Go for excellence in portraiture

[Richard Bingham]

I hope everyone who takes portrait commissions is at heart striving to produce something "more" than a "mere likeness" or a correct image.

The constraints of portraiture for pay can well nigh strangle freshness of vision and creativity: issues of "likeness" in agreement with the patron's eye, their preferences (or demands) for pose, setting and aesthetics, the difficulty of finding and scheduling time for life sittings, and so on.

I feel photo references are a "necessary evil", and would like to know how others manage this aspect of the problem. I also feel that past a certain point, there's too much emphasis on technicality in this field and perhaps not enough on aesthetics.

[Clayton J. Beck III]

Wonderful to read the words you are writing. As a painter from life, I am thrilled to read someone encouraging the rest to get out of their dark studios where the overwhelming majoring of 'professional' painters are tracing away without the least bit of confidence and are wallowing in their guilty denials.

Painters today are taking money and accolades for something that once took skill and turning it into a patience contest call 'Who Can Copy the Photo Tighter'. I have no problem with tight work as long as it is good work. Most is tight only to overwhelm the uneducated buyer.

Portrait painters used to be painters first and then specialists. This has been reversed to the point where most portrait artists cannot paint anything but their portraits. Sad to say these words and if they weren't backed up by 25 years of observing, I wouldn't write them at all.

I hope painters find encouragement in the push to work from life from painters like Bill and realize that their work will greatly improve in color and design by working from life.

Lastly, the idea that a powerful influence on the work is created by the EXPERIENCE of being with your subject not just copying the shapes of value and color captured by a photo. Photos have their place as a valuable tool but they are a crutch that many lean on to the detriment of the art in their work.

I hope this came off as a call to arms for us to rise up and make ourselves better painters and not just snippy. I'm passionate about the ART of portraiture and find so very little of the last century. The Great Masters weren't magicians, they worked harder. They had no secrets.

Clayton

[Carol Norton]

Your words provide inspiration and encouragement. No wonder Chris Saper told me that you are an outstanding teacher!!! (loved your portrait of her at SAS) You have provided a clear pathway to progress. Thank you for taking the time to write.

[Richard Bingham]

Sharon, absolutely!

However, for many of us (both professionally and logistically) photo reference continues to be a necessary deal with the devil. I feel how badly this "dependence" affects one's work is an inverse proportion to how much time one can put into workng from the life.

I was amused by a conversation I overheard the other day . . . a gent whose work isn't half-bad (in fairness, it's also not half-good) was enthusing over the prospect of buying (for around $5k) a new Canon digital camera, with the expectation of "seeing" what he is not currently able to see in photographs . . . I don't believe he'll ever "see" until he looks with his own eyes.

On another tack, I happened to catch a recent documentary on Chuck Close . . . he said what interested him in the thematic of the work he's been producing, is how a photograph is the sitter's image in a split-second of time . . . the usual artspeak bulls**t followed, philosophizing over that single point.

In contrast, it struck me that the very thing that interests me, that separates painting from the life from photography, is the continuum that reveals the sitter's being through a session, and multiple sessions. To me, the resulting "in flux" composite is what contributes (one hopes) to a wholeness of expression in the image that is the antithesis of instantaneous photography.