Sunset in Pixels

Posted on March 2, 2012 by Meghan

As I was browsing Pinterest this afternoon, looking for something to do for today’s project, I came across this pin, which led me to this post on Wit & Whistle about pixel painting. The basic idea is to scale a photograph down to just a few pixels, and then paint the resulting image onto a grid using watercolors. What you end up with is an abstract of the image that retains the feel of the photograph. Here’s the original photo I used:

January sunset at Rockaway Beach, Oregon

I rescaled it to 11 pixels wide by 8 pixels high, and ended up using a grid of 1-inch squares – that just happened to be what would fit on the paper I was using (and made it super easy to draw the grid). Then I painted the image, square by square. Here’s what I ended up with:

I like it. The image is a little washed out and funky in spots because I scanned it instead of taking a photograph, so I think it looks better in person. It was a fun project and I’d like to try it again with another image. The only uncomfortable part is that since I don’t have a laptop, I had to sit at the computer desk to paint so that I could see the image on the screen and its not the best set-up. When I paint the next one I’ll have to figure out a better painting area. The other thing I’m thinking is – what a cool quilt this could make! That might just be crazy talk though!

Edited 6/4/1012 – I made another pixel painting of a cafe sign in Red Lodge, MT.

Category: paint it Tags: beach, sunset, watercolors

7 Comments on “Sunset in Pixels”

Amanda (Wit and Whistle)
March 2, 2012

Awesome, Meghan! It looks great! 🙂
- Meghan
  March 2, 2012
  
  Thank you! And really, thanks again for such a great idea!
Anonymous
March 2, 2012

such a good idea! Love it!
Susanne
- Meghan
  March 2, 2012
  
  Thank you!
nanasewn
March 24, 2013

Any chance you could share the exact way, in the software, you get the pixels you are trying for? New to PS and it is not working.
nanasewn
March 24, 2013

Any chance you could share the exact way you get the pixels in Ps? Newbie here and it looks overwhelming. thank you for your consideration
- Meghan Guillen
  March 25, 2013
  
  I use Gimp, so I’m not sure if photoshop is the same or not, but it might be. Go to scale your image, make sure the measurement is set to pixels and then change it to the pixels you’d like to have – in the painting above I used 8 x 11. That will make your image super super tiny, but then enlarge it (zoom in) on your computer screen until you can see it well. You should then be able to see each distinct square.
  
  Hope this helps!