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By “Somewhere North of Tahoe, Explained”, I mean the painting, not the location. Having received permission to show you the photos supplied by the customer, I thought you might like seeing what I had to work with and the final outcome, all together in one post.
The first photo is too dark but has a dramatic sky, snow on the distant peaks, and the meadow portion is green. The second shows better detail so that I can understand the landscape.
Both appear to have been taken using a wide-angle lens. This means that distant mountains seem farther and smaller than they probably look in person.
Neither photo is the same proportions as the final painting needed to be.
Since both photos seem to have been taken from the same spot, I figured the log must be an important element. I can tell that the close shrubs are sagebrush, and the distant shrubs across the meadow are probably willows.
Most of my guesses are based on having painted similar scenes of Mineral King, but because they are guesses, I did this sketch for the customers to approve, or improve so it suited their vision.
I got lucky on two counts: 1. they liked everything; 2. they weren’t scared off by the scribbly sketch.
You saw all the steps; here is the gussied up photo when it was dry enough (and sunny enough) to take one for my records. (For some reason, the meadow appears fluorescent here, but fear not, it looks fine on the painting).
The painting was picked up by the customer on Saturday. She sent me this photo of it in place.What a terrific solution for a window that looks out onto someone else’s cobwebby wall!From this:
To this:
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