Day 13 : #30x30DirectWatercolor2019 : Shots From Above

I was looking at the work of Chris Dahl-Bredine. He’s a photographer, and the pilot of some kind of odd-looking ultralight aircraft. His Instagram is full of fantastic shots – similar to what we’re becoming used to from drones – but he gets himself up there and sees it first hand.

This one is inspired by one of Chris’ photos. (Unfortunately, I’ve lost the link to the actual shot, but his whole page is worth a look – or a follow!).

I’m not sure why I’ve deviated today from my process – painting from my own sketches.

I suppose the issue is – I’ve never seen this myself, and the moment I did, I wished I had!

My sketches all come from my memory. What else? So – if never seen it, how can I paint it? And if I have seen it, how can I not paint it?

Other people’s work is sometimes an important launching point.

These days, the practice of painting from photos goes somewhat against the grain. We’re told by the art-zeitgeist that every work should be entirely our own creation. As if that was possible. There’s rather too much concern about copyright violations if you ask me. (Which you didn’t). Not that I feel people shouldn’t own their own work, of course, I do. Entirely so, when it comes to commercial use. But I feel – on the other hand – that artists should be able to use anything they see as inspiration. Anything and everything. All of history, and certainly all of the ocean of images that we call the internet. To do otherwise is to ignore the culture we live in.

I wrote about the practicalities of copyright-and-painting at greater length over here.

But! This goes against the grains of my goals for #30×30 – so – I’ll be back to working from my sketches tomorrow :)