April 2010 ADNW Painting Challenge

April Challenge - Sedona Sunrse

Sorry folks! I am a day late because I have been going crazy going through the more than 700 pictures I have taken in the last four days. Due to the poll results last month, I wanted to give you a nice landscape to paint for April. Sedona is amazing! My best shots were at sunrise and sunset. This month’s picture was literally taken from the back deck of the place we stayed. The property backs onto Red Rock Park so this is what we woke up to in the morning!

To make this challenge particularly fun, I waited for the moment when the edges of the rock formations were alive in morning light. I then quickly downloaded the pictures to my Mac laptop and processed them to match what I saw from the deck. Depending on the calibration of your monitor, this photo is an honest digital interpretation of the scene. My feeling is that it is as close to plein air without being there. When I paint this, my plan is to look for the subtle color differences in the planes of the rocks to get them modeled correctly. If you look at this in a photo program, you will see the shadows are teaming with color that will keep them interesting on the canvas!

Below is another reference for you in case you would like to place some additional foreground decoration. This one was taken slightly earlier and I like the way the light dances on the ground on this one.

April 2010 challenge alternate reference

To be extra geeky, below is the value histogram of the photo. You can see that there is a lot of information in the photo across the entire spectrum. That is what we want!

Good shadow and light in the April Challenge photo

Please use the form below to submit your painting by the last day of April. Your picture should be a high-quality jpg image that is at least 480 pixels along its longest dimension at 72 pixels per inch.

Just click the image for a higher resolution version. Let me know by comment if you need anything else!

Have fun,
Lee

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