How I use reference photos

Many times I take my own photos, and sometimes I use photos from a social media group I belong to, “reference photos for artists.” We’re able to use photos there for free. We are not, however, free to post them online or share them. 

I’m still enchanted by the scenes on the western edge of the Olympic peninsula. 

To be clear, I only use reference photos compositionally. I generally stop looking at them once the basic shapes are laid in, and make my own decisions. 

For this 24x30 cradled board I put on a mid-tone ground of earth yellow, and then drew in the major shapes with chalk. After that, I put the photo away, because I find them distracting. They are distracting in the sense that i get too “precious” trying to copy a photo. I’d rather do my own artistic rendering of a scene, and what the scene means to me. 

I always start with the sky. This was a complicated sky in the early morning, with altonimbus clouds spreading to the west. I started with the sky using anthroquinone blue, titanium white, and a dot of hansa yellow for warmth. I also used some St. Rene’s yellow to highlight the clouds closest to the rising sun.  

After the sky is laid in, I start on the water, often using the same colors, perhaps slightly darker, since in any picture plane the sky should usually be the brightest plane, and the ground should be the 2nd darkest. 

I didn’t take any more pictures after this, but once I reached the part of the painting where i hate everyone, I stepped back and took a break for a couple of days, to complain and whine about how much i didn’t like this painting.

Although the original reference photo didn’t include it, I added in some driftwood logs, since many of the beaches have the chaos look like Poseidon hurled a logging truck at them. I went back and forth on the coloring, shadow, and decided to add tome more warmth into the sky nearest the sunrise. 

Additional colors used were earth orange, ultramarine blue, and zinc white (for the atmosphere in the distance).

Edge of Morning is 24x30” on cradled board, and will be available for purchase after June 2026.