Creativity, realism, and the photo reference
One reason I decided to start a blog on creative drawing is that I have long felt there is a lot of scattered information in the realm of realistic, imaginative illustration. It’s either quite abstract or more cartoon-style art that seems to be creative (which I also absolutely love, by the way). In contrast, photorealistic drawing often involves taking the right photos so you can copy them pixel by pixel to create a photo realistic depiction of the subject or scene.
In the past, part of me loved the ‘wow’ factor in photographic realism, but on the other hand, I found copying photographs pixel by pixel very uncreative, not to mention extremely time-consuming. To give the readers a visual example of what I mean, consider the following female and male head sketches, which took around 30 minutes each to complete, and not one of them required a reference photo. In addition, the comic-style figure sketches took around 30 minutes each to sketch and ink. The other, a photo of a simple women’s watch I was commissioned to draw for a jewellery brand, took me over 20 hours to complete (far right).
I’m not by any means saying references shouldn’t be used in creative illustration; in fact, I believe they’re essential for learning the natural patterns of form, light, and shadow for realism (if realism is desired). I believe it’s more about how we use references to learn and inspire us rather than merely just copying them. Once these natural patterns are mastered, then the possibilities for realistic drawing are only limited by our imagination. I’ll endeavour to focus on this topic in more detail in future posts.
Thank you!
I hope this post helps provide readers with more direction on the subject. If you found this post helpful, please subscribe to my newsletter, and you’ll be the first to gain insight into my creative process and learn when original artwork is available.