Before the era of photography, artists used many techniques to try to capture the moment. Most of these included working with light, color, tone, and composition. When photography came on to the scene and did a good job of capturing reality, traditional artists moved toward impressionism and other more abstract movements. As both art forms have now entered the world of digital expression, these worlds are colliding and giving artists many more venues of expression.
To compose and create a photograph feels easy to most people when it comes to creating traditional artwork, most photographers feel that to paint from photographs, you must be an artist. According to Painting For Photographers this couldn’t be further from the truth. In fact, it is this books goal to show that anyone who can photograph can paint using photos. It is the same visual sense that drew you to photography can also help you turn your photographs into digital art work.
Painting For Photographers begins with a background in art, especially for photographers who have not taken art classes or for those who need a refresher. In fact the author is a journalist/ freelance writer who got into Painter because she wrote the first several Painter manuals. Painting For Photographers is 128 pages in length and is divided into six chapters.
Chapter 1, "Art Lessons" begins by showing you the conccepts needed to turn your photos into paintings. You begin by learning how to choose the right kind of photo that can be successfully used for creating a painting. You then will look at choosing the colors, tones, and focal points for your painting. Next you examine composition of the image, you will see how best to develop body elements such as eyes, the nose, and hair, and then you will finish up by looking at examples from different masters of art like Hopper, Rembrandt, Renoir, and Cassatt.
Article comments
1 - Cathy
I introduced this book to my group of preschoolers and they loved it. The 4 year olds looked at it everyday and they had a go at using photos as inspiartion for their artwork and I could not believe the quality of paintings they produced. I'm sure the author would not have anticipated this interest from such yound artists!