Using Photographs to Create Artwork

I happen to be interested in painting an drawing as well as photography.  I enjoy creating art from the photographs I have taken.  Sometimes it's a digital image using composite photos or an edited image.  Other times, I use my photographs as source material for my artwork.

Here's a couple of tricks you can use when creating artwork from a photograph.


1)  Load the image or images into an image editing program.  This enables the image to be manipulated.  This can improve composition, extraneous material can be removed and material from other sources can be imported into the image.

I find constructing an image this way easier than attempting to construct it by sketching it out.  The digital process gives instant feedback and seems to provide a better representation of what the end product will look like.

Photos taken using a digital camera are easily imported as they are already in a digital format.  Photos taken with a film camera will require the use of a scanner to create a digital file.  Stand-alone flatbed scanners aren't that common anymore.  Multi-purpose machines that scan, fax and copy  are readily available.  Negative/Slide Scanners are available as well if a print copy is not available.


2)  Use the image editing software to apply a grid to the end image.  Then rotate the image 180 degree.

Sketch out the image using grid paper.  Grid size should be related to the size of the grid used in the editing software.  If the grid paper is 34 squares wide, set the image's grid to roughly the same number of squares.

Focus on one square at a time.  Look for lines and focus on where those lines enter and leave that square.

This upside-down grid approach is useful for those that struggle when drawing free-hand.


Images produced this way will have a different quality from those sketched free-hand.


An example of the process and result:

First, my source images:

I used both of these images, cutting and pasting from both.


One of the images inverted with a grid applied.

(I actually used a composite of the two images.  I didn't save the composite so it's not available for this example.)


Here's the finished drawing with a grid applied.  The grid should give you an idea of what the original sketch looked like. 

The finished product:

I like the way this turned out and I doubt I would have been capable of this without using a grid when sketching the flowers.  I was less concerned about the leaves.  Many of those were either excluded from the original sketch or just loosely indicated.

I was proud enough of this effort to upload it to my Fine Art America account.