Sunday 22 June 2008

Paintings from pictures

I started experimenting with automatic techniques for producing digital paintings to imitate various styles e.g. Oil, Classic Oil, Watercolour, Modern, Sargent, Impressionist, Pencil , Gouache etc.

I soon found these lacking in character and decided to sharpen my skills with a Tablet rather than a mouse so that I could introduce those unique and personal strokes that the Masters have. I work from photographs and pictures as a reference point.

First of all I take the original and enhance it photographically so that I can capture a specific style. I then use this as a reference point for the painting and apply the effect by hand, digitally brushing in the strokes to emulate the chosen effect. Any unwanted background objects are removed and the final piece is cropped to best frame the subject. Some of the paintings look best when printed on canvas and framed with a Gallery framing style

One of my favorites is a painting of the Station Master at Ramsbottom in Lancashire. You can see how the Oil effect swirls around to create the shapes. If you would like to see more paintings from photos http://homepage.ntlworld.com/ptopping/Paintings/
and
www.ddd-design.co.uk