Fall Color Inspirations

Driving down the road on my way back from inspirational workshops at Art of the Carolinas in Raleigh, I am struck by the beauty of fall and the colors which pervade nature at this time of year.

I am reminded that simply recording what is can be the best and biggest challenge of being an artist. However, being a painter can allow you some license to "improve on what really is". This process has also been referred to as "imagineering". I love the freedom I have as a painter to move things around and play with composition. Taking liberties to manipulate where things lie and how they interact in order to move your eye to where I'd like it to rest. This is the challenge and the gift to those of us trying to be artists...to go beyond what is to what could be.

I use Picasa photo editing quite a bit in my playing around with images. For example, look at the before and after images here. Before editing above. After editing below. As you can see, cropping and enhancing can make a very gray and boring photo into something spectacular. If you haven't ever looked into Picasa's photo editing potential, I encourage you to take advantage of this free and intuitive program. It's a google product and interfaces with with all Windows based and Android operating systems. I haven't had any real problems with Apple interface, but can't speak to it's user friendliness. I'll include a link at the end of this blog.

If you feel inspired to record the beauty of the season using a brush and paint, think about joining me in one of my classes this week. I will be demonstrating a lesson on painting fall foliage in my evening class on Wed. 11-14-12 at 5:30PM and again on Thursday in my new Open Studio class at 12:30 PM. This new class begins 11-15-12.

Come celebrate the beauty of the season with me!

Here is the link I promised to download Google's Picasa Photo Editing software- I hope it helps you have fun and take your dull photos and make them into something inspirational!

Picasa download Link