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Photos or Life?
Hi,
Right now I am struggling through a sight size, life size, 53"X 69" pastel of a dancer. Its inception started from a series of photos I took, intending them for some quick drawings to send to a gallery.
I liked one so much, I decided to make it into a life size pastel. As I started redrawing from the model, I was really surprised at how much distortion there was in the photo, relative to the actual figure.
When I got the drawing finished and scaled up, I was surprised again at the difference between the relative drawing I had done and the sight size figure I was now attempting.
One thing occurred to me, was that the "distortions" that happened when actually working from the model were happier ones. Even though there were inaccuracies, they were my inaccuracies and gave, I thought, more of a charm to the drawing. I find, often, than in trying to render from a photo, we stiffen up, we don't allow our natural visual tendencies to flow, we are trying so darn hard to copy that photo accurately.
Another happy result was the color. Freed from the domination of the photo, I was able to introduce a more playful fancifull backgroud and take liberties with the costume as well. It was not the picture, I intended, far from it, but I think it is much livelier and more inventive.
I will post it as soon as I get it done, with the original photo reference, if I can figure out how to do that.
Sincerely,
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