James Niehues
I have been painting aerial views since 1986. The first ski map was in 1988, and since then I've created over 350 different views for resorts, tourist bureaus, golf communities and outdoor sports related entities. My clients are all over the world from the US to Canada, China, Australia, Chile, Japan, Korea, Scotland, New Zealand and Serbia. Each view is hand painted by brush and airbrush using opaque watercolor to capture the detail and variations of nature’s beauty. In many instances, distortions are necessary to bring everything into a single view. The trick is to do this without the viewer realizing that anything has been altered from the actual perspective.
LINKGreatest Hits
Visit a ski chalet and find a trail map, likely mounted atop a hearth, the imperfect tree lines and pastel color palette so very familiar, wherever you are in the world. Turns out there’s a guy that makes those. And he’s getting ready for retirement.