Drawing from photographs

Drawing from photographs is something I find very difficult. The problem for me is that I end up copying rather than selecting, and therefore I always draw directly from the world, something I find far easier as the process is very selective and it's me doing the selection. However the relationship between the camera and art is a long one, starting with the invention of the camera obscura and continuing into the present as artists seek to explore how a world of instant imagery and mobile phone selfies can be reflected upon by the slower processes of painting and drawing. Check out the book, 'A Brush with the Real: Figurative Painting Today' by Valli and Dessanay, which unpicks a lot of these issues. 

David Hockney has explored the history of pre-film camera art in his book ‘Secret Knowledge: Rediscovering the lost techniques of the Old Masters’, it’s a really good read and his viewpoint is from that of the artist rather than the art historian which is always refreshing.

A Hockney drawing from ‘Secret Knowledge’

So how are artists dealing with the camera? There are vast amounts of ‘copyists’ out there and if you Google Photorealism you will find a raft of not just past practitioners, (apparently you have to have had exhibitions before 1970 to be a real Photorealist) but a host of artists still painstakingly copying from photographs. It’s skillful and hard work, but where does the art come in?

I shall try and unpick a few issues around this and at the same time introduce a few artists that I think are well worth looking at in relation to contemporary drawing.

Kevin Cosgrove is an artist that I think uses photographs in a very personal way. His interest in a particular subject matter is very powerful. He draws and paints places of work. Old fashioned work, places of oil and metal and grind. Those small workshops that used to at one time be everywhere but are now becoming few and far between, as manufacturing is outsourced and people start to forget that things can always be repaired. Perhaps the car mechanic is the most familiar figure in this world; I get glimpses of their dark workshops when I have to leave the car for its annual MOT. Cosgrave obviously loves the feel and texture of those workshops and he takes photographs of these places to work from. However when he selects from the photographs he selects aspects that he will heighten through a touch soaked in a metaphorical dark oil. Read this review of his work.

The drawing below is charcoal on paper 108 x 150 cm, large enough to get stuck in with a big soft lump of charcoal, the dark patches below the workbench creating those mysterious dark spaces we all remember from childhood. Those dark spaces where the bogyman lives. He feels for the surfaces and textures of old paint cans and tools, their worked surfaces further worked in his drawing. Although the drawing is done from a photograph, he re-shapes what is there, gives additional emphasis and thus transcends the image and makes it his own.

Kevin Cosgrove

Paul Chiappes works in a very different way, but his is also in his own way re-creating rather than just copying photographs. This time the scale issue is reversed, he works on images that are even smaller that the original photographs. His subject matter of old school photographs, images from long ago parties etc. is suffused with nostalgia and it is only when you realise the scale that we get the hook into the work. Scale makes us move around. We have to stand back from some images, their large size forcing us back until we are in a position to see them as totalities rather than as a surface of marks. On the other hand tiny images force us to examine them very closely, like those paintings reproduced on postage stamps. Chiappes’s marks can only be seen when you look at his images from about 4 inches away. They suggest an obsession and intense involvement with the images, but one totally different in quality to Cosgrave’s.

Paul Chiappes

Clive Head makes paintings and drawings from places that he visits over and over again. He takes photographs and makes small drawings on the spot. This is how he describes his working process, “Before taking photographs I make lots of little drawings and sketches as well. The initial construction of the painting is drawing and I always draw on tracing paper, which is very resilient if you keep rubbing it out. Although I make a tiny drawing at the beginning that drawing has probably gone through 30-40 different stages before the final version of the painting. The small drawing will give me an idea of the format for the painting.”

He then goes on to draw out his images large scale ready for painting. Personally I like his drawings more than his paintings, the final finished images being perhaps too finished for me, all the hard won processes and thoughts are eventually hidden beneath the paint, the final finish of which I’m not sure about. Even so his working methods are interesting and hard won, so I cant really criticise the man.

Clive Head

Head is particularly good at drawing curved space, which is something I've been interested in for a long time and as I also make large drawings I am very aware of how much physical effort they take. The lesson that all of these artists teach is that you need to have a clear idea about what makes an image if you are going to move beyond the photographic copy. 

Of course our very own Richard Baker makes images from photographic sources and you can find a book on his drawings in the college library. The print below, an etching, was printed at Workshop Press. 

Richard Baker

See also:

Drawing and photography