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| 'A Colorful Hillside' 8x10 pastel ©Karen Margulis purchase painting with Paypal here $125 |
I don't ever want to copy a photos no matter how much I like it! And I encourage the same for my students.
I am always looking for ways to allow me to use my photos to help me interpret the scene rather than make a copy of it. For example I will only use photos I take myself. I actually prefer bad photos since they give me freedom to make the painting better than the bad photo. I like to print out my photos on regular printer paper....again making them less precious and easier to make changes.
Lately I have been using a new way of working with photos. I learned about it at an IAPS demo with Marla Baggetta. She paints from the tiny photos on a contact sheet! I think this is genius! What a wonderful way to force you to interpret a photo and be more expressive. You cannot see the details in a tiny photo so you aren't really able to copy the photo!
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| My painting along with the reference photo |
If you are looking for a simple way to help you be more expressive in using your photos then try using tiny contact photos! Thanks Marla for the great tip!
Great ideas, Karen... I never use good paper to print photos and often print them small, but haven't tried the contact photos or thumbnails. Really a good idea to force us to use our artistry rather than copy a photo.
ReplyDeleteMy favorite painting of a family member was done because I didn't come prepared to a class having forgotten to bring reference photos. I was forced to use my cell phone photo... tiny... It worked well for me... forced me to invent quite a bit which made the painting more "painterly".
Great idea to use your phone photos Marian! I'll have to try that! Thanks for sharing!
ReplyDeleteGreat tips Karen and Marian. I also use poor photos so I can embellish. I find if I use detailed photos my work gets too fussy. When I take reference photos I set the camera to a small size so I don´t use much memory and it is less detailed.
ReplyDeleteThis sounds like a great idea!
ReplyDeleteThis is so true! Back when I was a street portrait pastelist, I used to sometimes have clients come up and give me a spouse's driver's license to paint from. I knew I had to get the likeness without copying the photo. Or they'd want their uncle who wasn't there and stood fourth in the back in a group family snapshot with his face 1/4" tall if that big.
ReplyDeleteYet I managed to get those likenesses. Little photos give you all the detail you need for a painting, especially in pastels.
I don't use a film camera, I use my iPhone. But I can always look at my photos right on the phone for the sight of them on a small screen, same thing.