Virtual Paintout - Corsica

The virtual paintout blog runs a monthly challenge where artists virtually travel to various destinations, via Google maps, and paint images using Google Street View. Artist Bill Guffey started this absolutely revolutionary concept and has been running this blog for a year now. I have always wanted to take part, and finally got to turn in my entry this month.

Corsica, France
Acrylics on Canvas Panel, 18 * 24 cms
© Nithya Swaminathan

The foremost thing that I love about the virtual paintout is that the paintings are rarely "postcard views" of a place. With Street view, you can virtually land just about anywhere within a city/town and get started from there. There is a very high degree of randomness and no two people get to paint the same view. It is also amazing that we get to "visit" so many places, albeit virtually.

The only disadvantage for me is that I am never satisfied with a reference. As and when I come across interesting snapshots, I save the image to my references. But then I do not stop there and start painting. I always want to see what more is there in the place, and end up spending obscene amounts of time on the Google maps itself! It is almost akin to traveling through the place, I spend that much time! This time too, I saved 6 snapshots and ended up painting this one. I might paint the others at a later time.

Corsica looks beautiful, with a landscape that has snow capped mountains, sea views, pretty looking houses all for good measure. Though most of the views had houses, I really liked this view which looked great with all the grazing sheep and afternoon shadows. I must also add that painting all these sheep was super fun. For the first time, I did not even attempt to give any detail whatsoever. I have only painted egg shapes in various sizes, and they look like sheep :) And boy, don't even ask me what fun it was to paint a summery scene after all the bleak looking snowscapes. I LOVED it! :)

I hope to be a regular participant in this blog henceforth :) Check out all the other paintings of Corsica, France. The paintings can also be viewed in Facebook in this album Virtual Paintout - Corsica. Let me know your feedback on this one!