GRBR Painting

Using Digital Tools in the Making of a Traditional Painting
by Mike Callahan

Early in the spring of 2002, I was afforded the opportunity of designing and painting the artwork for the Great Reno Balloon Race limited edition poster to celebrate the twentieth anniversary of the event at Rancho San Rafael Regional Park. The prints are sold to raise funds for the Balloon Race Committee, which organizes and promotes the event.

One of the biggest challenges I faced was gathering suitable reference material. Since the balloon races are held in early September, the park would look much different than it does in March when I had to start the painting. I was particularly grateful to have to opportunity to do the painting this year with the emphasis on Rancho San Rafael as I indirectly have a historical tie. My grandfather went to work as the ranch foreman in 1937 when Rancho San Rafael was owned by Raphael Herman and lived there with my grandmother and my father for 9 years overseeing the hay production and later the registered cattle. My grandmother raised the chickens, sold the eggs and was responsible for keeping track of the bloodlines of the cattle. They lived in what's now the little ranger's station right next to the main ranch house and though life was difficult during the depression and then WWII, they have shared fond memories of their time on Rancho San Rafael. When I go to the park, I often try to imagine what it must have been like for my dad as a kid there and as imagination often times has a dream-like quality, that's what I wanted to impart to the painting.

I knew I would be fighting my references to get the colors I needed so I decided to use digital media to assist me in my layout and use digitally altered photos for reference rather than straight shots.

Armed with a digital camera (a Nikon Cool Pix 9500) I went tot the park to gather photos. Shown right are two raw shots I wanted to use in my initial layout.

I put the two images together using Adobe Photoshop®. I also cloned some grass from another reference photo I shot (right) since they were in the process of re-seeding the area in the foreground of my desired location. I scanned some balloons from some photos I had taken many years earlier and moved them around on their own layer until I got a configuration I liked. I then began to manipulate the image - lightening it and changing my color balance and came up with the initial layout shown above. I then saved this layout as a JPEG and e-mailed it to the client for approval. The client liked the layout with the exception that they would like to see more of the buildings show through. I agreed with that and went back to the park to see if I could get a shot from a slightly different angle that might let more of the buildings show through.

I got a better angle for the buildings, but the background I wanted was going to be changed so I assembled the buildings in Photoshop® running a filter or two over them to get more of the look I wanted.

I then took artistic license and inserted the buildings into my initial layout. I also enlarged a couple of the balloons to give more depth to them. When the actual balloons mass ascend it's really quite a sight and they rapidly disperse over the park.

I toyed with the idea of a little glow around the balloons, but ultimately decided to leave them off. It was great to experiment digitally rather than to have painted the thing and then decided the glows had to go.

At this point, I was nearly ready to go to the canvas. One of the tools I often use to get from my initial layout to canvas is the opaque projector. I usually project a photo reference or a small sketch onto my canvas and then draw a lot of defining landmarks to guide me in my painting. Since this layout is rather involved and since the original will be so large (20" x 48"), I decided once again to use digital tools before proceeding.

In Photoshop®, I created a white filled layer on top of the other layers of my layout and pulled its transparency back so I could see them a little. I then used my Wacom® pen to do a digital "pencil" drawing of my reference giving myself only the details I wanted and needed. Once that was done, I printed it out on a laser printer to the maximum width that my projector would handle (only about 5") and then used that print to project onto my canvas.

Once I fixed my pencil down on my canvas, I began to paint. I mixed some green with blues, yellows, and magentas loosely with a lint-free paper towel moistened with Weber® turpentine substitute and swiftly spread a thin layer of paint over the park area and trees. I then cleaned around the top edges of the trees lifting off any paint that extended beyond them with another paper towel and turpentine substitute and then painted in the mountains and sky.

While my background color was still wet, I went in and lifted out all my tints using ordinary cotton swabs and turpentine substitute. When the swab became too saturated with color, I would merely throw it away. For areas smaller than the tip of the swab, I would tear off some of the cotton and twist the remaining cotton between my fingers to create a smaller swab.

Once I had major areas of light and dark established, I let my streaked under painting dry. I then began to systematically paint the trees, fences and buildings from the left side of the canvas to the right. Being right handed, I was able to rest my little finger on the dried portion of the painting to steady my brush without messing anything up.

Having done my initial layout and photo reference work digitally, I was able to print out my reference material and close up details of the buildings at 11" x 17" and I would hang them over the edge of my canvas for constant reference.

Next, I painted the balloons, completely inventing the patterns of the balloons. The reason I did this was so no one could say, "look, here's my balloon!" The emphasis was to be on the park. Another thing I did was to purposefully omit any unusually shaped balloons as these are generally commercial balloons and once again, I wasn't interested in promoting any commercial interest, I only wanted to emphasize the park and of course, the event in general.

Finally, I decided that the loose, "unfinished" look at the bottom of the painting wasn't working. While this technique can often times bring an emphasis to the subject of the painting, I felt it was actually distracting. So, I removed my canvas from the stretcher bars and replaced the 24" sidepieces with 20" pieces and cut off the bottom of the canvas. I then re-stretched it.

Lastly, I needed a chrome or a scan for the printer. This is where knowing what your printer will need is a must. It is also essential, if your photographer is going to use any sort of digital media, that he understand what your printer will need too. The first photographer I spoke with didn't want to shoot a 4" x 5" chrome as he has transitioned to digital and assured me he could give me a high-resolution digital file that would be more than adequate for the printer. He told me he could shoot it as high as 1000ppi (pixels per inch).

One must be aware, however, that resolution (ppi) is only one side of the coin. The other is physical dimension. In other words, a file that is 1000ppi with physical dimensions of say, 2" x 3" is only high-resolution if you are printing post cards. A file that is 1000ppi with physical dimensions of 24" x 36", on the other hand is truly high-resolution for a poster. This is a concept the first photographer had not yet grasped. He should have not been so emphatic on having transitioned from film to digital media. Below left is a detail from his "1000ppi" image that he gave me with a physical dimension on the raw shot of only 3"x2" making a 32MB file. The detail on the right is from the raw shot from a photographer who knew what he was doing. The raw shot from him was truly high-resolution weighing in at 300ppi with physical dimensions of 50"x23.5" making a 400+MB file! As you can see, there's a world of difference in the detail even shown here in a format for the web.

Moral of the story: don't trust just anyone who claims to have the expertise to shoot your artwork. Make them prove it. Refuse up front to pay for anything that is inadequate for your printer's needs to produce a quality print.

The last thing I did was to take the TIFF file from the competent photographer and place it into Adobe Illustrator® where I created the border and type for the print and scaled everything to its final size of 17"x36". It was this final Illustrator® file along with TIFF that I gave to the printer who then did an excellent job printing it on a very nice 100lb. Paper.

The balloon race committee tells me that this might well end up being their most popular print to date.