Painting with the use of reference photos October 8, 2000
This edition is aimed at those who already do or would like to, use photographs to derive visual information for composition, detain, color, etc. for their paintings. You will notice that material in this edition applies equally to any medium.
Why not begin with a consideration of where said photos can be obtained. Needless to say it is better if the artist shoots him or her own photos. He essence and emotion of that moment is experienced by the artist and it is inevitable that some of that will come out in the painting. You will also notice that paintings done from photos are easier to give titles to.
It is possible to purchase photos from photographers who sell them for this purpose and who give permission to paint from the photos and produce and sell prints and other images from the resulting paintings. This is a safe alternative. Painting from published images in magazines, newspapers, postcards, and brochures is risky and should be avoided except for practice. Such paintings should be signed “from… (name of the artist)” and never signed by the copier.
If you have been careful in composing your photo when you shot it, you may be able to paint your entire painting from that photo including most or all of what the photo shows. How often we have climbed, crawled, leaned or stretched in order to get that “just right” composition. At times, a good compositional layout for our painting will require the use of more than one photo. When that is the case we must give careful consideration to the light source in each of the photos to be used. We must decide on a common light source fro our painting. This will necessitate reversing the light on objects used from one or more of the photos. We can, or course, paint some studies of the objects with the light source reversed.
In some cases as in trees, fence posts and many others where right and left aren’t essential we can turn the photo around and view it with a strong light behind it close to the photo. This will, of course, show the reverse lighting. We frequently will tape the photo to our light with masking tape while painting it with reverse light. While we are on the subject of viewing photos with light coming through them we should mention that details in the shadow areas can be seen more clearly if we hold the photo up to the light. Remember, if a shadow area contains no detail, it isn’t really a valid shadow.
Sharon and I use a zoom telephoto lens on our 35 mm single lens reflex cameras. This will bring the object close enough to see the details. If we can’t get the entire object in with this magnification, we shoot more than one exposure and stick the photos together with masking tape of the back and the images properly aligned. By moving the camera right, left, up and down we shoot from 2 to 4 photos and attach them later to make one image. Good painting!
If you have questions email us at rlwatercolor71@aol.com.
Enjoy painting!
Robert and Sharon
Robert Long Watercolors
12273 Emerald Coast Parkway, Unit 120 • Destin, FL 32550
Phone (850) 837-3220 • Fax (850) 837-3770
E-mail us: rlwatercolor71@aol.com
http://www.robertlongwatercolors.com