You often hear the rather pompous opinion that all painting, especially portraits, should be done from life. I work from photos as much as I do from life (I always take the photos myself, sometimes over a hundred).
For me there should be no secrets in art! From as far back as the days of Leonardo da Vinci and Vermeer with their camera obscura, professional artists have often used technology to assist them in the creative process. In my tutorials I want to show how to use the digital camera to provide reference material for your portraits.
David Hockney claims many famous paintings were traced using camera-like devices.”Optical devices certainly don’t paint pictures,” Hockney said. “Let me say now that the use of them diminishes no great artist. ”
To Chuck Close, who paints from photographs of faces, it was self-evident that any artist would use every tool possible to make the job easier—even if art historians don’t want to believe it. “What did we learn?” Close would ask. “That some people are amazed that their artist heroes have cheated.”