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Keith Orange

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Posted
Do many members make paintings based on their drawings ? I've tried the technique plenty of times without success. I can draw well enough to produce drawings which could be used as the basis for a painting. Yet every time I try to paint based on my drawings, the finished paintings aren't a success.They look dull, overworked and the best thing to do is to bin them and keep the original drawings. I had an afternoon painting outside last week. A warm day, no wind, and huge cumulus clouds billowing up over the countryside. I did three small oil paintings in a few hours, one of which was good. I then did a pencil sketch of the location, and later at home I did an oil painting of the sketch. It looked peculiar, with big groups of clouds looking more like concrete blocks than clouds. I repainted the scene using a photo I'd taken. The photo based painting looked far better than the one based on a pencil sketch. In my view, drawing from sketches takes a great deal of skill and experience. What do members think?

Edited
by keora

Derek Snowdon

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Posted
Yes, often use them as a basis or a complete subject.
With Sarah, Phil, Ellen, Rose the dentist, and the granddaughter whose name I forget.

Robert Jones, NAPA

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The thing always to remember when sketching from which you then intend to paint is the need to indicate tone - I struggled with an oil painting last week, taken from a very old sketch (probably not a brilliant idea in itself, because I couldn't remember where it was nor much else about it) and made a bad situation worse by imposing a sky upon it, and thus a light, which had nothing to do with the sketch anyway. So I had nothing to tell me how dark the tones should be - it was almost a line drawing with a minimum of shading. So I did rather regret working from that one. You're having better success with your photographs probably for two reasons: one, you're painting soon after taking them, so your memory will help fill in the "what goes there and what colour was it?" gaps, and two, that they're giving you more tonal information than your sketches.

Sylvia Evans

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I can never do the same thing twice. So if I try to use a sketch it falls flat on its face. But if I paint in situ they usually work reasonably well. So like you Keora . I tend to paint as a reaction to something , an emotion a gut feeling, an excitement. . To try and be controlled and paint to order, no, I just cannot do it. I rarely use logic and never think about the correct or wrong way of doing things which is why I cannot replicate anything. I also don't bother much with paint colour names and correct names for stuff. I just do what I feel works. Unless its that pesky Viridian Green ...lol.
With Sarah, Phil, Ellen, Rose the dentist, and the granddaughter whose name I forget.

Robert Jones, NAPA

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I've got one of those - and I've never felt it worked, either... I don't use it at all any more. Translating the tones to actual colours isn't easy, or even possible, I found. But then I can be fairly clueless about this sort of thing, and it's quite possible I'm using it wrong...
michael

Michael Edwards

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It's interesting as we all work differently. I see you were more successful working en plein air and couldn't get on with working from sketches. Well I am the opposite. I find that when working outside I am too distracted by the scene in font of me wanting to copy detail, colours, composition etc. Working from home from sketches I can allow my mind to wander and interpret the scene how I want to without pressure from reality but then I'm not a lover of photorealism. In other words, when working from sketches I find it easier to apply artistic licence and to loosen up. Okay so most artists would argue that's it's best working en plen air but, as I said at the beginning, we are all different and it's a matter of working in a way that suits us best as individuals. As for tone I look at my work as I go along and add tone where I think the composition wants it - I am more concerned with composition than I am with trying to copy reality - again I find this easier to do if I am not influenced by a scene in front of me. For example, if a shadow falls in the wrong position from an academic viewpoint I couldn't care less as long as it works in the picture.

Edited
by Michael Edwards