Photo Realist Drawing by Chris Scalf
“I did this as an exercise for the purpose of, quite simply, practice. It’s been a while since I attempted anything photo-real… It’s very good to do this kind of thing because it strengthens your freehand drawing abilities, as well as developing an eye for detail.
Freehand drawn in photoshop cs2 (from a reference photo off to the side) with a wacom tablet.
time-lapsed… real time was about 3 and a half hours. “
Why “photorealism”, Why not just use a camera?
The answer is simple. I’ve made the point many times in my replies, comments and descriptions. But I’ll make it clearer here for those who do not understand: It’s for practice. It is the same as a musician practicing scales, so that he can write better songs…Or even a musician who plays a song from another famous musician on a CD– also to make himself better… To inspire/aspire to become better at the craft/skill.
It’s the same with the art. Sure I am just acting like a human camera and re-creating every detail and color I see– but that’s where the conditioning is. Same as that musician that is replicating the sounds of a scale or someone else’s song. (Why not just say to the musician, “why bother playing that song? Just put in the CD?” )
The fact that it is all freehand and controlled by my judgement makes it so valuable to attempt…. I have to be able to see and recognize exact tones of color, and be able to recreate it with extreme accuracy from scratch. I must be able to recognize every detail and the consistency that makes that detail REAL. It strengthens my abilities to be able to create works of art that come from my imagination.
Aside from practice, it is also a very commonly sought skill in the commercial trades to be able to mimic real-life with art. In addition to that, it does entertain the majority.
So there you go.”
| About: Chris Scalf |
