Artists using Photographs to inspire or assist them?

[locutus]

I've had some 'success', at least from a technical perspective, by printing at grade 5 on Ilford Matt paper, and then painting over that with lean layers of spirit thinned oils, a bit in the style of oil sketching.

No guarantees of it not crumbling off the gelatine at some point, but it was interesting to try.

[Drew Bedo]

There is a widely held belief that many renaissance painters used optical devices to assist thrm in getting realistic perspective in their works.

Penn and Teller did a documentary about a man who recreated one of Vermeer's paintings using mirrors to project the scene onto the canvass. Look for "Tim's Vermeer".

I would not be surprised to hear that many contemporary artists use some photographic process to inspire, inform or assist them in their creative process.

[Sean Mac]

The Art Nouveau painter Alphonse Mucha was another artist who worked from photographs at times.

Some gridded photographs of his are to be seen here...

https://viola.bz/czech-art-nouveau-p...cha/#more-7678

The grid method is still widely taught.

I prefer to use a proportional divider myself.