Part 1 Stephen Coates discusses three important considerations when painting from photographs then introduces this month’s painting project

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

■ How to simplify a scene

■ Change the scene and the colours to suit the painting

■Manipulate the horizon and foreground details

Before the advent of the camera, an artist wanting to create a real landscape would have visited the scene to paint and sketch. Today, it is difficult for us to contemplate a world without photographs and I am certain that our ancestors would have worked from them had they had the chance. Today we have digital cameras, computers and the internet to call on for resource material. I use images from Google for inspiration and fully endorse this rich source of imagery, however, there are some major drawbacks when we become too reliant on photographs.

Before I introduce this month’s project from a photograph (over the page), here are three important considerations when painting from photographs in general.

Detail obsession

A good digital photograph is extremely sharp and it is easy to become obsessed with the tiny features within it. There is a place for fine detail in paintings, of course, and I often strive for neat edges and sharp lines in my own work, but the more detail I add to my paintings, the more overwhelmed I become and, somehow, it spoils the effect. In watercolour paintings in particular, smaller features are often better represented with suggestion or perhaps ignored altogether. I have studied the work of many of my contemporaries and have long admired their ability to create sharp features within a painting whilst only hinting at details, such as brickwork on a building or vegetation in a meadow. David Bellamy, for example, is a master of this technique.