Remember This....

Art Lessons
Contemporary Art


This is one of those things that I´ve said before and I´ll say again and again.

The most difficult thing in art, the most time consuming is...
... deciding what you´re going to make or paint, how you are going to create it and which colors you will use.

The painting technique part is the easy part.

It´s definitely acceptable to copy someone else´s work while you learn or have some fun, as long as you give credit to the original artist...but remember that true art is the creative part and that is something that cannot be copied. It can only come from you.

So even if you use someone else´s work for inspiration or reference, be sure that there is always something there that is  uniquely yours and, please,  remember to give the credit due to the original artist.

The customary way of doing this is by adding the word "after" and then the name of the original artist. For example: Male Figure by Beatriz Socorro "after" Roberto Ferri.

Remember this: even monkeys can imitate and elephants can paint (some of them even better than me).

Here are some links about some of the famous artists who have used other famous artist´s work as reference.

As you can see they are not exact reproductions but rather the artist´s own version of the original work.

1. Van Gogh
2. Picasso
3. Francis Bacon
4. Andy Warhol  (starts on  paragraph 4)

If you wish to use someone else´s  Art Work or Photos as reference for your work, your best and safest bet is to use works that are already in the public domain. This way you don´t risk infringing copyrights. You can get these by doing a Google search on images in the public domain.

I also recommend you do some research on artist's copyrights. The more you know...the better.

Have Fun!!!