green pastel a little too acid but the sun was shining directly on the birch leaves. They did look brite and stood out against the far shore background. Small things that now loom larger in hindsight.
My digicam makes everything look so far away. I was pretty close to the left shore as I painted. Hmmm, now I wonder if I pulled the anchor and drifted before I took the ref shot. Anyway I hope it's enough to see how I changed 'reality' to suit what I 'saw' as a painting. BillF