I’ve been using Google Maps to prepare for the trip in September and have been thinking about how amazing it is to have the Internet as a resource. With Google Maps, anyone anywhere can zoom in on an area of the globe and get a small preview of what they might expect.
Recently I found another great website, the California Coastal Records Project. You can view the entire California coast from a helicopter viewpoint and see some great detail of the terrain. I spent an hour flipping through the entire coast of California from Crescent City to San Diego looking for some possible painting spots. It’s like I’ve already been on the trip… well, minus the weather, the sunburn, and ah.. everything else.
We are pretty lucky to live in this time of such impressive technology. Makes me wonder how we lived without these things. I wonder what the great artist’s of the past would have searched for if they had been living now. What would John Singer Sargent have googled?
Beach at Capri, 1878 – John Singer Sargent
By the way the link below shows where Sargent painted the above painting. I’ve never been to the Island of Capri but my wife tells me it’s really beautiful. At least I can peak at it from here, thousands of miles away. Pretty cool.
Justin,
Thanks for sharing your talent to everybody. It really shows in your painting that this passion you have for painting is just all over you. You’re so inspiring and extremely contagious. I started a daily painting blog a while back but am often discouraged and disheartened at the results that its hard to just keep it going.
Btw, I wanted to know how many sketches or studies do you do during these painting sessions?
Your stuff is great. Keep up the good work.
Thanks Fernan,
I find the best thing to do is to shoot for the best painting you can each time you paint but when you’re done don’t expect perfection. Otherwise, frustration is inevitable. Even then we all feel it sometimes. Keep it up and over time you’ll see improvement… that’s also inevitable.
As far as sketches go…. well, I usually only paint one painting per session… if that’s what you were asking. I also don’t do any preliminary sketches before I paint.