Of Drift Logs, Video and Eye Candy

First the Eye Candy.
..... I had a Marker Workshop about ten days ago.  One of the ideas in my book and that I stress in class is that things catch our eye everyday but we pass them by without even a second thought....but it is those things we notice that help to form our point of view about the world.  It's what helps us see in our unique individual way.  Its eye candy to us....but maybe not anyone else.

This view of drift logs I pass by often when I walk the dog and each time I find it intriguing.  It's going to end up in paint, but first I need to study it for a bit to see what I want to say about it.  Driving back from an oil change I stopped and did this half page drawing to begin that process.  The markers make this kind of exploration much faster than a pencil and, for me, the simplification the marker pens in terms of values helps me to conceive things more abstractly.

With just three markers in three values EveryThing can't be represented exactly as we might see it.

I wanted to give the workshop participants a taste of this.  Often in these workshops we go outdoors to draw but because of the cold and rain I tried this:  A few days before I took the video camera out and set it up in two locations and just let it record...on a tripod....for thirty minutes.  At home I transferred it to an editing program and adjusted the color/values a bit.

So, without going outside we went to a shoreline and to a marina in the harbor with all the sounds, light changes, seagulls and crashing waves.  Everything was moving.  Drawing it all would have taken a lot a time.  Each person had to find their own eye candy in the scene to draw from.

Here is my rendition of the shore.  This did not have a lot of things to choose from but they all came up with differing unique views and renditions of it....which I don't have shots of.

At a different time I did a gouache painting from the video:

Hint for successful videos:  Make sure the camera is Level.  I thought I had but the vid was at a bit of a slant and, in painting it, I unconsciously didn't make the water level even though I was aware of the problem.  Ah, shucks.....

Thanks for looking.  Back soon with a portrait.