1. The first step towards an awesome concept, CHEATING! Finding the photograph with the right camera and feel can sometimes get you 80% of the way there before you even really begin

2. Next is remembering NOT to be a slave to the photo but letting your art brain make compositional decisions. This is helped by using “cutout” filters in photoshop and making the image black and white to help encourage ones own design sense from being hindered by the finality of the photo.

3. Lastly recreating the image using what can be taken from the original photo and re-applying it to the new ART BRAIN DECIDED composition. The important part of working off a great photo base is not being a slave to the photo.

4. One more thing to notice is how the lighting in the concept does NOT really match the photo and that is partly because the artist has decided the light NOT based on the photo but rather what they know from outdoor painting. The artist knows that the light in the photo is slightly blown out and that if one were actually in that spot the sun lit rocks would not be so white and washed out color wise. This kind of light knowledge can ONLY come from careful seeing of the natural world / outdoor plein air painting.