It’s a commonly known fact that drawing from life is a lot harder than drawing from a photograph. Professional artists who specialize in drawing from life are often better at it than those who just work from photographs and often have no choice but to work from life as part of their jobs. However, we’re not all photographers with years of training and experience, so how can we learn to draw from life? We can start by understanding the benefits and drawbacks of drawing from life and then make our own decisions.
What is the difference between drawing from life and drawing from a photo? How many times have you noticed that photos can be altered to appear more lifelike than they are, usually by the use of special effects? This can make it difficult to tell if a drawing was accurate.
What is the difference between drawing from life and drawing from a photo?
While drawing from life may be more appealing, drawing from photos is not discounted. Drawings from life are usually more realistic in terms of lighting and perspective, which makes them easier to identify with. However, the colours in photos can be more interesting; for instance, a person’s eyes can be made more prominent, and facial features can be enhanced.
If you take a photograph of a place and paint it, you are drawing from a photograph. If you look at a person and paint them, you are drawing from life. How do you go about drawing from life? The best way to do that is to walk around and observe everything in front of you. When you do that, you discover the world is full of textures and details that you can draw from.
Drawing from Life: Pros and Cons
- Pro: Many people are good at drawing from life – those are the people who make most of the money from the art industry.
- Cons: Most people don’t want to draw from life because it is boring, and everyone can be an artist if they want to. But not everyone knows how to draw.
- Pro: Drawing from life is a great way to learn about your subject.
- Cons: But it has its weaknesses. This is especially true for non-art photography.
- Pro: Many artists who create their paintings or drawings from life choose to do so because they wish to learn how to draw people, a skill that is essential in their fields of painting and drawing. This can help them improve, and their work can be more realistic.
- Cons: However, not many people have the patience to do so, which can result in very uncomfortable results for the artist, as digital images and videos are usually more time-efficient than painting a person from life.
Line drawings and paintings are a great way to try new techniques and experiment with new materials, and they can also be just as effective as photo-based art.
From a Photograph: Pros and Cons
- Pro: You can work most of the time indoors. The way we take our photographs is changing. While it used to be that we went out to a public place and took the shot, taking photographs of buildings, monuments, and other such objects are becoming increasingly popular, especially in the form of ‘Virtual Art’ or ‘Virtual Photography.’
- Cons: Some clients are just difficult. Most of the time, clients have a good time, and when things go a little bit wrong, it’s usually because the client has been moody
- Pro: You can share your ideas on social media.
- Cons: Photographers have low social status.
- Pro: Plenty of free photography courses.
- Cons: Rather questionable work-life balance.
There’s a lot of advice out there on how to step out from behind the camera to become a better artist. Some say don’t try, some say you have to have a massive amount of talent, and some say you need a certain amount of skill. Others say you need to study and practice.
A lot of artists are frustrated with the fact that their drawings do not look like samples in art books. Some try to draw from life, but it is not always successful. The main problem is if you draw from life, you will be too familiar with the subject you are drawing, which will result in a drawing with the same mistakes as the original subject. This will be a lot like studying for a test, you will know exactly what to do, but the result will be very different from a skillful drawing.