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Sunday, December 11, 2011

Burghausen Again


Burghausen Castle, 20x30, oil on linen
I discovered a funny thing while painting this piece. We were in Germany in December 2003 so I was still using film cameras at that time. I used Seattle Film to develop my negatives, and with that they offered digital images as well that they kept in albums online. So I went to the website (now owned by Shutterfly) to download the digital image so I could work from the computer. On screen there was this odd green light in the sky which is barely visible in the bottom photo and a bit more in the top photo, going across the sky about midway. In person, this green really drew the eye to it. I was trying to explain this to someone at work, as I do take paintings to work to see them from a different point of view. I sent the digital photo to my work computer to show her, but the green did not show up on my screen at work. Go figure. So I then dug around in my photo albums and found the print. The green light was not in the printed version either. But what I did discover is that the print (4x6) showed way more detail than the digital image. So from the original photo of Burghausen that I posted a month ago, I went about adding the details that were lost to me on the screen. I made the wooden covered stair way more interesting and not so flat by suggesting the boards; I discovered window boxes under the windows; and a red door in the shadows under the walkway. I had put a door there anyway but now I knew there was one and that it was red. The dark blue window bothered me so I lightened them all up a bit. I also decided to put more detail into the whole wall and lightened the tree somewhat so it wasn't quite so dark.

2 comments:

Travelingrant said...

That is very much improved! I like it a lot. Makes me rather wistful for Germany. Especially since it is almost Christmas. Hard to believe it was so long ago...

alleyrat said...

It is hard to believe it was almost 10 years ago! This painting looks better in person, of course, but it gives a good idea.