Membership meetings will resume! Come to the September 20 meeting at Cliff Lanes at 5:15 p.m. and learn about Guild happenings over the summer and what the future brings. The valley’s own Gerald Merfeld will demonstrate conte crayon drawing. Come and re-connect with fellow artists. The public is welcome.
Why Paint From Life?
“Purists admonish us to paint “only from life.” Yet the instructional art magazines regularly feature artists whose methods start and end with a photo reference. …Even great masters like Fechin and Zorn clearly used photo references for some of their paintings.
There are a host of good reasons to use photos…. There’s only one really good reason to work from life – it will make us much better artists.” William Schneider OPA.
See the whole article at http://blog.oilpaintersofamerica.com/2012/08/paint-from-life-or-photos/
Summer Meetings Canceled
Regular General Membership meetings of the Sangres Art Guild are canceled until further notice. The Board of Directors will continue to meet to conduct Guild business. Refer to this web site for updates on Guild happenings.
So What Makes a Good Photograph?
So what makes a good photograph? Ask ten people and you may get ten different answers as each of us views an image through different lenses of emotion, knowledge, background and of course attitudes when viewing an image.
However, there are some basics which help an image to communicate what you the photographer intends. Some of these seem almost too basic to mention, yet when neglected contribute to an image’s failure to communicate. Let me mention a few things which I have found more than once contributed to an image’s failure.
Let’s say you have come on an alluring scene, beautifully lit, composed and meaningful. You make the image and pop it up on your LCD screen . It just doesn’t look the same. Why? Now look again at the scene only this time close one eye. Different? Yep, by doing this you are looking at the scene as your camera does, with mono not stereo vision. You can take this even further. That is, cut a rectangular window from a piece of cardboard, say 4″ x 6” and view a scene through this window. Chances are your “alluring” scene suddenly becomes flat and less interesting.
What to do? Your problem is how to transform a three dimensional scene to a two dimensional image. Try moving to include something in the foreground such as a log, a branch, etc. Now look at the middle ground. Is there something there you can include which will help guide the eye through the image? Last look at your background and ask yourself is this what I want my viewer to see? Just the addition of this one exercise in vision can help you transform your photography. How, once you have made sure to have something of interest in the foreground, in the middle ground and last in the background you have helped transform a two dimensional image to a visual three dimensional image.
Last, but surely not least. Use a tripod wherever you can. Not only will your photographs become sharper, but the simple act of setting up your tripod, of taking your time viewing the scene through the camera, deciding what to put in the scene, and what to leave out will help make your images communicate what you intend to say. Bill Gillette.
Calling Photographers and Sculptors!
Get ready for the Sangres Art Guild’s First Photography & 3D Show! Intake is less than a month away: July 21 & 22, 2012. The show will be on display until August 26. Cash prizes will be awarded by judge Todd Caudle.