Learning How to Look By Cecilia Wren

By Cecilia Wren

One of the biggest complaints I hear from artists trying to find references is that pinterest has so much AI or unhelpful references. Pinterest has a time and place and that is for outfit and haircut inspiration. I love pinterest as much as the next person, but for fine art references it's hard to get high quality images. You sometimes are able to find a diamond in the rough and find the one reference that you have been looking for, but there are better ways to find them. One of the important skills that I have learned throughout college is how to research both for photo references and art that I use for inspiration, and now I’m sharing my photo reference tips with the world.

Wikimedia Commons

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page

Wikimedia Commons is an open source image library housed within the wikipedia family. There are a large variety of images that you can find here from at home family photography from 2004 to high quality nature photography. I would use wikimedia if I was looking for naturalistic pose references or landscapes. Because all of the images are open source, many of them have free use for adaptation and remixing of the photos. There are just so many good pictures on Wikimedia that it is usually my go to reference.

The People’s Graphic Design Archive

https://peoplesgdarchive.org/

For my graphic designers and printmakers, the People’s Graphic Design Archive (PGDA) is a goldmine of a reference. There are so many good references for every kind of print that you could think of. They have 80’s science book covers, Iranian food packaging, screen printed protest signs, and more. The archive curates work through crowdsourcing, allowing people to upload graphic design and print materials from 10+ years ago. I have used the PGDA when looking for event flyer designs that are interesting and look different. With the AI boom, many people are returning to traditional print materials for inspiration, and the PGDA is a perfect place to find those historical print references.

Museum of Modern Art and Metropolitan Museum of Art Collections

https://www.moma.org/collection/ https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection

You don’t need to go to New York City to see the art in the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) collections. Most museums have a large catalogued collection online for viewing, even including works that are not on display currently. I often use the MoMA as a reference to find artists who did similar things to what I want to do, and see what techniques and mediums they used to be successful. MoMA is a historical institution that has been around for decades, allowing their collections to be large and well funded. The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York is another museum that has a large digital collection that anyone can look through. The Met also allows you to search by images in the public domain if you are using them in circumstances where you would want to print and reproduce images on merch or posters for sale.

Line of Action

https://line-of-action.com/practice-tools

One of the ways that helped me get better at drawing people was practicing timed figure drawing. Being able to capture a human form in a set number of minutes/seconds was essential to learning about line and how to convey what you want with as little of time as possible. Finding someone to be a model for you is sometimes hard, but that is what Line of Action is for. The website lets you filter by figure drawing, faces, animals, hands, still lives, and environment drawing, and even more within each category. Line of Action simulates the changes of poses with pictures changing at whatever rate you set. They also give you suggestions if this is your first time trying quick life drawing to help you get started.

Blender

https://www.blender.org/

One way to get the most specific references that you haven’t been able to find anywhere else is through making them yourself. Blender is a free 3D modeling software that allows you to light and position assets that you can sculpt yourself or download from a number of websites for free. You can download a large mech asset, put it in Blender, and pose and light it in ways that you can’t find references for. I have not personally used this method for finding references, but my more technically skilled friends use this method consistently. The main appeal is the nearly endless amount of customization that you can do with Blender.

This is just a short list of the places that I check when it comes to references for my art. Like I said earlier, I don’t think Pinterest is necessarily bad, but they might have a lot of AI and advertisements that clog up your feed and make it hard to find the one picture that you need. With the whole internet at your fingertips, you can find almost anything. And if you can’t find it, you can make it.