Working from photographs

For many, photographs are the most easily available and accessible form of source material. If anything, however, they can give you too much information, and the temptation is always there to simply reproduce exactly what is in the photograph.

If you have a photograph that will potentially make a good subject, try sketching from it first instead of simply copying directly from the photo. This will:

[a] familiarise you with the subject.
[b] force you to simplify the subject, reducing it to less complex visual forms (sometimes known as distilling the scene).
[c] give you the opportunity to manipulate and improve the composition.

Always think through your painting and don’t feel you have to necessarily go with your first thoughts, or feel you have to keep things exactly as they are in reality. Simple thumbnail sketches are the best way of testing out that all-important what-if scenario.