I compared doing environ sketches from photos vs from imagination for a week straight

I mean I always thought painting from photos was kind of cheating, but last month I did a little experiment with myself. For 7 days I did one landscape sketch from a photo reference and one from pure imagination each evening. The photo based ones just came together way faster and had way more believable lighting and depth. The imagination ones looked flat no matter how much I tried to fake it with shadows and highlights. I think it's because photos train your eye on how light actually falls on things instead of what your brain thinks light does. Has anyone else noticed this gap when they compare their own reference work versus concept work?

2 comments

2 Comments

wright.taylor23d ago

Man @juliahall you just changed how I see reference work.

juliahall23d ago

omg yes this was literally me last year, I did the same thing for a week with portraits and the photo ones just popped while my imagination ones looked like muddy blobs. It's wild how much our brains fill in wrong info about shadows and color shifts without a real reference to ground us. Honestly started thinking of reference work more like practice than cheating after that experiment.