Pix into Paintings
A History of Professional and Cultural Leavings and Returnings
I have long had an interest in art and first became interested in photography when I was with the Marine Corps in Iwakuni, Japan. There I worked in the base’s small darkroom doing my own film developing and enlarging of black and white photos as a hobby. Later, after leaving the service and bicycling alone across the US and around Germany and Scandinavia, I returned to Japan where I went to an international college followed by starting a family and working at a school in Tokyo, teaching English and computer skills. After more than two decades in that country I came back again to the United States in the mid 1990’s and have since then lived and worked in the Bay Area. I am employed with the U.S. Forest Service.
For several years, I left behind photography and became involved with oil painting of land and seascapes plus occasional floral arrangements. These past ten years or so, I have come back to photography mixing that love with painting through the technology of computers. Trading in the smell of turpentine and linseed oil for the faint hum of a computer, the brushstrokes of a filbert brush for the movements of an electronic stylus.
The Process
While I utilize various image software programs for any one piece, there is no mathematical formula for me to determine how far I move from a “pure” photograph to a “painting” or chalk “drawing.” The outcome is always somewhere in between.
Listening to people’s reactions can be entertaining as they go from “Is that a painting?” to “It’s a photo! No, it’s a painting! Wait a minute, which is it?” The answer is that it is both. I hope you have fun looking at the pictures in this website.
I continually am creating new pieces and upload frequently. I appreciate your checking back routinely!
Jeffrey DeSalles