How to improve photography through the art of painting

[stunsworth]

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I hope you realise I am just furthering discussions...

 

Of course.

[stunsworth]

I saw a short film once in which Picasso said that the real world moves and the viewer moves but paintings stand still, so he wanted to change what paintings look like so they remind us of the true reality, not the frozen artificial representation we've come to expect from traditional paintings.

 

 

There's a quote from Picasso where he says that one of his cubist paintings is more 'realistic' than any photograph. He was possibly being deliberately provocative, but he had a point.

[Bill Allsopp]

There's a quote from Picasso where he says that one of his cubist paintings is more 'realistic' than any photograph. He was possibly being deliberately provocative, but he had a point.

 

"Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one."

Albert Einstein

[earleygallery]

Interesting thread.

 

I paint occasionally (wish I had the time to do more!) and have always liked the impressionist style. I love to work with oils and develop the painting as I go. I have a 'work in progress' which I need to finish for one of the rooms at home.

 

I recently took a small watercolour set and sketchpad on holiday with me and thought I'd have a(nother) try with that medium. Not too successful.....

 

Personally there's not much I consciously take from my style of photography to my painting and vice versa, but I think that it can only help improve awareness of the basics - composition, awareness of light, use of colour etc.

[Jeff S]

For example, have you thought of trying the other approach? Try to sketch and paint a scene based on one of your photographs. A landscape is ideal. This exercise teaches you about composition and makes you realize how incredibly detailed even an apparently simple scene can be. Is there too much detail? Could you vary the scene for more impact? Is the balance between foreground, middle ground, and background about right? Where is the eye drawn?

 

Exactly the premise behind the book suggestion in post #9. The author is a good teacher, of both the concepts behind the drawings, as well as the techniques to achieve the desired outcomes. Not just landscapes; much to learn about portraits and feature relationships.

 

Jeff

[azzo]

I hope you realise I am just furthering discussions...

 

 

Thank goodness. ...

[NZDavid]

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Exactly the premise behind the book suggestion in post #9. The author is a good teacher, of both the concepts behind the drawings, as well as the techniques to achieve the desired outcomes. Not just landscapes; much to learn about portraits and feature relationships.

 

Jeff

 

Right vs. left brain dominance? Interesting. Conventional wisdom is that right brain dominant people tend to be more creative, while left brain dominant people tend to be more systems-focused (and they may also be pedants who spend more time nitpicking!). For example, are you more interested in the emotional impact of a painting or photograph, or the techniques and equipment used to produce it?

 

More here: Left Brain vs Right Brain - Understanding Left Brain and Right Brain Dominance

 

Here's a test to see which one you are: I scored 50% left and 51 per cent right. Right Brain vs Left Brain Creativity Test at The Art Institute of Vancouver

 

…and one I have posted before, but quite fun. Does the dancer spin clockwise or anticlockwise? I find she does both, at the moment more clockwise: No Cookies | thetelegraph.com.au

[Jeff S]

David, a lot more brain research has been done, much of which shows how the right and left brain halves are tied together in ways we didn't imagine. So, while the book is based on somewhat earlier views, I still recommend it for the drawing exercises.

 

Jeff

[Guest malland]

Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain strikes me as okay if you just want to make a stab at drawing; but if you want to devote more time and effort, the best book I have seen is The Natural way to Draw by Nicolaides, which has the equivalent of a year's intensive course and focuses on developing skills through contour and gesture drawing. I did it for three months some years ago and it was very effective.

 

—Mitch/Bangkok

Bangkok Obvious [WIP]

Eggleston said that he was "at war with the obvious"...

[Paul J]

As far as I understand the right/left brain thing is a debunked more and more as time goes by, as we learn more about the brain. Same goes for the supposed myth that we only use 10% of our brains. These myths were put in place in times where medical research was crude and elementary. I have a friend, who is a neuroscientist, who told me that the 10% of brain myth began when doctors started to perform lobotomies. Since they could remove parts of the brain and the person could still function they just assumed we only used X amount of our brain. That number has fluctuated over the centuries and the myth has taken hold.

 

The spinning dancer is interesting, though. I've looked at it for a while and it only spins clockwise. I've tried to force it to go the other way and it won't.

 

I actually think that every one is creative as the next. It's like anything; the more you do it, the stronger it becomes. The more of a structure you have to base your actions and thoughts on the more thoughts you have about it. Same goes for analytical and structured forms such as maths. Once you do it long enough you train your brain to those see those patterns easily.

 

There is so much psychology involved in these myths making them self fulfilling prophecies. I think what it boils down to is how much you enjoy creating art and how much you have to say. That is what makes you a good artist. If you enjoy it enough to continue trying to make it and/or learn what you're doing wrong, or even just to understand it, when you can't get it right.

[NZDavid]

Paul, I can make her go both directions. Look at "clockwise" and "anticlockwise". A leading neuroscientist is giving a public lecture here next week. It seems many myths about the brain have been debunked -- including, critically, that brain cells do not regenerate. Another might be "you can't teach old dogs new tricks."

[Paul J]

lol. Well I won't let go of hope in terms of new tricks! And thank god for the regeneration huh? I left a few behind in my wayward days!

 

I've stared at that damn thing for ages it just won't go anti-clock wise. Either my head is broken or it's some kind of sick joke.

[johnnyj]

An interesting discussion and one of the few that have dragged me in to comment.

Many decades ago I started out as an artist, having some natural talent, some desire to sketch, and paint. One of the few things that my alcoholic parents did for me was arrange for me to study under a fairly famous commercial artist, who I won’t mention and will save any embarrassment for having put up with me. He suggested that I read Janson’s “History of Art”, visit the Boston Museum of Fine Art regularly and think about and focus on how the artist composed their work and used color, how the art forms developed in steps over time, each artist building on another’s experience. He also suggested that I begin to think about what artistic styles struck me and how I might want to modify that style. I actually sold some of my art and produced a cover for a national magazine. The body of art that I created I ended up destroying around the time that I committed my father to a state hospital and my mother tried to kill me. Now you’re wondering why I’m dragging you through this … Well many great artists, of which I’m not one, suffer trauma in their lives that cause them to look at things differently, to relate to the world around them differently and drives them to create with a passion. Although my daily work has little, on the surface, to do with art I am still driven to create. I moved from drawing and painting to photography. I found that I took that early training in art and did create a style in painting and in photography. While exploring art and its history, the evolution of form, perspective, color, realism, modernism … I seemed to stop at the works of Bellows, Homer, and Wyeth (Andrew not Jamie). I brought that “style”, as I modified it, into my photography and did some fairly successfully commercial advertising work and ran a photography production department for a major defense contractor. Today, I produce art, in the form of photography for myself, to keep my own devils at bay. But I’ve also been commissioned to produce a series for a restaurant and sold some pieces. So what’s the moral of the story? I say that, to produce good art you have to study enough of what other good artists do to develop an emotional response to a style. That emotional response will help you develop further a style of your own, building on what you have learned from other’s success and experience. But greatness and pleasure in your own art will come out when you feel driven to create and produce. When I did my stint with commercial photography I used to sketch out what I wanted to convey, the story I wanted to tell. Perspective, form, color, light all played a role in the end photographic product. It certainly helped, and made the photographs successful, that I thought through my photographs like an artist of pen and brush. And it’s truly surprising how fast the mind is able to compose an image when you train it with a process to exemplify your style.

[mirekti]

An interesting...

...short story, and well merged with the topic.

[otto.f]

a great suggestion. Although I have no recommendations on books of the type you suggest I would recommend you look at the work of Salgado (Genesis) and Edward Hopper whose work could so easily be photographs with a little imagination.

 

I would pose OP's question the other way around : how can a painter learn from photography. Henri Cartier Bresson painted at the end of his life as 'photojournalist'

[Michael Hiles]

I would pose OP's question the other way around : how can a painter learn from photography. Henri Cartier Bresson painted at the end of his life as 'photojournalist'

 

He also as a young man studied painting with André Lhote.

[Jeff S]

Various painters (and other artists) were also gifted photographers: Charles Sheeler, Ralston Crawford, Ben Shahn and others. Brancusi's photos of his sculptures (and abstract forms) in his Paris studio are terrific.

 

Jeff

[doolittle]

Just a quick thank you to all who recommended The Story of Art by Gombrich, which I purchased the other day on happening upon this thread. Surprisingly a real page turner, a thoroughly enjoyable read!

[LotharZhou]

Well. come from traditional art background as myself, i would say the boundry between traditional fine art and photography is there, the composition method sometimes could be shared between, some other elements even the use of light could be vastly different. It's topic worth of discussing further.

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