Friday, December 6, 2013

Singleton on Ice

The weather was amazingly mild with temperatures reaching 10 Celsius under overcast skies with blustery southwesterly winds. The ice on Singleton responded and drifted around. The air was full of the sound of ice edges crunching together. There was not much open water. The mergansers and the few small flocks of blacks and mallards stayed in the small patch of open water in the middle of the lake. Generally the lake was covered with jostling sheets of ice of different ages, thickness and colours. My homemade canvas had a lot of "tooth" which I really enjoyed. The canvas really grabbed the oil.

I did an experiment with another camera set up and focused to take pictures as the painting developed. This is nothing new except that it is a first for me. The act of simply "clicking" the shutter took me out of the artistic zone and I found that a bit (a lot) frustrating. I did some things and took some short cuts that I wouldn't have normally done. I was acutely aware that the camera battery was dying and the the rain showers along the approaching cold front were getting closer as well. I persisted though as I wanted to see how the experiment would turn out. This painting is more about the experiment than the art. I need to automate this entire process somehow. You can be the just whether this is worthwhile or not.

2 comments:

J & B said...

It worked very well, both painting and camera!

Aleta Karstad said...

Exciting! I would have liked a few more frames at the end though, so I could admire the finished painting before it disappeared.