Last year my big brother went to Africa on holiday, lucky man. As I am a poor struggling artist with no hope of ever going on safari to paint, I asked him to take plenty of animal photos for me. He certainly did - I now have a file of about 200 photos to pick through - the majority are not suitable to use for paintings but they are all incredibly useful as a source of reference material and I cannot wait to get started. I have one unfinished painting to complete, and a couple of possible commissions waiting in the wings, but I might, just might, get some free time to paint an elephant or giraffe....
A close friend of mine gave me food for thought today. Is it plagiarism to copy another artist's style? Or is it just unfortunate? There are millions of artists in the world, they can't all have a different way of using pencils or a brush, and if you paint an animal, it's always going to look like an animal. Without the advent of the internet, it would not be possible to notice most other artists' work. Hmmm, perhaps I should just get on with my own work and not worry about anyone else's...
2 comments:
Hope you get to paint an elephant soon. It looks lovely on the photo. :-) I think as long as you don't set out to 'imitate' another artist there's nothing wrong with having a similar style, just means you see the world in a similar way, doesn't it? xoxo
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