From Photo to Painting

I spend an evening with Deanna Yesko and Sam Carroll at their old studio in Sugar Loaf N.Y. to see how they create their paintings. The following interview is from that session. - WP

Interview

WinePhilosopher: So! what is the first step, when you create a painting?

Sam Carroll: The first step is actually going out to photograph, either finding models that we want to take pictures of, their portraits, made up scenes that we want to create, or just going out and randomly shooting. So, to have a solid image, that we think will paint well is our first step. We need a large stockpile of images to come up with just a few that we can use.

WP: So for just one of these paintings there was a lot of photography to do before you would even get into the workshop?

Deanna Yesko: Absolutely, we use many rolls of film each, just to get one image.

Sam: And then there are hours of editing and separating the photos just to find out that they’re not going to work well enough.

WP: That’s a lot of work, and it's only step one.

Sam: Yes, and then to realize that they can not be used for the next step. (laughter)

WP: It probably took a long time and a lot of trial and error just to develop an eye for which photos will work.

Deanna: Sometimes a beautiful photograph will make a terrible painting, and an awful looking photograph will make a great painting.

WP: So after you go through all this and you have chosen the photograph to use, what’s the next step?

Sam: Then we separate them into three different layers that we will put back together once we get it on the canvas. We separate them into darker areas, mid-tone areas, and highlighted areas, then we take these separations and make our templates.

WP: Now you have the templates what is the next step?

Deanna: The next step is figuring out in which order we are going to put the templates down on the canvas. And choose the colors, those are the next two big steps. These two steps go hand and hand, the order templates are to be used and choosing the colors.

Sam: At this step we refer back to our photographs and our separations allot and mentally try to picture what the end product will look like

WP: What happens next?

Sam: We have to decide what layer will go down first.

Deanna: We also have to decide what each layer will look like after another layer has covered it and it is peeled away.

Sam: We also put down a base color, and we have found that whatever color we use first holds true no matter how many colors we put down. That first layer or color always seems to make it way back to the surface.

WP: So sometimes you will mix 6 or 7 different colors for a painting and then make a decision not to use them all during the process?

Deanna: Right around the 4^th layer we have the option to stop painting and if it looks to us like there is enough paint on the canvas, we will just stop.

WP: Wow!

Click! here; Artist: Deanna Yesko and Sam Carroll

Click! here; Interview with artists Deanna and Sam.

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