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Exposing the truth
Being a representational artist requires mastery of a great many skills. Being able to draw and paint are certainly of vast importance and working from life is the best training to that end. My teaching is based on direct observation of the model coupled with the understanding of the principles of picture making.
This being said, the ability to paint from life is merely a part of becoming a superior artist. The advantage of working directly from the model is that you have an abundance of information with which to edit and decipher to create your picture.
Unfortunately, sometimes information is not readily available or convenient to your studio. A prime example of this is the work of Gerome, whose subject matter was thousands of miles from his studio so he was forced to incorporate photos into his process. The intricacy of his backgrounds would have made sketching extraordinarily time consuming and certainly not practical.
It is my belief that an artist acquires as many skills as necessary to develop the reference material needed to fulfill his artistic vision. In the case of Gerome it also meant developing his skills as a sculptor, as a colorist, as a costumer, as a perspectivist and as an anatomist in addition to learning photography. I don
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