During the hot days this summer my husband and I like to make road trips to the Oregon Coast. When we make a stop, a favorite walk of ours is the Salishan Nature Trail. The daisys are in the parking lot of the Salishan Market Place and Spa. The trail head almost hidden is in back of the market between the golf course and Siletz bay.
A great view for a picture is always had from the nature trail on a man made dike upon which the trail heads towards Gleneden Beach. Costal pines frame the shallow bay. Many birds are often sighted. Very nice for painting, not. Many dog owners from the area walk their dog here and the trail is narrow and I do not want to remain on the trail when golfers are unable to control their balls.
The groomed golf course lawn is like a canvas for interesting shaped shadows. Even though the photos are interesting they do not compare with what I could imagine in paint. The darks in my digital photographs are flat dark. In the real world the dark areas contain greater variety of color hues and relatively light areas.
I could just use the photos to remind me of the place and go home and paint from the photo and memory. I have done that but the number of possible pictures I see and photograph are a problem for me because I go around happily imaging paintings everywhere I look and I have only a few hours to paint and a few surfaces ready for paint.
As incomplete are my photos in comparison to what I might paint, I am happy to photograph what interests me as a fun thing to do as a completely different thing than my usual painting process.
On the dunes of Salishan Ocean Beach I photographed more pictures that excited me. Maybe my peaked interest in lines recently caused me to select subjects that were strongly linear.
The photos of Salishan Gleneden Beach are finished and I have no desire to copy them in paint especially since on this walk I sketched. For awhile I found a log in the shade where I could sit and sketch. This sketch, if I should paint this from memory, contains a useful selection of color values from dark to light, textural patterns, and an interpretattion of movement that is all over the picture. It is an unfinished sketch and could be a guide to important pictorial considerations that would not show up in a photograph because of either not enough definition in the dark areas or if the darks are visible the light areas would be too light.
Photos do not hold
enough of what I care about. I like experiencing the place and my own immediate emotional reaction. I like to feel the energy of the place flow through my body as I draw.
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