Painting project

Have you wasted valuable painting time searching for the elusive ‘perfect’ reference photograph? As an alternative, why not try using an ‘adequate’ photo instead, treating it as a jumping–off point rather than your final destination? Creating identical copies of photographs can be a trap for the unwary artist, preventing you from seeing new possibilities, and focusing your attention on minute details instead of allowing yourself to see your painting in its entirety. In addition, photographs can contain huge amounts of unnecessary detail and catch animals in strange poses, so they should always be used with great care. In this two-part painting project, I have taken an example of an ‘adequate’ photograph of an African elephant (above) and used