So how does this photograph become...............................................this?
How does a simple snapshot turn into...........................................a piece of art?
Everything starts with an idea. This is a page from my sketchbook.When an idea jumps in my head I try to get it down on paper as quick as I can. These small thumbnail sketches look like random scribbles to most everyone else, but to me I try to capture the placement of subjects in a few quick drawings. As you can see I have several on a page and I will change things from one sketch to the next to find what works and then we go to the next step............
Reference photographs play an important part in creating a painting. I have boxes full of pictures of leaves, rocks, clouds, deer, tree limbs, etc.....and like in the two pictures show above I will omit certain things that I don't feel are important to get the message across. Once I get a good collection of reference photos I draw my idea on the canvas to get a good look at it full size.
Here is a good example of the progression that a painting normally takes. I use paper cutouts of the subjects so I can move them around on the canvas to see what works and once I decide I like it I start building up the background not really worrying about too much detail.
On this painting I changed the turkey position to upright during the underpainting process. It was easy to change at this point, but if I had already painted the birds any changes now would require painting over what I had already completed. It seems like a waste of time and paint, but you have to realize you can't chase a bad idea too far.
