From Marvin's post in the previous thread:
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This requires skill in analyzing the background and either recreating it on the subject or coming up with a scenario in which two divergent lighting schemes can feasibly coexist. For example, the subject may be under an awning or a tree, in front of a vista. However, one must be careful to include any influences of any light source in the background (sunset sky for example) on the foreground elements, otherwise the result can have the flattened look of a model placed in front of a photographer's painted background. Not good if you are interested in a naturalistic as opposed to a theatrical feeling.
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I would like to note that some of the best artists, both alive today and of the recent past, who were/are very good at doing this very thing, were/are illustrators who almost always create their backgrounds (or as I prefer the scene or setting) of their paintings from many different references, both from life and from photographs.
If you ever visit the studio of an illustrator you will find all kinds of books, reference materials and props that are used extensively in their work.
I may be somewhat biased since many of my instructors and many of the artists I admire most are illustrators. There are many artists now coming back to realism, and of course portrait artists have mostly been students of realism.
I feel that it has been the illustrators that really have kept the traditions of realism and the importance of drawing alive in the face of the modernist art movement of the 20th century.
Marvin Mattelson is just one of those very artists to whom I refer, but there are many more. To some extent, today and in the recent past, the greater art world did not give these artists the acclaim they deserve. Even Norman Rockwell was known as one of the most successful illustrators of our time and not one of the greatest artists.
It is time these artists are given the credit they have earned as artists. Oops. I think I may have started another new thread.
