I am the kind of artist who paints more of what I see than I paint out of my imagination. I have to look at something.
A few things I am able to paint out of my head. Flowers, for example. Somehow I’m able to paint the idea of a flower without worrying about the details of it. The image will be recognized as a flower. Perhaps familiarity with the subject is a factor in what I can paint from my imagination.
Needing a reference, therefore, I mostly paint from photos, so if I want to paint a scene that is not likely in the visual world, I have to make it up. I could use AI, but I am not there.
I used to think painting from photos was cheating, until I read David Hockney’s book Secret Knowledge: Rediscovering the Lost Techniques of the Old Masters.
I was given this book to read by one of my art history professors, and I enjoyed it so much that I bought my own copy. The gist of the book is that as early as the 1500s, artists were using devices to help them paint people. My professor never said so, but I think she lent me the book because she knew I would bring the subject up in class. The topic is controversial among painters, and if I introduced the topic, she wouldn’t have to.
The Process for the Above Piece
When I painted “The Angel Placed the World in Her Hand,” I needed to get my model in the proper perspective. I asked her to climb a tree so I could take a photo. Once I had the photo, the rest was simply painting the sky and flowers.
In the pieces below, I had my model climb a rope swing.
And in the painting below, “Solstice Watcher,” I had the model sit on a five-gallon bucket, which I turned into an Amanita muscaria mushroom.
For This Current Piece, I Needed Wind
I knew I wanted to paint a person with the wind blowing a coat, but windy conditions don’t come at my beck and call, and they usually come with rain.
I set up three fans in the barn and took a video for my photo shoot. If I’d tried to shoot a still photo, using a self-timer, getting a usable image would have taken a long time. I would have to shoot many photos to get the one I wanted. I used a video and was then able to pause the video at the moment I saw the image I wanted.
I have gotten so that I don’t need any reference for clouds either. In fact, I don’t want a cloud reference, I want something spontaneous.
An artist friend once told me that someone said to him, “Those don’t look like any clouds I have ever seen.”
He responded, “Look outside at the clouds. You have never seen clouds like that before, and in five minutes they will be completely different.”
What The Wind Machine Created
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Man, I love these paintings. I especially like that I initially missed the fairy-like figure amongst the coneflowers. Masterful magic there...just like a fairy to be right in front of you and you miss it!
I agree. I only paint from photographs. I did a little test with AI. I asked it to create the Three Wise Men. The result? Four wise men. I paint in watercolor and realistically, so working from photos is essential. I belong to a Facebook group where photographers share their photos at no charge for us artists to use. Their reward is seeing what we do with their photos.