Custom Paintings

Have you captured a wonderful scene, and you want to have it painted, either to hang on a wall in your own home, or to give as a gift to a friend for a birthday, anniversary or wedding?

If you are interested in having me paint a picture based on reference photos (photos you take of the subject), please read the rest of this page carefully, so you can understand what you should and should not expect.

Painting From Reference Photos

When I first started painting years ago, my theory was that an artist's goal ought to be to capture - as closely and as realistically as possible - whatever the subject matter was. Of course, in the days before cameras and photographs were so readily available, this might have been a reasonable perspective on art.

But not in this century. You want a perfect replica of a scene? Get a photograph!

One of the first parts of painting a scene is studying it enough to understand what is important...and what is not. Sometimes there are elements which, rather than emphasising and drawing attention toward the main subject, become a distraction, and even a confusion. Those elements get modified, or left out altogether.

The result is that paintings never look just like the reference photographs which were taken as a starting point. The picture shown above is a good example of this: the background behind the two boys is simply different shades of blue-green; to do anything else would have made the picture cluttered.

Keep Your Options Open

When you take a photograph of your subject, the last thing you want is to have limited options when it comes to painting. You, the photographer, have control of what you photograph, so photograph a LOT!

People often make the mistake of thinking that the best photograph is the one in which the subject is in the exact center of the frame. This might be true if it's a portrait, but in general, that's not the case. Centered subjects result in static, more uninteresting pictures.

People also often make the mistake of taking just pictures of the subject, with little surrounding area. This severely limits the ways in which the picture can be painted.

Here are general suggestions:

Try photographing both wide angle and zoomed details of your subject.
Photograph with your subject off-center in various ways
Photograph both landscape and portrait (wide or tall)
Take photographs of the area surrounding your subject

Let's Talk About It!

If you are interested in having me do a custom painting for you, hit the Contact link to send me an email.

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