Most of our work here at Linden Alley is done based on photos sent in by customers. It’s a powerful concept because it allows customers world-wide to commission custom artwork from some of the world’s best artists at very affordable prices. Rather than needing to sit in a studio as a real-life model, using photos as references enables the artist to work remotely and therefore opens up a huge market for customers to hire top talent anywhere around the world.

Besides the clear advantages of much lower cost and increased convenience, what are some other pros and cons of using pictures instead of real-life models for portrait painting?

• Pro: Sometimes it’s hard to get everyone together and sit in a studio. The subjects may be deceased or simply living too far away to make a studio setting practical. Painting from a photo is the only option then.
• Pro: Painting from photographs allows the artist to mix and match postures and facial expressions from different photos. You can pick the most natural expressions from your Kodak moments which may be hard to replicate in a studio setting.
• Con: In portraits from photos it can be harder for a junior artist to inject a life-like feeling to the subjects. There may be a tendency to paint too much like in the picture, whereas sometimes the painting can actually look best if it’s not exactly like the photograph. That’s where the skill of our artists comes in to give it a human touch. The artists at Linden Alley are masters in their field and know how to give their work an artistic feeling.