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Posted
Having looked - there can be only one who qualifies under the slightly suspicious heading, at least on the most recent 5 pages. This artist has a website which might be worth looking at - while it's a shade light on detail, methods etc, there is a step by step painting on the site, which looks to me to be genuine. I suspect gouache, or at least body colour, was employed in the paintings - indeed, it would have had to be if neither masking fluid nor acrylic were used. I don't see how the results could have been obtained otherwise. But that's fair enough - I suspect you're wrong on this occasion, Sylvia. And as this is a working artist who accepts commissions, I think the truth is that he's just very, very good at what he does - because while you can touch-up photos on a screen, you can't readily enhance an actual, physical watercolour.
These results would be extraordinarily difficult to achieve, but if genius really is the inordinate capacity to take pains - there, I suspect, is your answer. A great deal of hard work, meticulous drawing, and careful planning: it certainly can be done, and in the absence of other evidence I believe that's what has been done.
But ever vigilant....
Posted
After being directed to his website, I can see that they probably aren't photo manipulation, but actual paintings.
Not a style that I like personally, although I completely accept that other's do like it, and no doubt his work will be popular.
Do I think it takes talent - NO.
Do I think it takes skill - YES.
Edited
by alanbickley
Posted
Separating skill and talent is always very difficult. I'm not, in general, a lover of detail; there's an artist on YouTube named Michael James Smith, who produces extraordinarily detailed oil paintings, through the use of very specific techniques to which he's obviously given a great deal of thought. His paintings are planned, meticulously, carefully painted - I can't be sure, but suspect Alan Bickley would either hate them, or, at the very least, conspicuously fail to go into raptures over them. Michael's paintings are, from a distance at least, photographically realistic - in a way, I wish I could do that; but .... I know that in reality I wouldn't enjoy it, because to me this is art as a technical process.
The real reason I continue to paint in oil, as well as acrylic, is that helps me refrain from obsessing over detail: because I enjoy the textures of oil paint, the interaction with the material itself, I don't want to 'tame' it and am not sure I could. Acrylic allows me to be far more detailed - and I have a tendency in that direction: but oil helps to correct it, to the benefit, I believe, of my acrylic painting. I entirely get Margaret Beynon's point - and incidentally, detail sells - the snag lies in the skill overtaking the vision and even obscuring it. I think I could produce very detailed paintings, less readily than I once could when my eyesight was better; just as I think I could make a much more successful painting business, and meet the demand (you could say that for abstract work too, but I'm a long way from being competent in that particular field). But - I paint now to enjoy myself. And I wouldn't enjoy producing a steady, ready stream of highly polished works any more than I can be bothered with running a 'proper' business: one just gets a bit too old to care about the cash.....
Back to our watercolourist. Of the painting which I think is under discussion, I seriously doubt that I could do that, although I think I understand how he's produced it. It would be wonderful if he could see this thread and prove me wrong. It took a long time to paint - more than I'd devote to a watercolour. It is very detailed - a more competent botanist than I am could readily identify the plants and grasses in the foreground. I like the freshness of colour; of course I admire the skill. I think Alan is being harsh about the talent involved - but that's a subjective judgement. I would be happy to own the painting - I'd be happy to think I could do this in watercolour (I know damn' well I couldn't! Acrylic, yes - never in w/colour): what I don't like about it, and why I wouldn't attempt to paint it, is that it's so precise and careful - the work of a perfectionist, maybe, but of a particular sort: 'perfection' is hard to define in painting, and I'm not so sure I like it when I see it. That's the caveat. But I still think it's a remarkable work.
Posted
Of course there can never be any winners in this discussion, all views are relative and we are all right. It does always stir up some feelings mind you, this can't be a bad thing for the forum as long as we don't take it too far and start falling out- as if!
I'm looking for passion in a painting, something that tells me the artist was excited by the subject. In a landscape I don't need to see every blade of grass - I know what grass looks like!
I like area's left so that the viewer can fill these in for themselves, too much detail becomes tedious to me.
But... look on the POL Facebook page and you will see how popular detailed and photorealistic work is. It receives rapturous applause by the dozen. This probably means that it sells, although you won't see much evidence of this style of work in the galleries so I can't quantify this.
Artist's such as Hockney, Fred Cuming, Ken Howard and our own Haidee-Jo, just to name four, have not adopted this approach to their work. Painterly is the word I would use for them, and that's the approach I try and adopt, popular or not, I'm not changing.
Botanical drawings such as we see on the gallery are by design, more detailed and so on. I love most of this work and have no issues here.
Edited
by alanbickley
Posted
I'm firmly in the 'painterly' camp, in spirit if not in practice. Alan is too modest to mention his own work but it is in the 'painterly' camp along with Cuming, Howard, Haidee-Jo and others. They all produce representations of a scene that might include, largely suggested, detail but let the viewer fill in the scene for themselves. it's all a matter of degree and the viewer's taste. If you look at the 'Hay Wain' there is a considerable amount of detail that has been painstakingly portrayed but the final result is by no means photographic. It's not my taste but I can appreciate the talent that went into it.
To get back to where this thread started, I was recently shown a photograph of an oil landscape by a friend of mine. I was surprised, not least because she is an accomplished watercolourist but to my knowledge had little time for oil painting. After I had congratulated her on her new found mastery of oil paint she took some delight in showing me how she had produced the painting on her tablet by manipulating a photograph using a software package. The capability of this software was amazing and could produce beautiful 'water colour' pictures from the same photograph. We had an entertaining hour or so producing landscapes and portraits in 'oil' and 'watercolour' but whilst it was an enjoyable interlude it did not generate any satisfaction with the finished pictures. They were the product of the software not our feelings or impressions of a scene.
If anyone wants to post manipulated photographs in the gallery then I have no real objection to them doing so provided they are labelled as 'digital art'. To that end it might be a good idea if the medium of a painting had to be added when making a post, although that might not weed out any dishonest posters.