Recently, I have found a great deal of my time consumed with the minutia of planning overseas trips to Norway and Namibia. I suppose I should have expected this but, my only prior experience with overseas travel was a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away on a large grey boat and there were no concerns about things like passports, airline tickets or hotel accommodations.
Ostensibly, the purpose of these trips is to gather source imagery for paintings using my iPhone camera. The camera, Photoshop and Lightroom comprise a digital sketch pad that has become an important part of the process of my making a painting. Prior to traveling, It seemed wise to attempt a project that would improve my rather rudimentary photographic skills.
Some time ago (at least a couple of decades), I created a logo for my friends at Williams Soaring Center. I decided that a good way to move forward with my iPhone photography skills would be to circle back and try to recreate the logo using a digital sketch pad approach.
The logo started as a grayscale image. Around 2016 it morphed into the color version, and I choose to think the glider is silhouetted against the moon.
So, the project became one of taking a photograph of the moon rising over the Sutter Buttes. I also needed to gain experience using a cool photography planning app called PhotoPills. PhotoPills allows one to determine when and where to stand to get things like the full moon and the Sutter Buttes to line up as desired.
The line of sight from Williams Soaring Center works, but the distance from the Buttes is too great even with a telephoto lens. PhotoPills informed me that the next full moon would not rise over the Buttes until February 12th, so there was time to take an exploratory trip to scout possible locations for the shoot. It looks like the best location is either along the access road to the Colusa Wildlife Refuge
…or from Butte Slough Rd. along the levy east of the Sacramento River.
Following this research on the ground, it seemed fitting (and kind of fun) to do a little aerial reconnaissance with Ben, the lead flight instructor at Williams.
An unexpected bonus of the flight was finding some combination of smoke and atmospheric haze to the west of Williams looking towards Clear Lake. The image below is an example of how the digital sketch pad works.
The original photograph was substantially modified in Photoshop and printed. The print was then mounted on a plywood panel, sealed and augmented with acrylic paint. This small (16”x20”) work will serve as a study for a large-scale canvas.
Hopefully I can complete the photographic recreation of the logo prior to taking off for Norway in March. The large-scale canvas will have to wait until my return, but the small-scale study will be at ARTHOUSE with me on Second Saturday February 12 from 5 to 8PM. Stop by and say hello.