Creating Art from Photos

Creating art from photos.

Painting photos into artwork requires an artistic eye to include only the elements that help the painting's composition. It also can mean rearranging elements or changing the scale when needed. Another technique that we like to use is what I call 'lost and found' edges. This is where what appears to be a solid edge will dissolve for a moment, blending with the background, then re-establish itself again. This and other textural treatments help to create art from photos that may seem like quite ordinary subject matter prior to our application of a digital blend of brush strokes.

When painting photos for a digital proofing system, the first step for us is to properly resize the image. In some cases this means reducing the size of the original submission, even though this may seem counter-intuitive. This is because too much digital information can be just as detrimental as too little. The filtering process and the multiple layers of brush strokes need to interlock in a way that distorts reality in a pleasing way, simplifying it some, but not too much. This is the original subjective decision, because painting photos varies depending on both the subject matter and the size of critical elements within the image. A face, for instance can take up 3/4s of the frame, or only 1/30th. The other critical factor to determine is 'how much texture is there?' since that affects how the brush filters react. A smooth texture shows very little of certain techniques whereas a more 'toothy' texture (hair, grass, fur, leaves, bark, etc.) will quickly show certain stylized effects quickly.

Art from photos is obviously a phenomenon of the last century. Artists would use photographs to augment their perception, 'freezing' reality in ways that were never possible before. Painting photos into art began by sketching from these sources onto the canvas or even applying the paint while using the photo reference. Another method originally used to build a piece of art from photos was to create several miniature compositional sketches, small 'trial blueprints' if you will. By painting photos in this way, age old compositional rules or styles could be observed if they had not been in the original photograph. Digital imaging software has become the new playground for artists in that the 'trial blueprint' is alive and well in the form of alternate versions and layers that are quickly created and discarded as a part of the creative process.

By making art from photos in this way, we will sometimes choose to do very little to a photo other that apply a painting technique that has become our 'standard' signature look. This is usually because the original photo already had a pleasing combination of composition, angles, lighting and texture. When painting photos that are not as 'inspired' from these standpoints, we will try to help them out by adding lighting effects, or altering the composition by a new judicious cropping. Perhaps the missing ingredient to make art from photos is a nice application of 'lost and found' edges, or rebalancing the color, the contrast or the color saturation in a way that helps lead the eye through the image better. We love contributing new ideas to our customers and it should in no way be taken as a criticism of your original photograph. This is the beauty of our online proofing system. By painting photos in a way that can be accessed quickly, our customers are truly invited to comment and collaborate to their hearts content. We hope (and expect) our clients to finish this process of creating their piece of art from photos in a way that is easy, fast and fun!