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Painting from drawings and sketches
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Message
Posted
I've kept lots of my sketch books going back 20 to 30 years. I was looking through them yesterday and noticed some of the sketches were good enough (containing colours and tonal values) to be used as the inspiration for oil paintings.
Yet whenever I paint from my drawings, the paintings don't look as good and I usually I don't complete them. I seem to lose interest, partly because I think I'd get more inspiration and enjoyment by painting from the subject itself.
Has anybody else experienced this?
Posted
Oh yes. I think the spontaneous drawings and paintings done in situ are visually more energetic and alive. Though I also use my sketchbooks as reminders and have used them as starting points for a larger painting, and yes the later stuff often loses the freshness of the original. So I know exactly what you mean...but ,it is all your own work and not copied from other people’s efforts or photographs...here we go again.
Posted
I often use sketches with colour notes or watercolour washes as the basis for oil paintings but after the initial drawing and blocking in I only use the sketch and notes as an occasional reference. The painting subsequently can end up very different from the sketch but I only lose interest on the occasions it has gone irredeemably wrong.
Posted
I tend to keep all my sketches and painting in a storage box, which due to lack of space I have to selectively "clear out" periodically. I must confess that I tend to always look for new subjects and ways of achieving what I want ie: Acrylic, Drawing, Pen & Wash and my previous efforts get forgotten. Perhaps this is a pity as I must have liked them enough to save them !