My friend Suzanne and her dog, Lucky, came out today for a swim. As we sat in the sun on the dock after enjoying the delicious water, she was telling me about how another artist is working. Marilyn has been taking photographs from her visits to Mexico, crumpling them up, taking photos of that and making paintings from the final photograph. I was surprised when Suzanne told me Marilyn had always been working from photographs, all her paintings. In fact, Suzanne said, almost all painters these days are working from photographs.
But not me. I prefer not knowing what might happen when I start a painting, what accidents and circumstances of paint will create the final image. I might take a photograph when I think a painting is done and then realize, when I see the photograph, that it still needs more work. Working from photographs was always something I thought was a taboo. I guess it’s not.
In many of my painting classes the professors have us work from a photograph that we manipulate through photoshop. Then its projected onto the canvas, traced and then painted. I had no idea this was how many artists worked either! I guess its been a well kept secret! Now whenever I go to a gallery I am able to guess which were done using that method.
Posted by: Cathy at July 9, 2008 01:40 AM