Apr 28 2007
Lighthouses in Painting, Photography, Art and Life
I love lighthouses – the only one I have ever seen from a distance has been the privately owned lighthouse at Bolivar Point here in Texas – you can see it from the ferry between Galveston and Bolivar, you can see it from Galveston Island and you can see it from the highway in Bolivar. To me, it looks very dark and gothic looking even in the bright sunshine. This lighthouse is made of iron so it is quite rusty and the rust has turned to a black-dark color at least from a distance against the sky – on gray cloudy days – it can look rather frightening even – it looks like a stark tower of sad darkness to me. It is not a bright and cheerful sight when I see it. The Texas State Historical Association has a lot of information on all the Texas lighthouses if you are interested. The Lighthouse Directory has information on lighthouses all over the world for those who like to know more about them – I have been slowly reading about all of them – I started in Texas which is where I live.
Lighthouse photography to me, whether film or digital, is not about the camera or the method of capture being film or digital – it is about telling a story, showing us what is interesting about the lighthouse itself or the area where it sits that you found & want to share with the world. Sometimes that story is about light, brightness, glorious ocean views and majestic lighthouses standing tall against the horizon. Sometimes it is about taking the photographic image and enhancing something in the photo to make it even more interesting … my friend Lehane Corley McCourt has done that with this lighthouse and it is spectacular – it makes me feel as if I can see the lighthouse doing it’s job along the coast, protecting ships from shoals & reefs … this was done beautifully and even though it really isn’t the colors one would expect in actual true to life nature … it appears very natural and realistic and as if it were a photograph of an actual nature light show event.
Today’s featured art is Old Scituate Light Aura by Lehane Corley McCourt
Lighthouses in art – I’ve done a few lighthouse from a distance type paintings (no pictures – I sold them without photographing them – this was before digital photography and I just did not think of doing so at the time). Lighthouses are not easy to portray well sometimes … getting the perspective and shape correct is very hard for me. I usually always try to put palm trees covering up about half of it or I make it so far in the distance that it doesn’t matter if it is a touch lopsided. 
The Talent Teacher website has a step by step how to paint a lighthouse – this is about the way I do it … except a lot more distance (more towards the “back” of the painting and probably a lot more lopsided for mine! I have to do a lot of re-working on any lighthouses I paint to get them to be at all acceptable.
Digital painting of lighthouses – I haven’t tried this yet – it just hadn’t crossed my mind to paint lighthouses in my Corel Painter X program yet … I’m still learning how to use it and since I do not have a lot of time, I spend most of my time painting instead of thinking up new topics to paint and learning new ways to paint them as well .. hmmm … not sure that is very understandable English. I paint instead of experimenting with topics and tools. Maybe that is better 
Many times, lighthouses will be in a remote area that needs a bridge or ferry to reach the lighthouse. I am thinking that I will try painting a lighthouse on an island with a bridge from one land mass to another – I haven’t sketched it out yet to see if I can make it a workable idea or not – I plan to do it in Painter using my Wacom Intuos graphic tablet. Anyway, I found a lighthouse lesson for use in computer paint programs at Reflections Hawaii. She hasn’t done it in Painter but it can be adapted to another computer program like Corel Painter or Adobe PhotoShop – generally they all do the same thing but a bit differently in how to approach accomplishing the same things.
