June 4, 2020 - Realism can be boring sometimes. Not only can it get tedious in the execution, but it can also be boring to look at. I find in particular that working from photos creates this tendency to paint in flat muted colors and employ this set hierarchy of edges in order to create the illusion of a realistic image. This tends to read well from a distance, but can sometimes be a bore to look at up close. Painting representationally from reference, I'll sometimes end up at a place where it might look like my reference image, but on the surface it's fairly lifeless. I find if I'm just copying the shapes and colors as I see them,  there’s a tendency to blend edges and soften things to a point where the surface can become kind of…