[Michael Fournier]

Well, John, I have avoided this long enough to think about what to say. And I issue a warning: I am holding nothing back here so if you are easily offended I would stop reading here.

At first I thought that I would take a guess but to be honest all three of these paintings, to me, look like they were done by an artist that still has not learned enough to produce work that makes this discussion relevant.

I am not saying this to put you down or to make myself more important. Not at all. In fact I am the most critical of my own work.

The thing is if you are trying to make a point or to silence those of us that advocate the importance of painting from life, this is not the way. I can show you very good paintings done using photographic reference and I can show you bad paintings done from life.

Yes it is possible to see problems in a painting done from a photo that was caused by the limitations of photography but only if the painting is good enough to have reached those limitations. A very skilled artist who has observed life enough can create a painting from a photo that surpasses the reference.

It is possible to paint from life and still produce work that looks like work done from photos. If you paint flesh tones based on a formula of color "X" mixed with color "Y" is always halftone "A," then your work from life will look like you work from photos as far as the flesh tones are concerned.

If your image from life is not accurately drawn then any photographic distortion you might have gotten from a photo is irrelevant.

Since I have not seen your photos you may very well have surpassed your reference but I do not have to see them to know you have not approached reality with any of these. So even if one or all of these were done from life it does not matter. Any one could also have been done from a bad photo and still look like this.

Again I am not trying to put you down in any way. If you take an honest look at your work and compare it to the work of the best artists at SOG that paint from life (you can know who they are by looking at their procedures page) or even those that paint using a combination of photos and life or all photos you can see for yourself that your work hardly compares. (Most of my own work doesn't either so I am not taking a shot at you personally.)

The point I was trying to make with my posts about painting from life was that for the artist that is still training and learning, painting from life has no equal. The lessons learned from observations of nature and copying it with paint without any intermediate photographic reduction to 2D images is essential if your goal is to be able to capture life as the human eye sees it and not as the camera and Eastman Kodak capture it on film.

Once these lessons are learned one can then choose to use a tool like the camera or even the lucy or projectors along with photos to speed the creation of art and guarantee accuracy on a deadline without it becoming a crutch or being limited by your reference.

I hope I was not overly harsh but I really feel that to jump to the short cuts of the pros before having a strong foundation is like building a house of cards. I will freely admit to the use of every trick and gizmo available to me in my commercial art.

Photos are a tool but they are no substitute for learning to observe from life. The truth is many artists do not have the training or the skill to draw from life accurately enough to not use photos so they have no choice but to use them.

But those that have the skill most often prefer to paint from life. Others after training from life have chosen to work from photos because of the demands of clients and personal preference or as a guide when the subject is of a fleeting nature or is impractical to paint live. But they have made a choice, not been forced to because of a weakness of skill or lack of training to use a crutch.

In closing, if you cannot see the difference between the work of Nelson Shanks vs. the work of photo copiers then I guess nothing I say can convince you of the importance of learning from life and the results of a poll like this mean nothing.

You are free to "consider the source" of my comments and ignore them if you wish. I have no illusions about my own skill or level of training. I still have a long way to go and may never get there but I know that getting there by a short cut will only hurt myself and I choose to continue to work from life even if I fail. I still learned more than I would by producing a better painting from a photo.