It's a good photograph but....
Some artists like to work right in front of the scene. Coined “plein air” painting by the impressionists, who popularised the idea of getting out of the studio and into the great outdoors, its advantage to the artist is that it allows you to fully appreciate the quality of light and shadow in the scene you are trying to depict. Once photography was invented however, professional artists seized upon it almost immediately. Recognising the convenience of capturing a scene just at the right moment and the luxury of being in a studio where they were not at the mercy of the elements (those northern hemisphere winters are pretty cold), working from photographs became a standard for many artists (Pisarro used to paint from postcards sent to him by friends!). So photographs are the norm for a lot of painters and with the advent of digital photography even more inexpensive. But a great photograph does not necessarily make a great painting.
Subject matter, tonal quality, composition, foregrounds, details, all these things are called into play in photos that do not necessarily translate into the painting process.
Nearly every photograph you take will need cropping and reframing for painting – if only to rid the foreground of unnecessary clutter or dark tonal areas. How many photos do you have of scenes with large blocks of dark colour in the foreground – say trees on a hill, or dune vegetation? When these are translated into paint they can completely overwhelm the rest of the painting.
The 'Hook'
However great the shot – it can usually be edited and improved upon to make an even better subject for painting, but while you are busy taking a bit off here and there, don’t lose what attracted you to the subject in the first place. Paintings have ‘hooks’ just like a good song has a hook. That’s the catchy piece of the music that goes round and round in your brain and makes it stick there. A good painting subject has a hook too – and what it will be will be your personal choice, what attracted you to the subject matter in the first place. Was it the colour of the flowers, the way the clouds were forming, or the quality of light on the hill side? Whatever it was, make sure it is still there at the end of the painting. Sometimes in an effort to ‘simplify’ subjects, daunted by a new challenge, we end losing what attracted us to the subject in the first place.
So let’s say you have selected your scene, tightened up the composition to focus on that hook but when you had finished the painting you weren’t happy with the way it turned out – what went wrong?