Painters have always fascinated me. As a photographer, I capture something that
already exists. I may arrange things or
pose people, select my perspective and framing, make artistic decisions
through lens selection and camera settings, and alter images in postproduction;
but I always wind up working with existing images.
Painters begin with a clean sheet. They create something from nothing. How does that change the way they see the
world? How would my photography change
if I were also a painter? Well, I'm not, and I really don't intend to become
one. But I did decide to take an
intensive four-day beginners watercolor workshop from a master painter named
Fred Graff, and it was an eye-opening experience.
Fred is amazing! The
way he sees things, the way he interprets them, his painting style, and his
workshops are all indescribable. They
must be experienced, not to be understood, but to be appreciated.
What did I learn? That painters tend to look for shapes rather than things. I got
a painter's view of color theory, design and composition, spatial
relationships, focal point, planes, contours, light sources, implied lines, proportions,
perspective, values, and vignettes. I struggled
with painting techniques such as wet into wet, wet into dry, dry into dry, underglazing,
overglazing, color mixing (paint and light work differently), lost and found
edges, and negative painting (basically, you paint over everything that is not
your subject). Sound confusing? Try doing it!
The workshop was great fun and I met some really nice
people, but will it change my photography?
Absolutely! I just don't yet know
how. But over time, as I ponder and
assimilate the experience, there is no question that the way I view and
photograph the world will be altered, perhaps profoundly, by what happened to me over
these four days.
I close this post by sharing more samples of what I did and by
thanking Fred Graff for warmly welcoming a non-painting photographer who had
the audacity to enroll in one of his watercolor workshops.
You can see examples of Fred's work at this link:
http://www.fredgraff.com/html/paintings.html
My photography is available at:
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