How do you get from photo to canvas?

[David Carroll]

Richard, great topic, and one I am challenged with every time I try to paint an accurate likeness from photographs. The simplest and most direct approach for me is to use an opaque projector and using brush and pint trace the appropriate lines and Landmarks, let dry and then paint as desired never returning to the projector. I will use a 3.5 x 5.5 for the projector and keep an 8x10 clipped beside my support.

Also I will paint directly from my monitor first drawing with brush and paint, and just paint as if I was doing a session with a model.

The method I

[Garth Herrick]

Good post. I am fascinated by your tonal impressionism approach, which has the advantage of not leaving behind ghosts of drawing artifacts and a confusion of incongruent sharp edges, if I am to understand you correctly. I hope you will share an example of this type of painting development in a work in progress post at some point soon.

Garth

[Virgil Elliott]

David,

There is nothing more substantial than speculation connecting camera obscuras with Vermeer. There are no such "reports," but only conjecture proposed by people who were not born until Vermeer had been dead for nearly three hundred years, i.e., speculation and nothing more. His studio inventory does not mention any such device, nor does a single contemporary account. Furthermore, the perspective vanishing points in his paintings have pinholes in them, indicating his method of working out the perspective using pins and strings, which he would not have had to do if he were tracing projected images. Whereas many painters who use projectors love to point to the speculation over Vermeer's alleged use of a camera obscura as if it were fact, to justify their own use of projectors, there is not sufficient evidence to establish any factual basis for those contentions.

Virgil Elliott


[QUOTE=David Carroll]I haven

[Garth Herrick]

Hi Virgil,

The enigma about Vermeer to me is the way he almost foretold photography in his uniquely rendered highlights, diffused as though he were viewing his reference through some lens or camera obscura. Perhaps he was simply wearing some sort of ill fitted spectacle. But at any rate he had a unique, original way of representing luminosity in some of his paintings. This has nothing to do with perspective, however.....

Garth

[Jeff Fuchs]

I know this is now an old thread, but the new actvity finally brought it to my attention.

I'm trying to learn to paint, and I've watched my Morgan Weistling video about a hundred times now. Morgan made a point of mentioning many times that painting IS drawing. He stressed it quite a bit. He said that there is no point at which you stop drawing and start painting. Every time I lose sight of this, I ruin my painting.

How can you lose sight of your drawing when you take this approach?

Just a thought.

[Lacey Lewis]

I am not sure how much of this thread I have read, but I know I should go back through anyway.

I am wondering, am I asking too much from myself when I think that I should be able to paint a figure from a photograph(s)? I feel like I have a much easier time working from life. I used to use a grid to plot out the larger drawing on a large canvas from a small photo, but I felt 'blind' doing this in comparison to working from life. Of course, painting after plotting it out went pretty smoothly.

Lately I've been trying to use my methods for painting/drawing from life when working from a photograph... I use a ruler to measure distances, multipy as needed, compare angles in my reference and on my canvas, etc. But, I always have a whole lot to correct all along the way and it is very frustrating. I have this problem mostly when doing a figure as opposed to a portrait.

Maybe some of the issue is that I am working from too small references? When working from life, I keep my drawing/painting the same size as the subject appears from where I am. Maybe I should try to blow up my references to life size. Ideally, I should get more real people in here to work from!

OK, sorry about the rant... I've been doing a lot of that lately.

[Jeff Fuchs]

Lacey, I use those measuring techniques only when I can't resolve the measurements by eye. If you read Tony Ryder's book, the text gives a very convincing argument for measuring by eye alone. To be honest, I can't remember how he explained it, and I don't have the book handy, but I remember that he made a very good case for trusting (and training) your eye. My work improved as a result of studying his book.

There are two main approaches to catching a likeness. The Academic approach, with "sight-size" and strict measuring, can often result in a photographic likeness, even when working from life (sorry, Hockney). Then there's the approach that Sharon mentioned, which can capture the likeness in a more gestural manner. Both are valid. (See Peggy's drawing of her son, which was done from a photo. I love that drawing, and it in no way looks like a copied photo. )

As for working from photos, I'm considering photoshopping an image out of focus, as a kind of virtual squint, to force myself to ignore details. Then, when it's time to add details, I'll pull out the focused image (or not!)

[Linda Brandon]

Originally Posted by Jeff Fuchs

Lacey, I use those measuring techniques only when I can't resolve the measurements by eye. If you read Tony Ryder's book, the text gives a very convincing argument for measuring by eye alone. To be honest, I can't remember how he explained it, and I don't have the book handy, but I remember that he made a very good case for trusting (and training) your eye. My work improved as a result of studying his book.

Jeff, this is the way I work from life - I have to do a couple of plumb lines, but what I basically do is make a mark on the canvas, compare it with the figure, and if looks wrong to me I fix it. If you quickly move your eye back and forth from subject to canvas you can see a "jump" - the "jump" is your mistake on the canvas and that's what you fix.

I'm convinced that it is panic and fear that keep artists from working this way and if one can quell that panic one can go a long way toward being a better artist. I also think that overreliance on photos saps the confidence of artists - and that is a huge danger in using photos all the time. We have to let our eye/mind/hand measure without judgment of our abilties.

It takes lots of practice, but it's a eye/hand/brain skill, like shooting hoops, maybe. My head would explode if I had to use a ruler or grid working from life. Painting from photos, though, is a whole other story.

[Virgil Elliott]

Originally Posted by Garth Herrick

Hi Virgil,

The enigma about Vermeer to me is the way he almost foretold photography in his uniquely rendered highlights, diffused as though he were viewing his reference through some lens or camera obscura. Perhaps he was simply wearing some sort of ill fitted spectacle. But at any rate he had a unique, original way of representing luminosity in some of his paintings. This has nothing to do with perspective, however.....

Garth

Garth,

That aspect of one or two of Vermeer's paintings is what the advocates of the optical device theories always point to as if it were proof, but all it really is is a clue, and one that can be interpreted in other ways as well. Diffusion of images, or parts of images, is not unique to optical devices. Our own eyes see things that way under certain circumstances.

Vermeer scholar Arthur Wheelock has backed off from asserting that Vermeer worked from camera obscura projections, and now only postulates that he might have looked through some sort of optical device at one time or another and found the effects agreeable enough to inspire him to mimic them in his paintings. This, too, is speculation, however. Hockney has also recently recanted his earlier assertions regarding Old Masters allegedly tracing from projected images, after having been soundly refuted by several scientists, including Dr. David Stork, of Stanford University.

A camera obscura is a dark chamber. That is the literal translation of the term. I want to know how anyone can paint in the darkness and end up with as highly realistic a result as Vermeer's paintings exhibit.

In Vermeer's time, art students learned to draw, and one could not become recognized as a Master by the Guild of St. Luke without demonstrating proficiency at both drawing and painting. The Guild controlled the trade, and only a Master could conduct business as a professional artist and/or art teacher. Vermeer was not only recognized as a Master by the Guild, he was elected to its top position. It is therefore reasonable to surmise on that basis that Vermeer could draw very well. Artists who can draw very well do not need to trace from projected images. I have no trouble attributing excellent results to extraordinary talent alone.

Vermeer was a Master. He exhibited a superior understanding of the principle of selective focus in his paintings, equalled only by Rembrandt a generation earlier. That understanding is sufficient to explain the optical phenomena in question, in my estimation. There may well have been a connection between Rembrandt and Vermeer through Carel Fabritius. Fabritius had studied with Rembrandt, and subsequently lived in Delft.

Virgil Elliott

[David Carroll]

Garth,
I have a piece I