Caerus Art Picnic Images

Tags

art journal, caerus, creativity, inspiration, mixed media, photo sketchbook, photography, picnic. Spring Lake, plein air painting, Plein air sketching, sketch picnic, sketchbook project

(On a personal note: I invite all to attend my open studio at The Studio Santa Rosa this weekend  November 3rd & 4th — along with 16 other artists in my building, located at 3849 Finely Avenue, Santa Rosa.  — Karina Nishi Marcus)

Here are photos from the Caeerus Art Picnic!

Please be sure and read the blog post by Susan Cornelis for her creative impressions of the picnic!

The calmness of the water reflecting the clearness of the sky — photo by Robert Marcus

The autumn light was dappled but bright — photo by Robert Marcus

The area surrounding our picnic at Spring Lake — photo by Robert Marcus

Creativity extends to picnic food preparation — photo by Suzanne Edminster

These scary Halloween deviled eggs are also infused with gummy worms — photo by Suzanne Edminster

Spooky Spider Eggs — photo by Suzanne Edminster

These were delicious — photo by Suzanne Edminster

Process of a creative day — photo by Suzanne Edminster

An artist’s sketchbook –photo by Suzanne Edminster

Capturing the beauty of autumnal nature — photo by Suzanne Edminster

Artists posed for portraits by other artists — photo by Suzanne Edminster

Exciting to see other artists’ work in process — photo by Suzanne Edminster

Bea Tate-Endert drawing — photo by Robert Marcus

A herd of deer leaped and flashed by on either side of this table while the artists were sitting and sketching — photo by Robert Marcus

The Caerus gathering — photo by Robert Marcus

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Caerus Artist Jeremy Joan Hewes: The Camera as Sketchbook

Tags

photo sketchbook, photography, printmaking

Note from Caerus: This is a re-posting of a previous blog in a better format.

The Camera as Sketchbook

Because I’ve always been drawing-challenged, I began my artistic life as a photographer. And though my work today is mainly mixed media and printmaking, I’ve found that my camera makes a terrific sketchbook.

When it isn’t practical to use paints or pens to sketch, you can easily catch the details and the atmosphere of a scene or a place with a simple digital camera. I keep a small Canon model (SD800, now about 5 years old) in my car or in my day pack when traveling. This camera takes only JPEG images, but these are fine for most purposes and ideal for remembering what I saw in my wanderings.

In the field I take lots of photos. I often use the “multiple” setting on the camera to take many images quickly, from a variety of angles and viewpoints, and for some scenes I take a 360-degree view, making sure that I let each image overlap a part of the one before it.

At home I copy my photos from the camera to my computer and use them to discover how I might create a mixed-media piece or a printing plate. One good use for a group of photos is to understand the shape and volume of an object, such as a tree. The four images below show some variations of a nicely formed tree; they could be the raw material for a new work.

Sometimes the photo of a scene works well as the model for a painting or print; at other times, you may want to experiment with cropping a photo several ways to find a good composition. The image below is cropped from a larger original.

One other way that I use photos to explore the potential for a new piece is to modify them in a photo-editing program such as Photoshop, Photoshop Elements, iPhoto, or Picasa. These applications and others like them offer adjustments that let you see your photo in many variations. For example, if I want to make an etching plate or an image transfer, I’ll look at a black-and-white or tinted version of a photo.

Or I might want to simplify the scene to emphasize shapes and planes rather than details; using the filters or add-ons (called plug-ins) in Photoshop, I can give myself good models to work from.

If you don’t already, try using a camera as a tool for inspiration and memory, as well as a sketchbook alternative. It can give you lots of ideas and perhaps even expand your way of seeing.

http://www.jeremyjoanhewes.com

https://www.facebook.com/jeremyjoanhewes