THE BRIDGE AT LAUGHARNE

Still works - don't know about you, but I find photographing paintings difficult; there's always something not quite right, for better or worse. I've never seriously tried gouache - and I really must.

On Wet Canvas a friend of mine suggested i tried it as i found Watercolour so difficult and always used it in a bold and heavy manner - that's just me, it's how I do things, just comes naturally. I was unsure at first as when wet gouache seems murky and dead. Especially over other layers. Yet when it is dry, the day after, it seems to show the colours more purely. I used W & N Artists Gouache and also some DR Gouache. I take the photos during natural daylight propped up vertically and from a 90 degree square angle form a distant of around 6 feet. I have the white balance set to daylight and use portrait mode. i then crop the edges. Sometimes there is some colourshift. which I can later in Photoshop by looking at the paitning from the same distance and comparing. Of course it will never be perfect because it depends on monitor settings. Sometimes I do not have a very steady hand though so they lose something. Having said all that, I did a photo and a flat bed scan and preferred the scan of the 2. Some paintings and some colours just don't photocopy well and we could fiddle forever. Some just have to be seen 'in the flesh'

This is the scan I need to edit the above. I have a high quality scanner but it is like viewing from close up, which is why I prefer to photograph.

Just lovely Lin, I do all my drawings sat in my armchair, then I have to go into the studio if I want to paint.