Drawing with watercolours

[Beverly Wong-Kleinjan]

I am wondering the same thing, Sandra. I don’t think it would be too different with a photo as opposed to a 3D object, but I assume the photo would have to be a certain distance away from the camera – depending on its size of course – as in the video it shows the flowers a relatively good distance away from the camera.

I rarely draw ‘from life’, rather from photo references most of the time. Though I’ve gotten faster over the years drawing freehand, sometimes it would be nice to have the ability to draw faster so I could get to the fun part – painting! – a lot quicker. 😉

[Sandra Strait]

Beverly, I also do a postcard painting to put in my husband’s lunchbag 5 days a week and it would be lovely some days to just trace from a reference.  He’d probably take it as cheating though, lol.  He’d rather something sloppy and rushed and all mine.

[Beverly Wong-Kleinjan]

Sandra, what a lovely and thoughtful thing for you to do! A good way to practice too! 🙂 My hubby is starting a new job next week, for which he will have to travel. Hmm….

[Violeta Damjanovic-Behrendt]

Hi Sandra and Beverly! I would need a bit of time to answer your questions on using NeoLucida XL for painting from reference photos. I’ve tried it so far only for drawing 3D objects, and to answer your question, I would actually need to create my drawing settings, take photos of the settings and of the views through the camera’s eyepiece. I will share the results with you here. More will come soon!

Thank you for asking 🙂

[Sandra Strait]

Thank you for trying this out for us! I’m crossing my fingers that it will work.

[Violeta Damjanovic-Behrendt]

Dear Sandra, Beverly and all interested in this topic! Tracing 2D objects with the NeoLucida XL definitely works. It is a bit tricky to find the appropriate positions for the elements involved in the drawing process, i.e. a camera, a sketch book and a drawing subject. I’ve summarised my experiences and gave some recommendations in my blog post: https://violetad.com/2018/01/03/tracing-drawings-with-neolucida-xl/
Hope you will find it useful 🙂
Thank you for your questions!

[Sandra Strait]

Thank you, Violeta! I’m off to read the blog post!

Now I’m back.  I may have to get one of these.  It would be a bit of a pain, in that with my step-by-step, I’d be tracing just a small bit of the original, then I’d have to move the paper and draw the next bit and move again.  I might be able to put down tape marks to show where the tracing needs to be placed so that I didn’t have to keep trying to find it.

Thank you, again!

[Violeta Damjanovic-Behrendt]

You’re welcome, Sandra 🙂