How do you get from photo to canvas?

[Joan Breckwoldt]

Don't laugh, but here is what I use to transfer measurements from my reference photo (which is taped up next to my canvas) to my canvas. If the chin I'm painting is looking a little long, I'll use this to measure and make sure. Or this tells me exactly how far it is from the inside of an eye to the edge of a face.

If I don't have a photo the exact size as the face on my canvas, I go to Kinko's and make a black and white xerox the exact size I want to paint it.

This simple device (I think it's called a compass) costs about 99 cents at the art supply store. I actually went in search of a device to measure and they were all too expensive, I can't remember since it's been a few months, but they were all $40 or $50 or more. That's when I found this one and it's worked great so far.

Maybe this will be an easy and economical solution for someone.

Joan

Note: This isn't any good for reducing the size of anything proportionally, it's just good for transferring direct measurements.

[Kimberly Dow]

Something that Bill Whitaker does -
he likes to draw small, so he does his drawing real small and works out all the issues and gets it just the way he wants it. Then he takes it to Kinko's and has it copied and blown up to the size for the painting (they can go HUGE), rubs graphite on the back and transfers it.

[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.