Is Outdoor Painting Better?
As a landscape better, I have to take this topic one step further and ask: Is a painting better if it was painted from LIFE? I think this is the bigger question and we know nothing is always automatically better until you put the work into it. But, when I see a painting from life, I can usually immediately tell that is from life and not a reference photo. With a reference photo, the darks will look too dark and the lights will look too light. It sounds simple, but there are a lot of variations between those darks and lights and your viewer will see it.
At the beginning of my journey, when I was going to art school, I did not paint outdoors for landscapes as much as I did photographs. I discovered that, for me to get better at painting, I need to take my stuff out on the field and start painting. It was very difficult at first, but I learned throughout the years that it was the only way. I saw the improvement in my own work. They were slowly and gradually improving within those darks, lights, and in-between values.
Just because something is painted outdoors, it is not necessarily better. But painting from life is the bigger, over-arching picture. It is something that you have to do to improve. When I say it may not be better, it would mean that the painter has not put the mileage or time into outdoor painting. There is always room for improvement. If someone paints outdoors a few times a year, it won’t make the work automatically better. But, the consistency of painting from life, whether it’s a landscape or a model, will help you improve. I love using photographs, but without that experience painting from life, your studio pieces will suffer within the lights and darks. Everything with the values will be off.
“It sounds simple, but there are a lot of variations between those darks and lights [when painting from a reference photo] and your viewer will see it. ”
Painting from life and consistency will help you see an improvement in your work. It is a slower process, but painting takes a long time to see improvement. I can pretty much guarantee you that consistency and painting from life will improve your work in the long run.
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