I was listening to the SVSlearn.com All About Contracts class, and copyright and reference material were briefly addressed as they discussed what you might find in the typical illustrator contract.
But I had more questions about those references.
So I went on an internet hunt.
I have been using random images off of google search for practicing my lines. Not digital paintings, where someone has their own personal mark and style on an image, but I thought the photos would be fair game if I were changing them enough to be unrecognizable.
But after listening to the SVS contracts class, I wasn’t so sure.
So I researched whether I would be able to use the art I made from references. The post,
Can I make a painting from photographs,” that I found at thesprucecrafts.com explained that even derivatives (like painting a picture from someone else’s photo) is probably a violation of the intention of copyright. The original owner of the photo should have rights over reproductions and interpretations.
That’s fair, I get that.
But the website did point out that there are images that are published under Creative Commons Zero License (CC0). Which means that you can use the image reference freely, even to publish or sell your work later on. Which led me to arttutor.com‘s post about finding free photos, which in turn led me to pixabay.com, which has a bunch of CC0 pics.
And guess what? These are way better pictures than the ones I’ve been bringing up in my random google searches.
So here we go…a little more legally now 😉 . I think at this point, trying to balance learner and painter, I will commit to creating my own poses and actions and such, but use images to practice stylizing and lines and figuring out key features. Yes, it would be best to use my own photos, but I’m not traveling to Africa or Antartica anytime soon, and so those lions and penguins might be a little tricky…lol.