If you’re creating an abstract or non-representational painting, you may not need any reference material to complete your work.
Impressionism can do without a model or a photo at times, but when you start painting realistically, you do need either the actual object or a photograph to capture all the details.
Portraiture
If you are using photos to create a portrait of a person, you’ll be faithfully representing the image or images you see. When you create a portrait, you want to portray the person as they really appear.
If you don’t have the luxury of working with a live model, multiple images give you a more well-rounded view of your subject than a single photo. Using a composite of a number of pictures, you can capture the likeness of your subject and wind up with a pretty convincing portrait.
Using Photos As Reference Material
We’ve discussed a morgue and the fact that reference material is important to an artist. This visual reference library allows an artist to capture the essence of an object without the benefit of having it in front of him or her.
Whether you’re painting the center of a flower or a fog shrouded mountain vista, these photos give you the details you need to depict your subject matter convincingly.
Even if you work in a very loose, impressionistic style, you still will benefit from occasionally referring to an image. You may not use a photo for details, but you may use it to verify proportion, shape or color.
Some photos may provide information on shadows and highlights, while others that are captured in direct light may only provide shape and color.
Photorealist Paintings
In Photorealism, the artist uses photos and mechanically or manually transfers the image to a support. Mechanical transference may be by using a slide of the photo and superimposing it on the canvas or paper. It is then meticulously redrawn. With today’s computers and printing capability, it’s possible to transfer a digitally altered image directly onto a painting surface.
Manual transfer entails using a grid work on both the support and the photo. The artist then transfers the lines of the photo grid onto the corresponding blocks of the grid on the support.
Composition is often part of the photographic setup, and the painting composition is identical to the photograph. However, some artists use a composite of images to create their composition when objects aren’t available to photograph.
Once the composition is duplicated on the artist’s support, he makes a faithful recreation. There’s no attempt at personal artistic flourishes and the final painting is oftentimes mistaken for a photo. That’s not to say, however, that the artist doesn’t take artistic license with the work. He may make edges more blurred to make objects recede or sharpen edges and exaggerate colors to make them a focal point.
This is where an artist’s technical skill comes into play. Observation and a definite goal, along with an artist’s skill, transform simple copying into a successful piece of art.
Use Reference Material For A Successful Painting
If you’re not accustomed to using a photo to create a painting, plan out a composition that includes elements from a photo or two. As it’s a form of plagiarism, you’re not copying the image. You’ll use elements to verify what you are painting.
For example, let’s say you want to paint a vase of roses. You know it will take far longer to paint than a bouquet will last. What is an artist to do? Dig through your file of flowers, find the sub-folder of roses and begin pulling photos of roses in various poses, degrees of bloom and colors.
Tack them up to a board adjacent to your canvas or paper and begin sketching your initial composition. Once you’re satisfied with the composition, use the flower photos to lay in some details.
You may choose some petal shapes from one flower, the degree of angle from another and select colors from a third. Once you’ve established enough of a sketch to begin painting, dive in and commence paint flinging. Refer to your photos occasionally to unravel a pesky element that defies comprehension or to re-establish a detail that you’ve lost, but don’t rely on the photos for every facet of your painting.
Since you’re gathering visual information from several photos, be sure to establish a single light source for painting your shadows and highlights. If necessary, set up a light with some flowers of any variety to see how the shadows fall. If you want your painting to be convincing, things like the accuracy of your shadows and highlights are imperative.
Photographing Your Own Composition
Even if you have the components of your composition right in front of you, it may be helpful to photograph the setup. Sometimes looking at a photo gives you a different viewpoint and allows you to focus on one particular thing.
You may want to edit the photo to black and white to view the setup without local color. This can help you see if your painting has enough variation in values without the interference from local color.
You can also manipulate the photo with software to see how other colors look or to try out other changes before actually applying paint to canvas. Another bonus is that you’ve added more reference photos to your ever-expanding morgue.
The photograph has become an important tool in an artist’s bag of tricks. However, learning how to use photos to their best advantage and how much to rely on them takes time and thought. Use photographic images to enhance your work, but don’t rely on them as a crutch. Depicting your own vision should be your goal and not a regurgitation of another artist’s creation.
