It is a subject many artists are sensitive about. I am a bit myself, if I am to be honest. There is nothing more disheartening than the supposed compliment: “It’s just like a photo!”. Just as with tracing there is a hint of the cheating about it. Just as with tracing there are pitfalls that come with using photographic source material, but that does not mean you should not use them, only that you need tactics to avoid the difficulties that they can cause. There is I feel a problem with working only from photographs and never from life. Though I am sure there are artists that overcome the hurdle. My main issue would be with those who can work from photos but cannot paint easily when sitting in front of a real subject. I would encourage all such painters to give it a go and paint from a first hand view rather than the processed flat image that a camera produces.
Once again it is not so much about what it does to the canvas but what it does to the artist. Painting from life gives you a set of tools and a perspective that will in my opinion lift your studio work even if it is mostly derived from the photographic image. You may not produce anything but scrap in your work from life, but the experience will enlarge your perspective and make you look at other work with a more educated eye.
For many years when working as an illustrator I was dependent on trawling newspapers, books and magazines for reference photos of whatever it was that I was commissioned to paint. Then there was the laborious process of merging this various information into a coherent image. My working sketches were done on tracing paper and often had many layers as I juggled with different elements. I had a vast Grant Enlarger the size of a fridge that enabled me to blow up and reduce images. All in all a cumbersome process that I grew to dislike. On my days off I would go out and sketch in watercolour and enjoy the blissful simplicity of just painting what was before me. It is only now when I am trying to establish myself as a picture painter that I find myself using photographs to do paintings to please myself. Before this period I had only painted ten or so “Studio” landscapes from photos all my other work was plein air.
Oddly this means I come fairly fresh to the act of painting framable pictures from photos. There is not the problem of disparate elements, I am working from images of scenes I have captured myself. It makes me very aware of the gulf between a photograph and a painting, also how rare a thing a photo that will make a good picture is. When I was first out and about I snapped anything that took my fancy; but doing a lot of plein air in the last few years have made me much more selective. The other thing is that my “painting antennae” have become much more sensitive. I habitually squint and assess the tonal balance of possible subjects. I now only take a photo if it passes the simple squint test, IE does it simplify into a pleasing pattern. Bit by bit I have become better at selecting bits of the real world that have that certain something.
Once I have my photographs home I find that 90% can be ditched. Once they are away from the subject they have lost their resonance. Just a few then are “possibles.” Every now and again I get a very likely candidate and that will go on to the next stage. I am not that interested in doing paintings that I could easily do directly. What I am looking for is some ephemeral moment that was there just for a few seconds, a trick of the light an arrangement of figures and occasionally a figure that can hold a whole picture together as a focus. These also are rare things. Indeed very few pictures of people look “right”, to be useful they need a certain balance and above all a good silhouette. I trawl through photos looking for them and put them in a separate file. I might stay in one place once I have found a scene I am interested in and photograph passers by for 20 min or so. I just watch the LCD on the camera as the people pass and capture likely moments. Then when I come to make the painting I have plenty of likely subjects to populate the picture!
The main thing I need to decide is what the painting is to be about and hone that focus, it is easy to get distracted during painting and stress areas that need to be quiet and unassuming. For me also mood is very important and I often shift the palette from the original to bring a colour harmony to the picture that the photograph didn’t have. Tone also needs to be adjusted to support the composition. As you can see by this list it is much more straightforward to paint a scene from life! It is in my opinion pretty worthless to just to copy from a photograph. All the photo-realists, hyper-realists and droves of amateurs doing photographic pencil renderings leave me completely cold. To copy a photo takes far less skill than interpreting one. The former is mostly time and patience the latter is skill and experience.
A bit of everything in this post. Studio, plein air and life drawing. Alas most of my time has been taken up doing commercial work so less pictures than usual.
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A sketch for a bigger painting, somewhere in Soho I think. This is 14in by 10 in but the final one will be 36in across. I am trying to do preparatory paintings
like this for all future studio works as it should make painting the final one that much easier.
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Another 14in by 10 in sketch. I stood for quite a while photographing the morning rush at the Royal Exchange in the heart of the City. When the lights
changed it was like the beginning of the Tour de France with the cyclists and motorcycles away first! I have a couple of others of these planned. I rather
like the odd mood because it is very early and the people all quiet and self absorbed despite pedalling fiercely. Below the snap that I took it from.
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I have shown the whole frame here so you can see what I have done. The little group of commuters was perfect so I left them alone, just playing with the
tones to enhance the mood.
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Back to the plein air. A wonderful day out with the Wapping Group. This is London Memorial Gardens near Charing Cross. I got there early so this is
7.30 am. A constant stream of people on their way to work, no tourists at this hour. About 10in by 10in. I have since muted the green on the left a little.
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After a coffee I moved straight on as the light was super. This is Whitehall Gardens , and unusual view of Big Ben. 14in by 10in.
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Took on a monster here! Something not quite right but good practice. This is Victoria Tower gardens. 14in by 10in.
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I couldn’t resist a quick watercolour sketch, even though I am meant to be practicing the oils. I was chased up the steps by the tide as I did this. 7in by 5in.
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Only one session of life drawing left after this. This is done in brown charcoal.
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More experimenting, I am starting to get the hang of this charcoal stuff a little more.
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I am getting the balance of broad fill and detail better, which makes the drawing hang together more. 20min.
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Another one I am pleased with, using the side of the sticks more works well on the rough newsprint. 30min.
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That’s it I’m off doing the Pintar Rapido….. so wish me luck!
