Go for excellence in portraiture

[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.

[Louise T. Dailey]

Sharon,
Thank you for this post. I have been thinking about this issue myself lately. I use photos. I used to trace them, but I have begun to break myself of that crutch, in the pursuit of stretching myself to prove (to myself) just how serious I am about all of this. Most of my clients don't have the least bit of interest in sitting for me, but I have talked a blessed few into sitting for at least part of the process. People are surprised that I even request this much, and I find myself reminding them that that was how it was done when the world's most memorable portraits were created. My relatively little bit of work from life has taught me SO much for the time that I put into it, I wouldn't give anything for it. I always appreciate your posts, and I have a lot of respect for you as an artist.
Louise

[Alexandra Tyng]

Originally Posted by Sharon Knettell

Blake Gopnik recently trashed the field and I don't blame him.

Either do I. If you look at what he's saying in general, it's not too far off the mark in many respects. Also, it's always wise to see what the "enemy" is saying about us.

But I have to admit I don't see photography as an intrinsic evil. It exists, and it is human nature to find clever ways to use what exists. It's not going to be uninvented; on the contrary, it's becoming increasingly high-tech and accurate. It's how artists use photography that can be detrimental to creativity and to clients' expectations and understanding of what art is.

As soon as visual aids existed, artists used them. Not all artists, but some of the best. They weren't the best because they were more photographically accurate, but because their work had a transcendent quality, a compellingly expressed concept and vision.

Copying photographs might not be a bad way to learn some things, like mixing paint, but it's true you've got to go beyond copying photographs if you are going to push yourself to really put in the hard work that it takes to become all you can be as an artist. If you are painting from a live model, you'll learn a lot more about every aspect of painting, and you will learn it faster.

I like using photographs, but as a visual aid, not a crutch. If I am using photographs, I will use up to 20, even 30, to help me with a single portrait. I don't trace anything! I use my eyes. I get so into what I'm doing, I feel as though I'm right there with the person. I think my portraits end up looking very different from my references. They are much truer to the concept in my head. I also paint from life every chance I get, and do studies from life whenever the client can sit. I go to open studios, and I paint landscapes outside. The continual practice from life has been invaluable. I am not at all afraid of painting anyone's portrait totally from life.

Photos are great for catching a fleeting gesture or expression. Often I'm looking for something elusive, and when a person settles into a three-hour pose, the expression is not there. Of course I could wait for it to appear, and paint around it, while engaging the client in conversation, but most clients don't have that time. Those fleeting expressions are, I think, part of what gives a portrait life. If I can use a combination of life sittings and photographs, I can often fit into the client's busy schedule while also capturing that spark of life and movement in the portrait.

Photography has opened our eyes to innovative composition also. After photography became common in the 19th century, artists cropped figures and included parts of objects at the periphery of the canvas. You can see that in Degas' and Sargent's work, for example. Again, that's not to say we should just take a photograph and copy it exactly, including where things are cut off at the edges. We should think about how to arrange the composition to express what we want to express. But certain compositional arrangements are accepted now that were not accepted before the advent of photography.

Bascially, I'm saying 1) yes, it is extremely important to not be satisfied copying photos if you are serious about art. And 2) it is unrealistic to think photography is going to disappear from the art world. And 3) it is destructive to be automatically critical of anyone, including ourselves, who uses photography. There are many, many ways to use photography besides copying from a photo.

[Steven Sweeney]

Owing to stories too short to be told, like the drawer full of string too short to be saved, my last two paintings have been dogs. Not that they were terrible, but they were paintings of dogs.

This much is true.

A colleague today revealed that she had, sketch pad in hand, surreptitiously captured me at work on one of these efforts, and I post here her depiction, a preemptive defense against charges of working from anything but life.

[Steven Sweeney]

Kidding aside, here's a card worth sliding into the index file for after-the-fact consideration -- what percentage of submissions, and of awardees, of the Portrait Society's annual competition were produced from photographs?

Yet that may not be instructive, because at that level, even those artists are undoubtedly capable of painting from life, and so the photo references are capitalized upon as an edge rather than a crutch. One of last year's honoree works was in fact earlier presented on this Forum as a presumably hopeless reference photo, which was alchemized into precious metal.

But that's the ether breathed at an altitude different from that which I think many members are talking about in these threads, which is the level of training one's eye, one's sensibilities. I think the misgivings are being expressed about the short-circuiting of the development of aesthetic musculature. We're becoming content with being artistic wimps, while machines do the work.

Are those voices in the wilderness we hear? Probably. Is it too late? Probably. How many of us have lately witnessed the triumph of tradition in any aspect of our lives? (And when we do, that alone becomes the subject of celebration, it is so rare.)

Computers and robots build cars now, a natural progression from Henry Ford's assembly-line paradigm. Soon it will be likewise in rendering likenesses in whatever medium you choose.

But there will probably also always be a source, a place, a practitioner, about whom people in the know will say, "You've got to come see this person's work. The studio's hard to find, but you have to come with me and talk to him [or her]. There's nothing else going on anymore quite like it."

It may be enough to resolve to be the artist they're talking about.

[Richard Monro]

Some artists can paint from life forever and never produce a great work of art. Other artists can paint exclusively from reference photos and create a masterpiece that far transcends the reference.

Talent, experience, craft and effort conspire together in all great works. Paints. brushes and yes reference photos are just some of the tools that help get to the end product.

Bougureau created great art. While he could have used photo references, I personally doubt it because he was known to be able to create portraits from memory. Was that the secret of the great masters? Having a photographic recall of images? Perhaps, but if most of you are like me, we can't capture that illusive, fleeting expression that makes a painting live and breath from a mental image of perfect recall. We mere mortals do that via a reference photo.

It is the ability to recognize and capture that illusive image combined with the magic of the ability to create a painting even beyond that image that separates the artist from the mere image reproducer.

For me the debate between photos and life is a tempest in a teapot. What really counts is the end product. Did we create a great work of art!

[Richard Bingham]

Originally Posted by Richard Monro

. . . What really counts is the end product . . .

Well, who can argue with that ?? FWIW, Bouguereau did utilize reference photographs . . . to what extent ? I dunno.

What is troubling to me is that many painters whose work "isn't half-bad" don't seem to apprehend all that entails in the differences between working from the life, and relying on photographs.

[Steven Sweeney]

This is always tricky, with intervening time and posts -- we should probably be doing this over pizza and a pitcher, with everyone shouting at once -- but let's take stock.

The thread wasn't started to insult or castigate anyone (if I may presume), but instead grew from precisely an opposite urge, to inform and inspire and motivate, and it hasn't willfully developed with malicious intention, however perceived. There has been a generous offer of advice and experience about how it might be possible to move to a new level of appreciation and excitement and fun-to-get-up-in-the-morning and productive practice about what we're all doing here, simply because it's what we most dearly wish we could do in full blossom and, yes, full, casino-grade recompense if possible.

I often hear Forum members talk about how they feel stuck, doing the same thing over and over again, not feeling like they're getting anywhere. Feeling dull and jaded. Feeling like they don't know if they have it anymore.

Bill and Sharon have made some suggestions about that. No one has to follow them. No one has to feel offended that others have experienced what these folks are talking about.

About 98% of the time, the tide in this Forum raises all the boats at once, which is about how 99% of us hope it will go. I don't see why this discussion should be any different. I've learned some things here myself.

I've gone back in and cut this post by half. Not half enough, some might think, but this is my earned and final observation.

[Linda Brandon]

I have something to add to this photography argument but I am having some trouble organizing my thoughts about it. I do want to say that 1. it takes a lot of self-confidence to paint a realy good portrait from life and 2. an artist is not going to get that self-confidence from strictly photo work. That fact alone should convince artists to put the time in to paint from life. I think bravery (foolhardly or useless as it may be) is a very big component of being an artist.

Many of the artists I know that do excellent work from photos are also very good draftsmen and do excellent life work.

I think that people in our society are inured to seeing themselves in photographs to the extent that the photographic image is more real than any dubious 'reality".

I also think that models and friends are much, much easier to paint than clients, for a variety of reasons. I frequently draw clients in my studio in charcoal and they figure out after the first hour or so that I am the one having all the fun, they are suffering, and furthermore, they have to pay me.

I personally am trying to figure out a way to do entire paintings from life for clients which are not in the "loose oil sketch" category ot flashy painting.

Oh, that Bourgereau! Incidentally, if there are any satyrs out there reading this who would like a portrait painted from life, please contact me. Now, that would be fun!