painting is only as good as the photo referencing~

Indeed I would make a most horrible commercial artist (not that I am good enough yet hee hee)

Time is so precious to me that I have so little to spare …therefore I only want to use it to paint something that I have affinity for or that tugs at my heartstrings….
thats why my favourite subject matters are my sons, my pets, sceneries that has nostalgia for me, something that I wanna do e.g diving or traveling …
in short, I only want to make the investment of time to do the art piece IF it speaks to me~

And I find that apart from being passionate about the painting subject, good photos are essential as references…
Luckily I have loads of archive photos that will not make me lack subject matter and I do envisage myself very very occupied for a long long long time, hahahaha.

That said, while photographs make good reference ….to really see tiny details, the photos if printed has to be of high quality…
If space does not permit, then I prefer to work direct from photos straight from the camera but my ultimate choice is I love to reference photos using the fantastic lighting from my iPad's screen!
Mac's technology is awsome to bring the photos alive in such vivid colors and thats what makes the difference between making the painting more realistic, in my personal opinion!

Here's Elmo done from my ipad photo reference ~

                              
                                      A4 hotpressed 220gms acid free paper
                                 and all framed up with app from bighugelabs~

project 2011~ a sketch a day by michellechoongkhoo

now that the festivities are over, celebrations and bingeing done with……today i will start my project 2011 "a sketch a day" …..
And who better than Elmo my little beagle monster to start the ball rolling?

i think i manage to capture the essence of a little of his adorableness  here?
we just love that little rascal sooooooo much…..

sketching ideas~copying from nature or a photoshot

In fact, the artist recently revealed a secret of his process. One might not expect that such beautifully stylized artwork sometimes begins with photo reference… but look:

(Translated from Spanish by Google) Agreda writes, “The truth is that you learn a lot making notes in the street, and as on this occasion I could not leave the house, I did the photos. In any case, copying from nature is essential to try something a little better. If not, just pulling the mental library itself, which is not always updated too.”

the above was lifted off AGREDA's DRAWN! The Illustration and Cartooning Blog

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I did my own version to see if the theory fits :

Definitely!!! Yess….

with that I proceeded to snap a photo my darling ELMO ~ and then to sketch him.

How else would I have achieved it if not for the lens of the camera freezing him in perpetual pose?

Now thats the beauty of the internet,,,,,sharing good stuff, ideas so that theres no need to reinvent the wheel~ thanks AGREDA!!!