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Photorealism

Many people feel honoured when their drawing or painting is mistaken for a photo. Well, sometimes it happens unintentionally. But there are artists who strive for photorealism. They think it's the greatest achievement to be able to make a drawing or painting look like it is a photo, even to be able to literally copy a photo by drawing or painting it.

I don't think so. Nowadays,  if your goal is to depict something as true to reality as possible, you can take a photo and that's it. Easy. So why would you learn to draw or paint, just to make your drawing (or painting) look like a photo? That doesn't make sense to me. I want my drawings to be something different, something more than photos are.

The most important thing about drawing is the fun you have while doing it. But as far as the result is concerned, I want my drawings to have a character of their own, a different character than a photo has. At least, I want them to look like drawings.

With this in mind, drawing from a photo is not such a bad thing, apart from the fact that you can't always draw from life. You already have a photo of your subject, great, but you don't have a drawing of it, yet. What a pity. The interesting task is to make your drawing stand out against the photo. Sounds fun.

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