Have you been to the Virtual Paintout blog [Virtual Paintout] yet? I am hooked on the concept, but haven't submitted anything so far. Blogger Bill Guffey hosts the site and challenges artists to use the Street View of Google Maps to locate a "site" and do a virtual plein aire image of what the artists find in the designated city of the month.
The current city is Cape Town South Africa, and Bill has a Google map on his site on which to clack and get the Street View. I toyed with the function for a while, and found lots of suburban streets, some highways, etc, and one or two terrific views of the ocean. What I really wanted to find was people, and indeed I did. Remarkable. I "went" to the City Center, and and found some shopping streets, and just roamed the streets to find some local color. I did find some wonderful images, and THOUGHT I lifted them correctly, downloaded them into Photoshop to tweak and rotate, retaining the street info, etc., and thought about how I might paint them. Then, I went back to the Virtual Paintout to review the protocols. I found out that I didn't identify the images correctly, so I can't use the ones I lifted to submit. I now know what to do to use an image for the paintout, but can't find the original images again! Oh well, I WILL do it correctly soon, and I still may paint the ones I found.
Even though I may missed painting something for the blog, I had a lovely virtual visit to Cape Town, and can't wait for what's next! So far, there are some marvelous paintings done by artists who have figured it all out. Wouldn't it be fun to join them?
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