Tag: sycamore

Moonlight

Night is always mysterious and exciting.  The moon overhead – clouds – wind- the creaking of branches – the rustles in the undergrowth.  This is what I decided to try, using an old sycamore tree as the subject, and a bit of my imagination.

First step was to decide on colors, and approach.  I decided warm undertones for the tree and the sky.  I used a bit of Quinacridone gold and Yellow Ochre for a thin wash.  From there, successive glazes in Ultramarine Blue, Indrathene Blue, and Carbazole Violet.  As things progressed, some Burnt Sienna.  You can see the different layers below.

Fallen

At times I used a hair dryer to dry the layers . . . other times I painted as I held the hair dryer.  I used rounds, flats, and finally a rigger brush (for the very first time!)  It was okay to use the rigger in the background, but crossing it along the bottom of the tree – I don’t know – I think it detracts from the rest of the tree – hard to say at the moment.

 

Negative Painting & Glazing

This morning I decided to do a few things I haven’t been too fond of in the past.  One is negative painting.  The other is using glazes.  That’s what I did here.  The first layer was a warm yellowish wash, very thin.  From there, about 3 or 4 consecutive layers of blues and violets around the main trunks, and then over the ones to the sides, making them bluish.  I then used a rigger brush (for the first time) to create branches.

Overall, the picture works, but the areas I can say shouldn’t have happened are the branches in front of the central trunk.  The other thing I need to do is to create better contrast on the branches, in particular it seems on the right.  I would like to see more blue in there, in narrow strips using a flat brush.  I may do that later.

The idea behind this painting a sycamore tree in moonlight, with the above exercises to accomplish it.  I thought ahead more than I usually do, considering colors and such, as well as the approach to creating what I desired as an end product.

About to Fall

Last week I took five rolls of film for processing.  This was taken with Kodak UltraMax 400 with an Olympus Trip 35.  It was a dark and stormy day when I wandered out, but even with 400 iso film, the images came back extremely noisy.  I had to do a bit of work to get the roll even somewhat acceptable, in my eyes, but some of the pictures were really nice.

My cheap “go to” films for 135 are Kodak UltraMax 400 and Agfa Vista 200, but I think I am going to use up the UltraMax to see how it works in different cameras.  It could be that the Olympus was at fault as it died a bit later.  I don’t want to just be done with it, but want to see if there are other issues involved.

This sycamore curves and twists over a steep fall into a barranca.  How it hangs on is rather amazing!  And when the leaves change, it is a stunningly beautiful tree.

In case you don’t know, I absolutely love trees.

 

Sycamore

sycamore

Another image from the Moonrise Trail.  Because it varies from sunny to shady, it’s a great place to play with exposure and other photo-y things, like compensation, speed, and aperture.

This was taken using the Canonet GIII QL17, Agfa Vista 200, and scanned at home using the Pakon NonPlus.  Some tweaks in LR and On1.