My New Invention: The Photo Reference Holder

If you're like me, printing off reference photos for painting a portrait is a major inconvenience. You have to run to the photo developer and get them printed off, hoping they turn out ok, then tape them up next to your canvas, and struggle with them falling off. Or you try to print your own from your own computer and it costs you an arm and a leg in ink.

I got tired of it.
I asked for a Kindle Fire for Christmas and got one. Photos look outstanding in it.

I knew I wanted to set it up next to my canvas, but how would I get it to stay there? I thought of attaching a wire to the ceiling but that sounded sketchy.

So I made my own contraption to hold it up out of cardboard. If said this before, but if wasn't an artist, I'd be a "mad scientist" inventor like Doc Brown from Back to the Future! The thing I made to hold my Kindle worked great.

One of my students saw it in a video and said she was having "technology envy." :) She thought the idea was cool. So I figured, why not share this with my students?

Check out my video on it here...

Hope this helps in your painting endeavors. Enjoy!

All the best,

If you like this post, please comment, upvote, follow me ( @mattphilleo ) and resteem. I post regularly on art, tips on painting and drawing, and encouraging thoughts. You are helping me to do art full-time and support a family. Thank you so much!--Matt

See more of my artwork at: MattPhilleo.com