Bailey's newest piece

[James C.]

40x60 inches, oil on canvas
great blue heron

ref photo was taken at our favorite spot in the family's marina
I appologize for the sub par photo quality (wet paint = too shiny, dreary basement lighting = not the best)
ENJOY! this one is going up in a new gallery in Marblehead, OH.

[BVanKirk]

yeahhhh not a great photo, having super bad problems with overly yellow lighting... wish i knew more about this stuff

[Ross Vogler]

Bailey, what are you shooting with?

[rnviper3]

bad lighting or not.  that is a beautiful piece of art.  thank you for sharing. 

[Chops]

beautiful and it's a still alive... very cool

[Jon S]

WOW, 40 x 60 is huge. Great work.

[BVanKirk]

Bailey, what are you shooting with?

The reference shot was taken with a Canon T3i with 70-200mm f/2.8L IS.


Photo of the painting was taken with the same camera with kit lens.  Lighting was the primary problem. 

It's an entry level camera but we got a really good deal on it.  Will probably pick up a Canon D5 eventually.  Nice thing about Canon is lens compatibility.  

[ChrisNeff_FCO]

The problem you are having with the yellow cast to the photos is because the lights are incandescent.   I'm not familiar with the camera you are using but there may be an option to adjust for incandescent lighting.   If my memory is correct the icon for this should look like a typical lightbulb.   A better camera will not help with the lighting issue though.   Something else you can try is to balance the incandescent lighting with florescent lighting (which creates a green/blue cast).   If balanced right the two should cancel each other out.   You can also look for lights that are daylight balanced.   They will not create a color cast in your photos.

I love all the paintings you've done, and hope to see some photographic work from the two of you soon.

[RageofAnath]

Take the photo outside, "daylight" lightbulbs, and also Photoshop can correct the colors.

Daylight light bulbs are not that expensive and if you paint inside you should use them. There are other more expensive color corrected lights but daylight bulbs are a reasonable cheap solution. Also it would help if you diffused the light a bit more, it would remove some of the glare. An easy way to do this is to put a large piece of paper over your light source like a photographer's umbrella. Be careful about not letting the paper heat up too much but with most lights this shouldn't be much of an issue.

[Ken Edwards]

I love your paintings!

If your photo includes a small piece of white paper in the corner, you can easily "white balance" the image in Photoshop by clicking on Image > Adjustments > Levels and choosing the White Eyedropper icon. Click the eyedropper in a white area of the photo and the color balance of the entire image will be automatically adjusted. On your image, I clicked the white eyedropper on the highlight of rocks at the heron's feet, and this was the result.

[Vicki Chritton-Myers]

Love the technique! Gorgeous painting! =)

[Lisa M]

I really like that you're doing live animals.      Expanding your repertoire is a good thing.