Photos Lie!

(At left) "Parisian Houseboat"
Watercolor on Aquabord
9" x 12"
Nancy Wernersbach©2010
(At right) photo taken on my France trip last year


Wow I haven't been back blogging for a while, but life intervenes when you're making other plans. Had my hands full clearing out and finally selling my parents house (40+ years of stuff!) and get moved into my new condo. I'm out of most of the boxes now and getting my life going at last. While framing this painting I was reminded of how photos can really mess up the impact of a scene that you want to paint. The Eiffel Tower is a massive structure (I remember seeing the tip of it pointing through the clouds as the plane came in over Paris), surprising in its size because all photos and tv pictures throw it into the distance and make it appear quite small.
I had a wonderful trip with a group of artists lead by artist Charles Gruppe to Paris, Honfleur and Trouville last year and we got out to paint one morning across the bridge from the Eiffel Tower and down on the dockside of the Seine. I'm glad I made an oil sketch while there, because when I went back and looked at my photo the size and scale of the Tower was completely off (And the water really is a beautiful teal green and the Tower a burnt sienna brown and one more thing: the sky was a pale peach down at the horizon and a soft gray above, so the colors in photos can be totally off as well). I chose to do the painting over in watercolor to really get into the details of the scene. The Ampersand Aquabord is a great choice as you can wipe off mistakes and lift highlights easily.
Happy Painting!
Nancy