Selecting a Subject for Porcelain Paintings

Video Transcript

"We are getting ready to paint a picture. But to do that, you need something to look at as a reference guide. When I'm painting flowers, I like to use real photographs of flowers because they're much looser and much more natural when they're the real thing. You can also paint from live flowers in a vase. But when you're picking it out, a lot of people will find a picture, trace it. Which you can do, that's fine. You can trace it on and then you just paint in the flowers and the leaves. When I'm doing flowers, I usually do it freehand, but I like to have different poses of the flowers to look at. So I have several snapshots, and I look through them, and if I want a side view of a flower, I might use this one. And when I want the front view, I might use this one. If I want the back view, I have one here. So it's nice to have a lot of choices of pictures to choose from because it can make your painting a lot more interesting. You don't want three pictures of three pansies looking right at you. You want a little natural variation, like they are when they grow. We see them from all different angles, so you have to paint them from all different angles. So when you're picking out a study, whether it's flowers or animals or a scenery picture or anything like that, you need at least a picture of a painting or a picture of an actual scene to go by. Because to sit down and look at a plain bank of porcelain and start painting can be pretty intimidating. So it's just a reference guide. "