Tuesday Photo Art with Lois Stanfield, M.Artist., CPP
Tuesday’s have become quite a hit on Successful-Photographer thanks to photographer artist’s willing to share some of their thoughts and ideas on creating art based on photography.
Today’s photographer/artist is Lois Stanfield, who specializes in Equine and Pet Portraiture. She was a Professional Photographers of America 2015 Platinum Artist of Year and 2014 Silver Artist of Year in the Artist category. I remember being on a judging panel when one of Lois’s images came around (of course I didn’t know it was hers at the time) and I was absolutely taken with it. When images can stop people in their tracks you know you are on the right path.
First up let’s take a look at an equine treatment in the form of a pencil sketch.
Graphite-like treatment of this image details the most important features in this horse image
Source image Lois worked from to create the art above
I believe I would call this distillation. Lois keeps the most striking parts of this photo and discarding the rest. knowing what to leave out is probably at least as important as what to include in your art images.
I asked Lois for her words of wisdom on creating art from photographs.
“Well, I don’t know if it’s wisdom, but here is something to ponder!
I find that the way to develop as an artist is to allow yourself to play. When learning to use Corel Painter, at first we need to follow the instruction of a good teacher. Perhaps a few teachers. But then it’s time to play, experiment, try the “what if?” process. What would happen if I did this? And synthesize all the instruction with the discoveries you make while playing. From all that, comes your own style and brand of painting. But it doesn’t end there. Pushing the envelope and trying new things will expand your abilities and vision of what’s possible. Leave fear behind!”
Talk about taking an image to a new place from a photograph. WOW, Sweet!
Image from MyDogPhoto.com © Vicky Cook
Lois does work on commission creating art for her clients. The image above was brought to her for painting by a customer, and the art was only started after permission was secured, with a release, from the photographer.
Obviously, if learning the techniques of turning your photographic images into a painterly look is something you are interested in there’s a market for that.
Lois teaches webinars and one-on-one WebEx’s. Her next webinar will be June/July, on “How to Create Beautiful Backgrounds for Your Paintings.”
Lois’s website is: http://www.loisstanfield.com
You can contact her via email: [email protected]
Yours in Creative Photography, Bob
