Painting 24

Rustic Door, 22" x 28"
The subject matter is not my own, but from a photo I purchased from istockphoto.com. I thought it was a beautiful photo and I wanted to capture the rustic details and textures with paint. So I broke my vow of only painting from my own source materials. The lesson I learned while painting this scene is about distortion of photos. My instructor had discussed this on occasion, and I've noted the issue with photos since I've started looking for this. Angles, proportion, shadows and color can all be distorted. Once I had completed the painting, I noticed the strangeness of seeing so much of the under arch at the top of the door and then so much of the top of the steps at the bottom. It just didn't seem natural to me. To me, we shouldn't see so much of the top step, but that was probably a trick of the camera lens, a little bit of a fish eyed effect, and something I wasn't aware of to correct until it was too late. Drawing correctly is so important to painting and you really must pay attention to what needs to be corrected in a photo before you begin the painting. Lesson learned, but still often ignored! : ) Besides that issue, I loved the weathered walls and brick and the rustic door, all these very successfully executed in my opinion. A nice color scheme and composition. As I finished this painting, I don't know if I decided I wanted to "make it my own" or if I thought the subject matter was too boring, but after discussing this with my class mates. I decided to add an additional element. I wanted to do a pot of flowers on the steps, but some thought that covering too much of the wall would be a shame. So we talked and I debated and finally came up with a pair of boots. Boots! What is that style, I don't know. Looks like pirate boots. Why boots, I keep asking. Why not a cat, a basket, a dead bird? Anything but those stupid boots. So in my previous posting about straying from the photo for laughable results, this is it. In the end, it was a painting that just didn't connect with me because I was just recreating a nice photo that was not my own. I can't really begin to sell it as my own work, even with the addition of the foot gear. Door are good subject matter though, and my boots off to those artist who make door paintings work!