Recreating Reality - Referencing Real Life for the Arts
Referencing, for artists, is the process of engaging with or studying outside materials to recreate a scene or inspire an entirely new piece. This is commonly done using photographs, or in recent times, images generated by artificial intelligence. However, though these references are found with ease, the art created from them may suffer. A solution, and a common foundational skill for many artists, is to reference real life.
Learning to look for sunlight and the shadows of nature, studying how they reflect and interact with the colors of the day, provides an artist with the vital information that photographs often fail to capture, and artificial intelligence fails to generate. This vital information is a perception of depth that reveals the ambiances of specific spaces and the nuances of humanity that permeate every aspect of life— fingerprints in vases, wrinkles in shirts, subtle wilts in leaves, or even familiar shapes in clouds.
Plein air painting, a phrase drawn from the French “en plein air” and meaning “in the open air”, is a method commonly known to embrace this artistic study of life. Plein air painting is the process of creating art within nature, from the initial sketch, all the way through to the finished product. This breed of practice has added benefits to the referencing of real life, such as the immersion into what is being painted or mirrored. When an artist paints while seated in nature, they can hear cicadas, smell the soil and cedar, feel grassblades, sunlight and a breeze, and maybe even the beginnings of a mosquito bite.
All of this immersion can be transferred into a piece of art, but this could not be done if one were merely referencing a photo. Plein air painting is also known to vastly improve accuracy and speed when creating, due to the time constraints of the sun and the weather. This leads to a simplification of the process and allows the artist to paint freely, without fretting over the minute details.
It is known that plein air painting, and referencing real life, whether it be staged still lives, or live models, is not an easy practice, but that is what makes it all the more fundamental for artists, both new and experienced. By using real life references, an artist is forced to problem solve and discover where a shoulder meets an arm, where dark turns to light. When creating from a study of real life, painting and drawing become exercises in translation for the artist, exercises that will only help to build creative muscle.
Additionally, when one looks to life for creative projects, inspiration comes with greater ease. Inspiration is brought about by a stimulus, commonly an object, painting, music, or an idea, and inspiration has two parts; inspired “by” and inspired “to‘. Inspired “by” is typically the feeling of appreciation for said stimulus, based on its perceived value for the viewer.
Inspired “to” comes later, as it is the motivation to translate this appreciation and perceived value to a new object or place.
By recalling a stimulus, both parts of inspiration can be sustained, and for an artist studying from life, with the stimulus in front of them, the motivational, compelling, state that is creative flow rears its head with much greater ease.
Referencing is an integral part of creating new and updating existing works. Many modern artists use pictures and generative ai for this aspect of the creative process, however, the human eye captures so much more than what is captured by camera. By referencing real life, landscapes, still lives, and models, light and color become more vibrant, accuracy and speed are improved, inspiration is easier to come by, and overall, referencing from reality allows an artist to create a piece that emulates the life it was born from.
