Make your favourite photo a favourite painting

Digital Photography meets the Canvas

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It used to be, more than half a century ago, that artists never worked from photographs. This is no longer true. Many well-respected artists use photographs for reference material. 

Modern digital technology gives us the possibility of capturing light, shape, form, and colour in amazing ways and allows artists to do most of their work in studios. 

I also use digital photographs for some of my artwork. Using photographs allows you to change the position of an object or leave an object out to improve the composition of the painting.

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Before and After

Here is a picture I recently painted based on a favourite photograph of one of my patrons. As you can see, although the picture is very much like the photograph, there are some differences. 

I focused in on the fisherman by make the painting more compact, and I moved the ducks in the foreground over to the right. This improved the composition by connecting the ducks to the fisherman and getting the wake of water from the right-hand duck more obviously pointed to the fisherman. I also lightened up the trees to show off the contrasts and gave the water more luminosity. 

Here is the picture and the photograph I worked from. My patron was thrilled with the result.  

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