Know What Matters in Your Reference
In portraiture, artist Peggi Habets (Ep.4) knows two things matter a lot…especially if you’re trying to capture a likeness.
First, drawing. This is because even the smallest shift in something like eye placement turns a portrait from someone you know to someone you don’t.
Second, value. How light and dark move across a face really is about explaining the particular bone structure underneath the face.
But this is portraiture. Arguably the most demanding of the subjects when it comes to accuracy. Not all subjects require the same attention to detail.
Put it to Practice:
When it comes to landscapes and still life, the big value shapes and the silhouettes will matter most. Get the flowers and leaves more or less with the right values and more or less the right shapes, and they will read as flowers.
Will you be able to tell exactly what flower species it is? Not necessarily.
But that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. And you might be surprised at how much room you have to navigate while they still read as a bouquet of flowers.
When it comes to the landscape, pay attention to size relationships. If you’re painting a tree, work to get it a treeish shape. It doesn’t even have to be that tree in your reference. Get it the right value. Then work to make it smaller than the mountain but larger than the deer and it will still read close enough to a tree.
Because the truth is, often all you need is close enough.
Side note: Color is the least important. Even in portraiture where accuracy really matters. If you accurately get the drawing and the values but make your cousin hot pinks, it’ll still look like your cousin.
Often what happens is that when we’re working, we start to think that the landscape or the bouquet of flowers MUST look exactly like the reference.
That’s photorealism, and it’s a great style. But let’s make sure it’s the style you’re after first.
If your goal is to be a loose painter, then you have to learn how much and how little information you actually do need in order for your subject to read as your subject. Some accuracy matters. Next it’s about learning where it matters (and where it doesn’t matter) for your goals in the painting.
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