Note that a camera (predictably) loses information: working exclusively from photographs can ingrain bad habits to unguided beginners. Furthermore, drawings are

Note that a camera (predictably) loses information: working exclusively from photographs can ingrain bad habits to unguided beginners. Furthermore, drawings are often simplified in various ways, stylistically, but not just: trees for instance are more believable, and more efficiently rendered, as vague masses, rather than painstakingly detailed. For the same subject, a drawing/painting and a photograph contains similar information, but with different (lossy) filters; getting to know "artistic" filters is one thing a beginner wants to practice. It's not a bad idea to work from photographs, it's actually very useful, and an interesting technical exercise, but one generally will want to compensate for the camera filter, so as to make the end result more appealing. Incidentally, this[0] was posted a few hours ago, and precisely "illustrates" those points. You also have those "famous" pictures[1] demonstrating how difference focal length distort faces. [0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4WpqmQTmnxs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4WpqmQTmnxs [1]: https://imgur.com/gallery/kUBPKTy https://imgur.com/gallery/kUBPKTy