Working with photographic inspiration...
...or what to do when you just want to look... and don't make time to draw.
Earlier this year I experienced an enduring dilemma of mine - and I think possibly of most illustrators or artists who love to sit and draw life outside - the dilemma of being in a new and overwhelmingly inspiring place but not being able to do all the things. I want to sit down with my paints and pencils and draw it, but, I also want to just wander through the new streets and in and out of new stores and up new stairs or look over at new views of rooftops or the sea. I want to just exist and soak the new place in and also photograph it and socialise whilst in it and visit all the wonderful things the new place offers and be present with whoever I’m there with (usually Dave). I get so completely overwhelmed with feeling like when I’m doing one of the things I’m missing the others. This is particularly if I’m somewhere marvellous, a place with streets and views just begging to be drawn, but I either can’t or don’t make the time to draw it. I feel quite conflicted and this can take away the joy.
Earlier this year I spent a wonderful week in the Netherlands. And I was just totally enraptured. I visited so many beautiful cities - Haarlem, Utrecht, Amsterdam and a one I’d never heard of before I visited and surprisingly loved - Alkmaar - and gosh the Netherlands knows how to make a beautiful city. I think mostly, because these cities are really alive. The buildings are beautifully human and crooked, usually made for people on foot or bicycles, not on cars and streets are filled with canals and plant life is everywhere.
I drew a little in these places but my drawings were mostly quite dreadful. My mind was so busy with the joy and excitement of soaking in the new and also trying to be fast so I could fit in all the things to do. It also kept raining. Which can make for a lovely effect on a drawing, but also makes for a wet and cold artist (I really need to invest in a raincoat) - I find it okay to get wet whilst out drawing if I have a home to go back to warm up in but it’s definitely less nice if out on the streets all day.
I felt frustrated all the time. I wasn’t able to do all the things. I couldn’t just enjoy the lovely free feeling wandering the streets without feeling like I was ‘wasting’ the chance to sit and draw it all.
When I returned to Edinburgh I felt sad that I’d seen all this wonder and beauty and had not really created any artwork that I liked. I hadn’t made any drawings that felt like they came from a place of joy and wonder (rather than panic). So, I got out some of my photos and wondered if memory and photograph could combine to make something I did actually like.
It’s a funny thing drawing from photographs. When I restarted drawing (after decades of not) I kept coming across methods and schools of thinking that said basically that drawing from photographs is bad. That drawing photographs makes things/scenes look quite dead and definitely is a poor second best effort to drawing from life. Now, after lots of years of drawing, I still mostly agree with this. I think drawing from a photograph by directly copying it nearly always leads to something quite average, something far less compelling and a resulting image that just never has the feeling/emotion or life in it than would have been captured from the multidimensional complicated reality.
Things changed a little for me when I started to become an illustrator. I still believe in this adage - that drawing from photographs usually make for lifeless illustrations - but yet I had to learn to draw things and places that I could never sit in front of. So, I had to start working out ways to use photographic imagery as inspiration for illustrated work. I think I also learned a lot about this during the strict early lockdowns of the pandemic when I started to go crazy with the limited ‘life’ I could sit in front of and draw and started to long for places I couldn’t go to. So, I stated to try to work out how to use reference images in ways that didn’t result in ‘dead’ drawings.
I decided to experiment with these learnings to see if I could mix memories of what I had seen in the Netherlands with photographs to create images that captured how I felt about the places I had been.
I found these two images (below) of Utrecht and loved the perspective through the trees as it summed up how it felt to be there.
But they were lacking something too. They felt a bit dull for how magic the city felt. And a bit empty. It was quite cold so although I guess at any one moment there may not have been people out and about, when I walked through the city it actually felt wonderfully vibrant - much more so then these images showed. So I thought I’d have a go of combining things… using these images to make a drawing that had the life and magic of the place I remembered.
The photos I had of Utrecht were distinctly empty of people. Yet, the city when I wandered it, felt filled with them - of people and dogs and cyclists and friends and shoppers. I really loved how this illustration turned out as, for me, it felt like how I remember Utrecht. It is clearly based on those photographs above, but is also clearly imagined.
I did a similar thing then with Alkmaar. I probably never would have visited this little city except we were staying nearby at a strange seaside resort down where Dave was at a work conference. And, I’m so glad we were and that I made the time to get the bus into this little city. It was totally gorgeous. It rained on me and there was a freezing wind, but it had beautiful stores filled with plants and coffee and tea and antiques and vintage clothing and a whole host of other glorious things. It also was set on more glorious canals.
I gathered a few of my photographs of Alkmaar.
I loved this view of the town - looking back into one of the most glorious little streets from across the canal - and I loved that dark coloured building there with it’s crooked windows on the right. But I also wanted some of the life of the streets filled with people, and some of the plant life that was spilling out of shop fronts.
So I came up with this. Again, I really liked this drawing. I loved the trees I had put in the first illustration of the Netherlands and so I added some here too as well as friends drinking tea and gathering in houses. I also saw boat go past with a person and their dog… so they got featured as well.
From this experiment, and also from my learnings as both an artist and illustrator, I think photos can be really useful in creating illustrations or drawings that capture the essence of a place. And, as usual, all the best rules are made to be broken. I think while I was trying to learn to draw, using photographs would have been a dreadful mistake. They would have made my drawings very stiff and too accurate and I think this would have limited and slowed my ability to develop marks and a drawing style and a suite of content that reflected who I am and how I see the world. I think drawing from life is the best way to do and learn that.
But now, when I’ve been somewhere marvellous and somewhere that I didn’t manage to make the time to draw enough while I was there, I think I will use my photographs and combine them with memories and my imagination to try and conjure up the magic of the place in an illustration. And, I’m hoping that knowing this will mean I panic less when I am there and give me more time to enjoy it all!
I know just how you feel! I lived in Bruges for a year but could never do it justice in my sketchbook and totally gave up trying. I love how you have combine photos and memory - I want to go back now with my bicycle and sketchbook and camera!
Your artwork is just so whimsical and charming. All of the texture and details. ❤️
I’m so glad you shared how you came to terms with using your photos. 😊