The Problem with Painting From Photos

All Summer Long (c) Mary Hubley

When the weather is perfect in my wilderness, outdoor plein air painting is soul filling. Sweet air and perfect temperature, I hold my palette in one hand and a hot cup of coffee in the other.

However, Florida weather is hardly idyllic. I avoid the marshes when dog-sized mosquitoes swarm and soaring heat gives way to hard rain. When the outdoors are at their most ferocious, I stay in my studio and paint using good references.

Photographs As Painting References

Photographs copy a scene's shapes, distances between objects, and contrasts. They're adept in capturing a moment in time like a wave breaking, a person walking, or a bird in flight. But they're really bad at one thing --  color. Photographs don't show reality's true hue, depth, value, or saturation. Shadows are the biggest problem; photographs just don't get the dark, rich details that your eye sees in real life.

My Photo reference

Use Sketches 

I still use photographic reference. But I don't rely on them alone. I also do a couple of colored pencil or acrylic sketches that I'll take back to the studio.

Small sketches get the color. But they do so much more. Quick sketches capture freshness. They're like little shorthand notations for what I feel about a scene. They capture vibrancy, joy, peace, solitude, or whatever it is that makes my heart sing when I first lay my eyes on a scene. They're my impression, which I find is most important in creating a painting that's full of life.

Photo reference may create paintings that are technically perfect, but they're never very exciting. Sketch references are the answer to adding luster and life. 

Keep painting!


Genre: Landscape
Painting Name: All Summer Long
Size: 8" x 10"
Media: Oil on Canvasboard

-- Mary Hubley