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Magpie
Immortal
Feb 23 2007, 3:02pm
Post #1 of 7
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Referencing pictures and models while drawing (or painting)
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Ainu Laire has mentioned a few times that she references images while drawing. I also do that pretty extensively perhaps in an even more extreme way than she does. When one is attempting an endeavor without the benefit of good instruction or without a innate gift, one must do what one can to get to where one wants. For me, drawing has never been innate and when I needed to do it, I did it by referencing something, almost always a picture, and often laying down a grid work on top of the picture and using that to create a new one. I don't always do that, but sometimes I just don't know where to start, and in those moments, the grid is comforting.
My two drawing teachers were both of the opinion that this sort of thing was basically cheating and the sign of a non-artist. I will quickly say that someone who doesn't need to do this is a greater artist than I. At least they can get at things more quickly. But if one gets a result that one is proud of, then what's the issue. Especially if one is learning. Someone wiser than I once told me that some of us need parameters while we're learning. Then, when we're comfortable with the first steps, we can branch out. My son wanted a coloring book.. he didn't want to draw when he was young. But he moved into drawing and did some nice pieces.
The school I attended required a library research paper for every class (they've since eliminated this for lower level classes... a mistake I think) and the paper had to be in the subject matter of the class. So I had to do a paper on an artist (for drawing), an illustrator (for commercial illustration) and an illustrator (for digital illustration).
One of my three papers was on Maxfield Parrish. A child of the 60's I loved Maxfield Parrish, an artist/illustrator who gain resurgence in that decade. You an imagine my fascination and delight when I found out how he worked. He had a special technique for laying down the paint in layers with glazes and varnishes that allowed for that luminance of light that he achieves. I wrote:
The long drying times needed between applications of glazes and varnishes made the traditional use of live models impractical. But Parrish did use live models. In fact, a great number of his figures, both male and female, were modeled by one person, Susan Lewin. Lewin joined the Parrish household at the age of 16 to help care for the young children. She quickly became Parrish’s model and close companion. Under Parrish’s guidance, she created costumes and posed for photographs that Parrish himself took. The photographs were developed onto a glass plate which could be projected straight onto the canvas, (with background already painted). Alternately, the photograph could be projected onto paper and a silhouette created that could be laid onto the canvas for tracing. Parrish used Lewin extensively as a model between 1905 and the late 1920's. For one piece, the “Florentine Fete Mural”, Lewin posed for all but two of the over one hundred figures of men and women. It seems no wonder, then, that Parrish’s figures can be viewed as androgynous, or genderless as some have described them. Well, I figure if it's good enough for Parrish, it's good enough for me. To advance my work, I need to take my own reference shots - composing the subject, background, and lighting to my taste and then use it to draw... and to push myself to sketch and draw in relaxed and loose ways, as well... but that actual act of creating a grid is not, IMO, cheating.
For what it's worth.. if you've looked at any of the links to my work in my art thread, most of that stuff, I did not grid. I did grid these two Beetles. And the three digital illustrations found here, were pretty much traced. The goal (for me... and I believe for the class) was to gain good control of the software. I'm pretty darn proud of that magpie! I may not spend hours drawing with pencil, but I did spend hours... and I mean HOURS... getting the iridescent effect of the feathers on this magpie.
no longer just aMagpie... I'm now *the* Magpie
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linkin-artelf
Lorien
Feb 23 2007, 4:33pm
Post #2 of 7
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It's not cheating, it's learning
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There are many ways to learn to draw and many techniques artists use all the time to get the proportions and perspective right. A grid is just one of them, and a useful one at that. One drawback with using photographs as a reference for your drawings is the distortion caused by the difference in depth of field between the human eye and commonly used camera lenses. Sometimes it's minuscule or not so crucial, especially with landscapes, but with figures you can easily run into problems.
Grids can also be fun and useful if you distort them purposefully as in with foreshortened perspective.
I would add that artist who don't need grids or such other aids are not necessarily greater artists, they are either working with less detail or have had longer training. Drawing is a learned skill just like any other, there's no magical talent involved. and it needs to be kept up, I've learned the hard way.
"I walk along the shore and I gaze
At the light that radiates down
Will it travel forth to you
Far across this shimmering sea?"
formerly linkinparkelf
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turimel
The Shire
Feb 23 2007, 10:20pm
Post #3 of 7
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I was so intimidated by drawing that I didn't try it until I was in my 30's. The first thing I did was a little "mess mat" for my kids, which was a piece of clear vinyl that I literally laid on top of little pictures (Big Bird, Dr. Seuss, etc) and copied them with gel markers. That was the best exercise I've ever done because it just made me look at how the pros did it and I discovered that hey, it's not impossible after all!
I still don't draw WELL, but I can at least make funny little gifts for my kids and what not. But if I hadn't started out with those copies, I never would have had the courage to try drawing.
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Aerlinn
Lorien
Feb 24 2007, 4:43pm
Post #4 of 7
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[quote]this sort of thing was basically cheating and the sign of a non-artist[/quote]
Let me put it this way. Horse hockey!
Let me put it another way ... I went to a really wonderful art school. (They're not responsible for how I turned out.) I worked in the library for a couple of years, and a huge part of the job was compiling and organizing the photo reference library, which was the largest among tri-state area schools, iirc. It was arranged so that if you needed a picture of a walrus, say, or a West African tube lily (I don't know, I just made that up), you'd look it up in the directory, find the correct folder in the correct drawer, and check out the file like a book. Staff members went to zoos to take photos to add, and brought back vacation photos to be filed. Area artists - and not a few from further off - used the resource all the time. Other artists willed us (them) their private reference libraries to be incorporated. And all of us as students were strongly encouraged to create our own.
The upshot being: How can you draw something if you're not positive of what it looks like?
Using photos as reference is one thing, though - slavishly copying photos, especially copyrighted photos (though really any photo you didn't take yourself is, of course, someone else's work), is ... not a great idea. A photo should never take the place of a live model - there can be technical problems with drawing exclusively from photos (flattened shadows, among other things) - but sometimes that isn't an option. In which case reference photos are invaluable. (The Hildebrandt Brothers paint(ed) almost exclusively, if I've read correctly, from reference photos they've taken of their models. Make of that what you will. Then again, as you said, so did Parrish - though I don't think he was as dependent.)
Use reference photos by all means - just don't make exactly reproducing them your main goal. In the case of, say, movie screencaps, it's technically legally iffy (I'm sure the copyright experts will chime in any time) - and it also shows a lack of imagination if it's anything but practice. That's why it makes me a little queasy to see so much fan art out there that reproduces screencaps...
Gridding... I don't. I've tried it; it didn't help; I don't use the technique, but I know it's an invaluable tool for many - as you said, it helps getting started.
The only "cheating" (imho) in art is copying line for line, shadow for shadow, or tracing - unless (again imho) it's done specifically for the purpose of training the hand and the eye, purely for practice.
You do good work, Magpie.
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Magpie
Immortal
Feb 27 2007, 4:32am
Post #5 of 7
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I just wanted to say thanks all...
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I appreciate the encouragement and positive comments.
no longer just aMagpie... I'm now *the* Magpie
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WonderBroad
Lorien
Mar 2 2007, 6:35pm
Post #6 of 7
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>>My two drawing teachers were both of the opinion that this sort of thing was basically cheating and the sign of a non-artist.
Then clearly they've never heard of the use of the camera obscura, employed by 15th, 16th, 17th 18th century artists to help them with perspective and detail in their paintings. Because some in society might have considered the use of such a device "magic" (which could be detrimental to one's health--to be thought a purveyor of black arts), artists more often than not kept quiet about their use of the camera obscura. They also didn't want to give away their artistic secrets!
It would be nice to have models one could work with all of the time, but hiring them is expensive! It's just not within most people's budgets. It's not in mine.
I personally come up with the composition of a picture through thinking a lot about a scene, and then through quick sketches (gesture drawings) that give me a variety of compositional options. So I know what I want before drawing in earnest, and don't dismiss using photo references. I use them all of the time--a reference for how light falls across a surface or a pair of folded hands, how the shadows of a face play out when there is only one strong light source, how hair looks when it's windblown, how fabric folds and drapes--that's what I can get out of a good photo reference, to help me achieve a finished piece. It's not cheating at all. It's just another artist's tool to achieve a specific end.
(This post was edited by WonderBroad on Mar 2 2007, 6:42pm)
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Magpie
Immortal
Mar 2 2007, 7:14pm
Post #7 of 7
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They probably did know better. One, whom I actually liked personally very well, was an accomplished artist and grew up and studied in Russia. She did have us draw from models. But, I think, being an artist, she always wanted us to make everything unique and not necessarily strictly representational. I think that's a noble endeavor, but for someone who hadn't drawn anything, I was happy when a glass looked like a glass. She was disappointed that it only looked like a glass.When she wanted us to add 'something unexpected' to our room drawing, I got a picture of an orca and drew it swimming past an open doorway. I think she felt I was just copying the orca and wanted me to come up something without copying. (I really liked that orca, too!) And she didn't really like graphic design (she felt it was too commercial), she didn't like two year degree programs (she told us most of us weren't cut out to be graphic designers), and she didn't like computers and software... and many of us were geeks who'd been 'drawing and designing' on our computers way longer than on paper and it was hard for us to transfer skills.
The other, well, I have a hard time talking about her without being completely snarky. Her agenda, IMO was twofold: cover up that she didn't know what she was talking about by being constantly on the offensive and making everyone else feel they were not the artist so she could feel like the artist. She would just get frustrated with me when I said I wouldn't know how to draw a car as if I were on the ground looking up at it without a picture of a car from that angle. She didn't mind my looking at a car... she just thought I should then be able to draw that car from any angle.
In the end, although I did get A's from each... I never felt either of them liked the work I did and I don't think I got more than 2 or 3 mildly positive bits of feedback from either. (And believe me... I got plenty of negative.)
At this moment, I'm pretty good at representing what I see if I'm willing to take the time (hours and hours... it doesn't help that I'm an obsessive perfectionist.). Even more so if it's in a photo rather than live. (I sometimes think it may have to do a little with depth of field vision. It's getting crappy as I age and I must use reading glasses to see the paper but look over them to see the model. With a photo... both the model and the drawing are in the same field of focus.) But I don't extrapolate well and I know what it's like to have a passion for something and I just don't have enough passion for drawing to put in the work I know all you guys do. I may get better at illustration from models... but I probably won't get any better at drawing my own pictures or getting artistic with them.
The one thing I do want to do is take some botanical drawing classes. They are offered here in town and I think I could 'fall in love' (as my Ukrainian teacher, Natasha would say) with the work enough to push myself.
no longer just aMagpie... I'm now *the* Magpie
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