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Master artists consistently give students the same advice: “paint from life!” But it’s easy to understand why beginners instead prefer to work from photos: they’re so convenient. You can paint in your comfortable studio. No bugs, wind, rain, or intrusive passers-by. No schlepping heavy equipment. The model doesn’t wiggle or fall asleep.

The problem is that photos lie to us. Think of the four elements of a representational painting: shape (drawing), value, color, and edges. Three of those four are always wrong in a photo: Values are the number one offender! (The two or three darkest values turn into black and the two lightest values go to white.) The colors are limited to the phosphors in our computer screens (or worse yet, the dyes used to make prints). All edges are equally sharp…not at all like the way we actually see. 

Even the shapes or proportions are wrong some of the time. (Did you ever see a photo of yourself taken from too close a distance; the nose looks huge!) If we work predominantly from photos, we become quite skillful…at painting unrealistically.

One age-old solution is to make a color study. But beginning artists have trouble with this. Students usually try to make a finished painting …just faster. It doesn’t work.

The key is to try to capture accurate value, color, and edge relationships and don’t worry about the drawing. Here’s a suggested procedure:

• Identify the temperature of the light itself. (Is it warm or cool?)
• Identify the darkest dark and the lightest light. Put those color notes on the canvas.
• Get the color in the shadow.
• Paint the color of the highlights.
• Try to get the color (and temperature) of plane changes on the form.

When you get back to your studio, use a de-saturated (black and white) photo for the drawing. Use the color study for everything else. Don’t be tempted to look at the colors in the photo reference; it will only confuse things.

Here are some color studies and the resulting paintings.