Did you know the first commonly used photographic device was invented by a painter? It’s true! In 1829 French painter and chemist Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre was using a camera obscura for his work on theater sets. He’d obtained the camera from an optician named Chevalier, and was introduced to Nicéphore Niépce, who had already made a photograph using his heliography invention. In 1839, Daguerre used iodine-sensitized silvered plate and mercury vapor, and the Daguerreotype was the most common photographic method for 20 years.
Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre, Still Life in Studio, 1837
Doesn’t this photograph look like it was taken by a painter?
Thursday Painting Class
We’ve been thinking about photography as a painting tool in my Thursday painting class. I offered this class because most painters use photographs for references, and most painter’s photographs suck. The lighting is bad, the shadows are black holes, the highlights are blown out, the lense distorts angles, color is off, scenes are either overfull or missing vital information. (I’m holding back here.) The premise of the class is how to use photography to make better paintings. Clearly this isn’t about copying an image, it’s about using the camera as a tool. Everyone has got a phone with a camera, and the printer has bluetooth, so we can shoot and print a scene instantly in the studio.
After establishing that cameras aren’t perfect and can’t be trusted with information like angles, light, and color, we jumped into talking about cameras can be helpful, and made some scenes. We experimented with lighting effects, and studied how lighting direction can jump start movement in a composition. (I made this up but I’m pretty sure it’s true at least some of the time). We talked about choosing objects within a scene to communicate mood, character, and narrative. The placement of shapes builds geometry and motif. We looked to film for inspirations. What do we leave in? What do we take out? What are the essential elements in a good painting?
Here painting invents photography, photography references painting, painting influences film, film references painting. That has some bounce. Most films have figurative narratives, but many of the ideas are appropriate in other genres as well.
Thursday Painting Class
In Thursday class, we used foam-core shadow boxes with windows in the side to make some still lifes.
We took silly pictures.
We took more silly pictures.
We experimented.
Get the picture? What a fun way to talk about how we create our painting references. Also, it’s just a great group of people to spend an evening with. Once a week, even the fish biologist needs a little creative time.
Next quarter, Thursday classes will be broken into 2 shorties. The first shortie will play with the theme “Painting from Life or Imagination.” The second shortie will be about “Abstracting an Image” and is open to both painting and drawing. Interested? Register today. We start in a few weeks!
Iryna Yermolova was born in Ukraine, and has lived in England since 2005. Her figurative works are illustrative, bold, spontaneous, and colorful. They can be a bit too illustration/pretty for my personal tastes, but they still give me some good inspiration for my own painted figurative studies. [image_with_animation image_url=”3855″ alignment=”center” animation=”None”] The fresh quality of the paint might feel as …
It is Day 19 of this 30 Day Creative Challenge. Honestly, the responses from yesterday’s “minimal lines” suggestion are so fun, I just want to keep doing that over and over! But I promised every day would be different, and today is vocabulary word day. Today, create something in response to the word juxtapose. JUXTAPOSE …
My dreams are in full color. Not just wishy-washy pastels, I mean all of the everything. Yellow ochre, bold reds, deep inky blues, textured and shadowed greens. The colors are as important in my dreams as they are in my paintings. They tell half of the story. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Do …
[image_with_animation image_url=”7901″ alignment=”center” animation=”None” box_shadow=”none” max_width=”100%”] I learned from the fabulous Suzanne Walker that this narrative painting “The Story of Joseph” by Biagio d’Antonio uses space as a representative for chronological time. The painting illustrates a story that follows a sequence clockwise around an ellipse, starting at the upper left. The scenes that happened farther back in …
On Painting and Photography
The first photographic plate
The First Common Photo Device
Did you know the first commonly used photographic device was invented by a painter? It’s true! In 1829 French painter and chemist Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre was using a camera obscura for his work on theater sets. He’d obtained the camera from an optician named Chevalier, and was introduced to Nicéphore Niépce, who had already made a photograph using his heliography invention. In 1839, Daguerre used iodine-sensitized silvered plate and mercury vapor, and the Daguerreotype was the most common photographic method for 20 years.
Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre, Still Life in Studio, 1837
Doesn’t this photograph look like it was taken by a painter?
Thursday Painting Class
We’ve been thinking about photography as a painting tool in my Thursday painting class. I offered this class because most painters use photographs for references, and most painter’s photographs suck. The lighting is bad, the shadows are black holes, the highlights are blown out, the lense distorts angles, color is off, scenes are either overfull or missing vital information. (I’m holding back here.) The premise of the class is how to use photography to make better paintings. Clearly this isn’t about copying an image, it’s about using the camera as a tool. Everyone has got a phone with a camera, and the printer has bluetooth, so we can shoot and print a scene instantly in the studio.
After establishing that cameras aren’t perfect and can’t be trusted with information like angles, light, and color, we jumped into talking about cameras can be helpful, and made some scenes. We experimented with lighting effects, and studied how lighting direction can jump start movement in a composition. (I made this up but I’m pretty sure it’s true at least some of the time). We talked about choosing objects within a scene to communicate mood, character, and narrative. The placement of shapes builds geometry and motif. We looked to film for inspirations. What do we leave in? What do we take out? What are the essential elements in a good painting?
Here painting invents photography, photography references painting, painting influences film, film references painting. That has some bounce. Most films have figurative narratives, but many of the ideas are appropriate in other genres as well.
Thursday Painting Class
In Thursday class, we used foam-core shadow boxes with windows in the side to make some still lifes.
We took silly pictures.
We took more silly pictures.
We experimented.
Get the picture? What a fun way to talk about how we create our painting references. Also, it’s just a great group of people to spend an evening with. Once a week, even the fish biologist needs a little creative time.
Next quarter, Thursday classes will be broken into 2 shorties. The first shortie will play with the theme “Painting from Life or Imagination.” The second shortie will be about “Abstracting an Image” and is open to both painting and drawing. Interested? Register today. We start in a few weeks!
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Iryna Yermolova
Iryna Yermolova was born in Ukraine, and has lived in England since 2005. Her figurative works are illustrative, bold, spontaneous, and colorful. They can be a bit too illustration/pretty for my personal tastes, but they still give me some good inspiration for my own painted figurative studies. [image_with_animation image_url=”3855″ alignment=”center” animation=”None”] The fresh quality of the paint might feel as …
Day 19: Juxtapose #30SAL
It is Day 19 of this 30 Day Creative Challenge. Honestly, the responses from yesterday’s “minimal lines” suggestion are so fun, I just want to keep doing that over and over! But I promised every day would be different, and today is vocabulary word day. Today, create something in response to the word juxtapose. JUXTAPOSE …
Dreams in Color
My dreams are in full color. Not just wishy-washy pastels, I mean all of the everything. Yellow ochre, bold reds, deep inky blues, textured and shadowed greens. The colors are as important in my dreams as they are in my paintings. They tell half of the story. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Do …
SAL Challenge Day 29: Narrative
[image_with_animation image_url=”7901″ alignment=”center” animation=”None” box_shadow=”none” max_width=”100%”] I learned from the fabulous Suzanne Walker that this narrative painting “The Story of Joseph” by Biagio d’Antonio uses space as a representative for chronological time. The painting illustrates a story that follows a sequence clockwise around an ellipse, starting at the upper left. The scenes that happened farther back in …