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Hi Kimber,
Pietro Annigoni used to work from sketches and studies all the time. His best portraits, such as the famous "Fishmongers'" portrait of Queen Elizabeth, were done this way. In Annigoni's autobiography, he talks about doing a portrait of the Shah of Iran and his wife, the Shah-ette (joke). He mentions how he only could snatch an hour here and an hour there, sometimes drawing, sometimes painting. Eventually, the Shah complained that that blasted Annigoni was hanging around the palace already for a whole month and hadn't even started painting the portrait yet. When Annigoni felt he had enough material to work from, he went home to his studio in Florence and completed two superb portraits that both the Shah and the Queen were very pleased with, and a little surprised by, as well.
Frankly, I haven't tried working exclusively from sketches, but I have worked paintings to a finish all from life rather than photos. I much prefer working that way; I find it faster, actually. So, based on my experiences working from life, I don't see why sketches wouldn't be just as useful as, or better than, photographs. Of course, you'd have to have a goodly number of them and the opportunity to do colour studies of some sort would be helpful. As I mentioned above, Annigoni had a whole month's worth of them. That's probably not pracdtical for most people, so we are left with photographs.
I wonder if that Degas sketch was from a photograph itself? He worked from photos a lot.
Anyway, thanks for the interesting topic.
Best.
Juan
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