Painting Sensational Shadows

(click on image to enlarge)

Ballooning over the Masai Mara

Watercolour and ink

©1996 Charlene Brown

Our most spectacular game viewing in Kenya was from a hot air balloon – just as the sun was rising. The close-up view of the wild animals from directly overhead is truly unique.  Admittedly, some of the ‘impact’ of a giraffe’s neck is lost from this angle, but you get it all back in its sensational early-morning shadow.  At this time of day, the impalas, the trees and the two balloons cast pretty impressive shadows as well. Painting this wondrous sight, which I did not attempt in the basket of the balloon, was quite a challenge. But the shadows were a little easier to figure out after I determined from my photographs that they all extended toward a vanishing point at eye level.  And because we were in a balloon, eye-level was slightly above the horizon…