Painting from photos

Long time no see folks.  Honestly I haven't had much to write about lately, but a comment I received on DeviantArt today gave me some inspiration.  I did talk about this briefly before (http://samburleyart.blogspot.com/2012/01/montana-5-study.html), but allow me to elaborate.

So, painting from photos... this can be a contentious issue.  For one, yes it's always going to better to draw/paint/whatever from life.  But much of the time it's not practical.  The sun is in your eyes, or there's bugs getting in the paint, or it's too windy out, etc.  The list is as long as you want it to be whether they're legitimate excuses or not.

But I'm not here to criticize - even as a landscape guy, I do shamefully little plein air paintings, or even sketches.  I justify it to myself by taking millions of pictures on my Canon.  I could drive to twelve different places and take 20 photos of each location in the same time it takes me to spend an hour in ONE place, studying ONE scene.  That's a good trade off in my book.

Anyway, getting to the point... When you ARE painting from those hundreds of millions of photos  (*TANGENT* - Just like it's better to paint from life than photos, it is MUCH better to paint from your OWN photos than Google's or anyone else's) I see two options:

1 - You like the photo so much that you're going to copy it directly.  This is okay, but be careful...  Art-making is about making decisions - whether that be color palette, composition, lighting, or form; by copying a photo directly a lot of those choices are removed from the equation because they've already been solved.  In my opinion you're left with little besides technique and how to mix a  certain color.  Which is fine if that's what you feel you need to work on, but be aware of the drawbacks.

2 - There's an element or elements you like from a photo (or photos) that you want to extrapolate from.  Meaning, "I like the way the shadow comes off that mountain" or "I'm going to stick to this color palette.  Here's an example:

< main photo reference











                 finished study >









If it isn't clear, what I really like about the picture was the big hill on the left.  The way the light hit it, the composition of it's big shadow, and the beautiful greens of the grass.  Obviously I changed a lot, but stack the images and it's quickly apparent how close parts of the two images are:

The composition is largely the same, the color palette is almost a direct copy, and yet some relatively simple changes and additions make for a much more dramatic landscape, without copying the photo directly.

To me is makes for a much better learning experience overall, and a better, more ownable finished product.

Let me know what you guys think and if you'd like some more examples of this.

Time Lapses

Just before this past winter started I bought an intervalometer, a little device that plugs into one's DSLR and allows it to shoot a set number of pictures at set intervals.  It makes shooting time-lapse videos quite easy, but once winter hit I hibernated indoors and didn't get much use out of it last year.

With the introduction of Spring though I started getting out again, and after many, many mistakes, finally came up with a few worth looking at.

This first is a sunrise down in Jamestown, RI from a few weeks ago looking towards the Newport bridge.

This one is a sunset last night at Beavertail State Park (a little southwest of Jamestown).

The Black Opera

I'm happy to present my first book cover for Mary Gentle's 'The Black Opera!'

Although the original was larger and square, I'm very pleased with the circular cropping and the added texture around the border, courtesy of Night Shade Books.

Here's what it looks like without:

It was a great opportunity and great fun to work on, so hopefully more to come!  In the meantime, feel free to go ahead and purchase the novel:

http://www.amazon.com/The-Black-Opera-Mary-Gentle/dp/1597802190/ref=pd_sim_sbs_b_6/185-9108496-8758343

Landscape Study (video)

The photos were taken from just outside Dinosaur National Park on the border of Colorado and Utah.  Most of the park itself was closed and/or under construction and/or  excavating when I passed through, but the landscape was absolutely astounding.

Let me know what you think and if this was at all helpful and I might do more videos

Here's the final for anyone who didn't get a good look in the crappy video.

Study Dump

I'd thought I'd put up a few more pairings of the landscapes studies I've been doing with the photos they're referencing.

Wyoming Sky (2):

Montana (6):

Banff:

With these I'm mostly just trying to focus on technique and forcing myself to use the lasso tool.  Also paying special attention to how the combination of shadow and atmospheric perspective can be conveyed with large solid blocks of dark blue.  The idea is that whatever I learn doing here, I'll hopefully be able to translate into what I'm working on later with full illustrations.

Montana 5 Study

Hey folks!  Apologies for the long hiatus -it's been a fairly exciting two months.  I quit my job, bought a car, renewed my lease, and visited some friends all on top of a mass of deadlines and holidays.  But now it's 2012 and time to get back to that grindstone!

I did take some time off officially for Xmas and New Years (mostly spent playing Skyrim), so opening Photoshop for the first time in two weeks left quite a few turds on screen.  This was an attempt at getting back to the basics and putting my brain in the right place in order accomplish anything:

It was pretty closely based on some photos I took at sunrise of St. Mary's Lake in Glacier National Park (Montana USA).  Here was my reference:

At a glance the thumbnails look pretty identical, (and if I hadn't taken the photo myself I'd probably never exhibit the art), but that doesn't mean I wasn't faced with any artistic decisions.  FOr one, there's an additional mountain peak and the compositional is slightly different.  My colors are more saturated and the darks darker. 

That might not sound like much and I'm not trying to sound defensive, but I feel that drawing from life (or photos) is much more than copying what's in front of you.  It's about knowing what to include, what not to include, and what to add in a way that isn't blatant. The impressionists had it right (at least the way I see them) in that art isn't about mimicking the world around us, but in reproducing it in a way that's better than the original.  It trims the fat while preserving the heart and soul, and that (when done right) makes a person or place feel more real than any photograph could ever convey.

Anyways, more to come (soon!?..!) and happy 2012!

Cascade step 10

Step 10: Finished!

Sorry for the long absence.  Life has been crazy with waves of work and preparations for IlluXCon.  I had my first real booth at any convention there this year and it was an absolute blast!  After a year's worth of work I was finally able to unveil the finished painting :)

I did mean to post more WiPs as I progressed with oils... but... well...

Doing the acrylic underpainting as detailed as I had was probably unnecessary, as I ended up covering up most of what was there pretty entirely by the end.  Especially in the sky, which, as you can imagine, did not turn the color I needed through simple glazings.  Lessons for next time... leave the sky alone until oils if the color difference is so stark or use ultramarine instead of umber for those portions.

Glazing was much more successful in the lower, warmer areas of the background although the only parts where the acrylic really shows through now is in the rocks, island masses, and highlighted portions of the waterfalls.

Between scumbling, glazing, and varying amounts of opaque paint there are dozens and dozens of layers over the whole thing.  I'm a big fan of Winsor Newton's fast-drying oils, generally using just linseed oil to thin them out when needed.  They're dry (or at least enough to work over) within a few hours.  For me that's more valuable than painting wet into wet, but it does mean repainting anything that doesn't come out right.  This made doing the clouds especially difficult, but considering they are my favorite subject matter to paint I was okay doing it again and again.

In all this was a HUGE learning experience.  It gave me the opportunity to try a lot of new things and I feel a lot more confident in approaching future paintings.  It's become a pretty personal piece as a result and I'm quite pleased with the finish.  Enough so that it's hanging over my TV :)


Thanks to everyone who helped along the way offering criticisms, suggestions, compliments, and encouragements.  There are too many to name, but I truly appreciate your continued support!