I've been working on my WIP article today and I wrote a little bit about how I go about creating the composition. When I was done I thought it would be interesting to talk about my views on using reference photos.

I often use reference photos for my art work. I never thought of the finished pieces as being copies of the originals. The reason for this is that with each drawing I go through the steps of composition.

In the WIP I am using several photos for the subject and other photos to define the background. All of this to better tell the story I want to tell. In the end I will have produced an original work. Even when I only use one reference I still think about balance, cropping, and values.

There is always more to it than the subject matter, the formal aspects of visual composition are like the grammar of a language. In writing, a story is written with words (subject matter). Like good literature and good poetry is more than words and subject matter, art is more than pictures. The organization, the sentence structure, the style, and so on can make or break a good story. In art, the way the formal elements are arranged can make or break a good picture idea. 

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