Christmas Magic mural at Rocky Ridge Park
Rocky Ridge is part of the York County Park PA System. I've been volunteering and doing art for Nixon Park (the York County Parks educational center) for years. In The Year Of The Plague, 2020, Christmas Magic opens as usual, with its wooded trail of lights and displays. It began years ago during an energy crisis, a place to enjoy Christmas lights when you couldn't fill your own yard. It's also a great excuse to get out of the house and on a trail in the winter. At night.
This year, there are no indoor venues, no food vendors and no Santa. So what do we do about Santa?
Instead of a mere cardboard standee to take your pic in front of, let's do a whole woodland mural with animals that are actually from the area, and might be ween in the parks in winter.
There are no bears, groundhogs or reptiles, they're all hibernating. Bobcats are in PA, though generally farther north. Ravens are seen at the Rocky Ridge hawk watch (two of the crows in the picture morphed into ravens). The whitetail deer are in their umber tree bark colored winter coats rather than the bright chestnut of summer.
I did the rough on Photoshop, and it has a nifty brush tool that makes little stars... so stars ended up all over in the finish. For awhile, I contemplated doing actual constellations, but some of the lights are faerie lights, and some might be stars peeking through the trees, so I left it more magical.
Santa began as a more traditional medieval or Victorian style St. Nicholas/Father Christmas rather than Coca Cola Santa with a wreath around his head and green robes with a leaf print. Many people considered the red Santa to be more recognizable, but his red got toned down to a natural leaf color, or the deeper glowing red I saw on some yard flowers one day.
We began with 8 x 4 vertical plywood panels with shorter side wings, then it morphed into four 8 x 4 panels. It was framed up in back to support it, and sandbagged to steady it while I painted it in the basement of Nixon Park. The panels were primed, I added a layer of white, and the black woods at the top third. Gradually, the snow shadows were added to make it look more realistic, and to cut down the snow/beach burnout effect. If you shoot a subject against snow or pale sand, your automatic camera/cell phone will read the whole thing... mostly pale... and your subjects will be dark shadows. With the snow toned down to about 30% on the grey scale, exposures should be easier to set.
Originally a bench was supposed to be set in an empty space under the blue heron. It eventually seemed like a problem: a space people would land on and not move fast enough to let the next group in, a high touch zone (germs!), and allowing people to simply stand where they wished gives everyone more flexibility in their photographs.
Here's the progression...
This year, there are no indoor venues, no food vendors and no Santa. So what do we do about Santa?
Instead of a mere cardboard standee to take your pic in front of, let's do a whole woodland mural with animals that are actually from the area, and might be ween in the parks in winter.
There are no bears, groundhogs or reptiles, they're all hibernating. Bobcats are in PA, though generally farther north. Ravens are seen at the Rocky Ridge hawk watch (two of the crows in the picture morphed into ravens). The whitetail deer are in their umber tree bark colored winter coats rather than the bright chestnut of summer.
I did the rough on Photoshop, and it has a nifty brush tool that makes little stars... so stars ended up all over in the finish. For awhile, I contemplated doing actual constellations, but some of the lights are faerie lights, and some might be stars peeking through the trees, so I left it more magical.
Santa began as a more traditional medieval or Victorian style St. Nicholas/Father Christmas rather than Coca Cola Santa with a wreath around his head and green robes with a leaf print. Many people considered the red Santa to be more recognizable, but his red got toned down to a natural leaf color, or the deeper glowing red I saw on some yard flowers one day.
We began with 8 x 4 vertical plywood panels with shorter side wings, then it morphed into four 8 x 4 panels. It was framed up in back to support it, and sandbagged to steady it while I painted it in the basement of Nixon Park. The panels were primed, I added a layer of white, and the black woods at the top third. Gradually, the snow shadows were added to make it look more realistic, and to cut down the snow/beach burnout effect. If you shoot a subject against snow or pale sand, your automatic camera/cell phone will read the whole thing... mostly pale... and your subjects will be dark shadows. With the snow toned down to about 30% on the grey scale, exposures should be easier to set.
Originally a bench was supposed to be set in an empty space under the blue heron. It eventually seemed like a problem: a space people would land on and not move fast enough to let the next group in, a high touch zone (germs!), and allowing people to simply stand where they wished gives everyone more flexibility in their photographs.
Here's the progression...
Photoshop roughs
finish for comparison
