More Coastal Art Prints

This week I wanted to continue the coastal theme of the last few weeks, but am switching sides of the North American Continent to the eastern coast. The attached three prints were inspired by the inter water coastal region surrounding Martha’s Vineyard. Martha’s Vineyard is just off the coast of Massachusetts and Rhode Island. The area is interspersed with islands and is popular for boating and fishing. It’s not unusual to see large homes, as this is the summer playground for the wealthy. The setting is naturally beautiful and an artists dream to capture the look and feel of this unique New England paradise.

The first print is titled Lighthouse Point In watercolor:

Lighthouse Point in Watercolor

The second print is titled Boat Moorings:

Boat Moorings

The third print is titled Sailboat in New England.

Sailboat in New England

Thoughts?

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Subtle Abstract Shapes

This week I am posting two prints where I used the same style in creating them, but on very different subject matters. Sometimes I like to take a subject and pull it back to its basic shapes. I like this technique in keeping some consistent coloring, but still forming the shape.

The first print is a camellia bloom where I used a solid background with subtle colors forming petals and a dark color to create a leaf and stem.

Pink Camellia In Abstract

The second one is a beach scene with two people walking alone. I decided it was a father and son walking together enjoying the tranquility of an empty beach and the visual of sailboats just off the coast. I kept the colors to just a few and the shapes simple. The sky was created using two colors to suggest a low marine layer (fog) coming in just after sunset with the break in the fog showing the lighter colored sky. The father and son are suggested shapes, but do show shadows to support the lighting in the sky.

Father And Son Walk The Beach

Thoughts?

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Summer Sailing on San Diego Bay

With summer in full gear (and many parts of the planet experiencing unusual heat waves), I thought I’d cool it off slightly with gentle sea breezes gliding across San Diego Bay powering your sailboat. I have attached four art prints I recently created of sailboats on San Diego Bay. Enjoy that cool summer breeze.

The first one is looking across the bay from downtown San Diego towards Coronado Island.

The Sailboat On San Diego Bay

The next print is from the opposite perspective, looking towards downtown San Diego from Coronado Island.

Sailboat In San Diego Bay

The third and fourth art prints are multiple sailboats on the bay with the Coronado Bridge as a backdrop.

The Coronado Bridge With Sailboats

Sailing by the Coronado Bridge

Thoughts?

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Sailboats on Bellingham Bay

In keeping with the sailboat theme from last week, this week I’m attaching two prints I created of sailboats. These prints differ from last weeks post in that the technique I used on these two was a subtle watercolor. The scene is a rainy (drizzle, not heavy rain) day on Bellingham Bay. Both prints capture a subtle rainbow in the background. The technique and coloring reflect the look I saw on that day. No bright colors without full sun, but a more subdued peaceful mood with the light rain.

Bellingham Bay serves the town of Bellingham in the state of Washington. Bellingham is located just south of the Canadian Border and north of Seattle. It’s just one of the many places in the Pacific Northwest of natural beauty.

Rainy Day On The Bay

Two Sailboats On Bellingham Bay

Thoughts?

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Father And Son Walk The Beach

In keeping with the theme over the last few weeks from my posts (peace and tranquility), I’ve added an additional element this week…human interaction. This type of human interaction is rooted in love and trust. The art print depicts a father and son walking on an otherwise empty beach with the beauty of the ocean in front of them. What I see is a bonding moment between a parent and their child. The conversation can be intimate and personal as they share the beach with no one else.

In creating this scene, the focal point is the two people in the lower bottom right. Typically your focal point is more centered, but I wanted the the ocean and beach to set a mood or tone for the overall look. To create the focal point I used black as a stark contrast to the rest of the scene. In the foreground as a row of black pulling the eye down. I envisioned this as the top of bluff overlooking the setting. Pulling your eye down you can’t help but go over to the right and see what I am calling the father and son.

Since this is an abstract work, to heighten the awareness of the ocean, I added sailboats in a slightly darker shade of blue so as not to become the focal point, but to solidify the setting. I envisioned a walk on the beach just after sundown, with light coming from a break in the approaching clouds (potentially fog or a marine layer rolling ashore).

Thoughts?

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Sailing San Diego Bay

Last weeks post of the Oregon Coastline invoked a sense of serenity and in keeping with that theme, this week I am posting two captures of sailboats on San Diego Bay. These scenes are clearly different than last weeks, but invoke the same sense of serenity to me. I can just feel the peacefulness as the boats slip through the water with a gentle ocean breeze caressing my face.

Sailing In San Diego Bay

This first capture was taken from Seaport Village just south of downtown looking across the bay to Coronado Island.

The second capture is reversed if you will. This capture was taken from Coronado Island looking back at downtown San Diego.

Sailing San Diego Bay Skyline

Thoughts?

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Lighting Changes – Sailboats on San Diego Bay

I wanted to share some captures I took of sailboats on San Diego Bay last October. What the pictures show is a change in look of the same subject matter in the same location by the lighting in the sky.

These pictures were all taken from an area near downtown looking across the bay at Coronado Island. There is always some type of craft movement in the bay be it small sailboats, larger yachts, military air carriers or cruise ships. This particular day I was focused on sailboats and the sky. I noticed the cloud structures were changing as the day went from morning to afternoon. There was a remnant of a tropical storm coming from the Baja of Mexico just south of San Diego.

San Diego Bay Sailboat

In this first capture, the sun is out and the fluffy clouds from that system make a great backdrop.

San Diego Bay Sailboats 2

This shot was taken within about an hour of the first one. The sun is still out, but notice the change in the clouds. There is a high level of gray coming in on top of the fluffy clouds.

San Diego Bay Sailboats 3

I added this shot for a couple of reasons. The first reason was I love the look of this restaurant sitting on peers jutting out into the bay and the second reason is because at this point it was lunch time. I want to point out that this shot was taken very shortly after the last shot and notice the change in color of the bay. The sun was beginning to go under the approaching high level clouds…see the difference .

In the time I took for lunch and came back to capturing some sailboats, the last capture is what I took.

San Diego Bay Sailboats 4

Same area as the first shots, but see the difference in the color of the bay? It goes from a deep blue to more of a gray color. Even in the sails, the brilliant white of the sails is subdued. I thought this would be a great example of how important lighting is to the final outcome of a picture when shooting outdoors. There are subject matters that look better in indirect lighting and some landscapes look better with horizontal lighting (sunrise or sunset timeframes).

Thoughts?

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Summer Remembered – Featured Art Prints

As we head deeper into fall, with winter right around the corner, I wanted to take a look back at the summer. I decided to feature some prints I did from our summer excursion into the Pacific Northwest…reference two prior posts: Henry Island to Anacordes and Roche Harbor . The theme is nautical and warm. The prints I decided to feature today are all done using a fauvism technique. Fauvism was used by a group of modern artists in the early twentieth century. It favored painterly qualities with strong colors over realistic values, giving an abstract feel to a print.

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The first print is of Roche Harbor on San Juan Island. The harbor is clearly a haven for numerous boats.

Roche Harbor

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The second print is the same harbor, but with a different perspective. This scene is looking across the bay to Henry Island in the background. The other side of Henry Island faces Vancouver Island in British Columbia, Canada.

Roche Harbor Looking At Henry Island

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With the third print, the setting is much more subdued with a single sailboat navigating the waters around San Juan Island.

Sailboat From San Juan Island

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The fourth art print takes us back to Seattle on Lake Union. The scene depicts a sailboat with a group of guys enjoying the sun and water (they were packing a large water blaster to soak passing boats all in good fun), with the Space Needle in the background.

Seattle Sailing

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The fifth and final print, also from Lake Union depicts a guy kayaking with his dogs. What could be more fun than that?

A Man His Kayak and Dogs

Thoughts?

I invite you to visit my Lighthouse/Nautical Gallery to enjoy these prints and many more.

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Sailboats on San Diego Bay – Excerpts from a Photo Shoot

I wanted to continue the theme of “cropping” pictures from last weeks “Photo Excerpts” blog. The backdrop this week is sailboats on San Diego Bay. I thought these shots would display great examples of how to take a “blah” photo and by cropping it, turn it into a “wow” photo. I added one more element to this week’s example; the finished photographs are done in black and white. There is a method to my madness in that I am using real examples of a project I just completed for a client.

A client of mine from Southern California has a series of black and white prints I did for them last year. They are getting ready to add a new series of prints to another wall and know that I have done a lot of photography around San Diego. This client asked if I had any black and white shots of sailboats on San Diego Bay in the same size ratio that was purchase in their other series. As I always do, I started digging through the archives and found the original shots I have attached. In looking at these shots, it’s clear why I had not done anything with them, they are pretty boring. The good news is that I knew I had done that series in RAW format, which gives me a very high resolution, so I knew I could play with cropping them to focus on the sailboats.

Sailboat 1

This first shot is the original photograph. You have two sailboats in the right of the frame with the Coronado Bridge in the background, which connects the mainland with Coronado Island. Again, I am working with a specific size ratio in these particular cropping’s, so they are all consistent with the original series purchased.

Sailboat 2

The second shot is the cropped version and in black and white. What a huge difference. This shot tells a story with the sailboats as the focal point. The sky has been cropped to less prominence and most of the background noise in the left side of the frame has been eliminated. As a side note: If I wasn’t working to a specific size ratio for this project, I would have instinctively cropped this shot into a square to keep the sailboats more prominent. But that said, by cropping it this way it is works better in the series the client was interested in.

Sailboat 3

The third shot is more sailboats with the Coronado Bridge in the background. The cropping involved reducing the sky and water to bring the sailboats into the center frame, resulting in the fourth shot.

Sailboat 4

Sailboat 5

In the fifth picture, we have a group of three sailboats lost in the left side of the frame.

Sailboat 6

The final shot shows them commanding the picture by eliminating the same sky and excess water, but in this one there was too much unneeded noise in the right side of the frame.

The series as a whole comes out balanced and consistent. Each shot has been taken from a “blah” shot to a photograph of sailboats dominating the scene and creating a visual story. Thoughts?

 

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