If you are a relatively inexperienced artist, you might be convinced that painting a subject from a reference photo – rather than life – is the way to go. It does make logical sense: in a photograph, the subject won’t move, whether accidentally or deliberately, and so would theoretically be easier to paint.
However, many experienced artists might tell you that, while areference photo could make a useful crutch when you are initially painting, you should – later down the line – think about also having the subject right in front of you as you recreate them on canvas. Here are several good reasons to heed this advice.
Can a photo really tell you the whole story about an object?
Alas, not quite. While camera technology has certainly advanced significantly over the years, when it comes to seeing something as it truly is, even the most sophisticated camera is no substitute for youreyes.
As artist Mark Haworth explains as quoted by Artists Network: “The camera cannot see like the eye can when it comes to colour accuracy, depth of field, and the warms and cools of highlights and shadows. There’s a lot of distortion that comes along with photographs.”
“Following a photo to a ‘T’ is a big mistake, because the camera lies,” pastel artist and instructor Denise LaRue Mahlke concurs, adding: “Photos can be indispensable as a jumping-off point, but even if the photo is an excellent one, you want to reinvent the scene for a painting to work.”
How can painting from life help you to fill in the gaps?
Those are the gaps, it should be emphasised, that would be left by a photo – and, at that, a photo you have taken yourself. “When using someone else’s photos, you aren’t painting your own concepts, just copying,” Mahlke warns – and there is the issue of copyright to keep in mind as well.
As Artists & Illustrators columnist Laura Boswell explains, you would be infringing copyright if you copied someone else’s creative work – like photographs – without permission. However, you could still look at other people’s photos for inspiration, much like you might often look at other artists’ paintings for this purpose.
That would be a good thing, too – as, in looking at those artworks, you could discern how to bring your own to life in ways that outclass any reference photos you are consulting for the piece.
In an article for Realism Today, painter Nancy Tankersley recalls how, in painting an old beach cottage for her piece “Folly Beach Morning”, she sought to visually capture her “memory and response” to the real-life cottage – aspects of it that she felt weren’t reflected in her “uninspiring photo” of the scene.
Nonetheless, periodically referring back to a photo could still help you to faithfully portray technical details of the subject, such as by depicting its actual proportions to scale. You could also seek inspiration for how to take truly artistic photographs. Perhaps you could read what art collector Charles Saatchi remarks on his websiteabout great photographers from history?