When I work with photography-based art, the process begins with a photographic transfer onto the surface. The photograph becomes more than just a reference, it acts as a value map, guiding the relationships between light and shadow.
Because the images I use are ones I’ve taken myself, I already understand the lighting: the direction it falls, the quality of it, and the source. This awareness becomes an essential part of the painting process. The way light moves across a face, the softness of a shadow, the quiet intensity of a highlight—all of that information is embedded in the image, gently guiding each step forward.
And yet, once the painting begins, something more intuitive takes over.
Painting becomes a kind of dance.
It often begins with establishing the darker values the shadows that give structure and form to the image. From there, the lighter values emerge, bringing forward the highlights and areas of illumination. But the true work lies not in applying darks and lights, but in observing the relationship between them.
Are the shadows deep enough?
Are the highlights too strong?
Is the balance between light and shadow working?
Are the shapes of light and shadow accurate?
The answers are rarely immediate. Instead, they reveal themselves through a process of gentle adjustment, darkening a shadow slightly, softening a highlight, refining the transition between the two. Back and forth, the painting evolves until it begins to feel right.
In this current series of monochromatic portraits, each piece unfolds in its own way. I don’t follow a rigid, step-by-step formula. Instead, I respond to what the painting seems to ask for as it develops.
Over time, I’ve come to realize that learning to paint has also been a lesson in learning how to move forward one step at a time.
There is always a temptation to rush ahead, to move into another area before fully resolving what is in front of me. But painting asks for presence. It asks for patience. It asks me to stay with the moment I am in, trusting that the next step will reveal itself when I am ready to see it.
There is a quiet stillness in this way of working.
And within that stillness, intuition becomes clearer.
This approach observing light, building values, and allowing the painting to emerge gradually is at the heart of the monochromatic painting course I’ll be teaching this spring at Fleming College, as well as in all of my photography-based art courses.
In this course, students learn how to use a photograph as a value guide and develop a painting step by step using a single-colour palette. It’s a powerful and approachable way to understand how light and shadow create form, depth, and atmosphere.
If you’ve ever been curious about turning your own photographs into paintings, this process offers a gentle place to begin.
And as many students discover, the process itself often becomes just as meaningful as the finished work.
Tips & Tools: Seeing Your Work with Fresh Eyes
One practice that has become an essential part of my process is photographing my work as it progresses.
What began simply as a way to document each stage has become an invaluable tool for refinement. Viewing the painting through the lens of a camera often reveals things I might not otherwise notice, subtle imbalances, areas that need softening, or shifts in value that aren’t quite working.
There’s something about that slight distance,perhaps the shift in perspective or the flattening of the image,that allows you to see the work more objectively.
This is not a new idea.
Artists throughout history have used similar methods to gain clarity in their work. Henri Matisse, for example, was known to photograph his paintings repeatedly as they evolved. He used these images to step back from the immediacy of the canvas and observe the composition with fresh eyes.
In works such as Large Reclining Nude (1935), these photographic records show a fascinating progression what appears effortless in the final painting is revealed to be the result of a slow, thoughtful, and highly intentional process.
Matisse referred to aspects of this as a kind of “methodology of omission” deciding what to keep, what to soften, and what to remove altogether.
These images remind us of something important: even the most seemingly spontaneous works are often built through careful observation, revision, and patience.
The same quiet dance.
