Photo Paintings
Three months ago I purchased the book Secret Knowledge: Rediscovering the Lost Techniques of the Old Masters by artist David Hockney. It is a fascinating read. In the book Hockney details how he studied many paintings by Old Masters and how he discovered that many of the paintings by them were created using the help of optical devices such as the camera obscura and the camera lucida. He makes a very compelling case that their use was fairly common.
As I read through the book I became convinced that Hockney was right.
I have always loved paintings, and as I read the book I thought about the possibility of combining the painterly effect with my photography. Since I had always loved Impressionist painters such as Renoir, Degas, and Monet, I felt that my Photo Paintings should reflect an impressionistic style. With this in mind I purchased Corel Painter and starting practicing my technique.
As I started working my way through the process of creating a Photo Painting I discovered that to get the effect I wanted I needed to paint with the digital equivalents of the painters tools. Dry brushes. palette knives, fine detailing brushes and coarse bristled brushes became my new tools on the computer.
It took some practice, but I am very happy with the results I am getting and I have decided to offer them to my wedding and portrait clients. It will be interesting to see how this plays out in the coming year. If you visit my website and blog frequently and I will keep you posted on how it goes.
Comments