an ethics of art question

[univiii]

Hey everyone, My name is Evan. I'm curious as to what some of you may think of what im about to say; being at a liberal arts college majoring in philosophy and minoring in english and art has not taught me much along the lines of painting (the only art classes i've had were drawing ones). So, not having much experience with color i sought out many paintings with color palettes i found interesting. So i'm wondering if it would be looked down upon, or shamed, if one were to take a painting of someone elses (digital that is), bring it into photoshop and completely rework the piece into an original piece of art. (the colors could even change with the Color Balance tool).

What does everyone think of this? It seems that the purpose of a piece of concept art is to deliver a certain message, or deliver an idea through the use of an image; and if the transmitted idea is different it seems ok, not to mention the new piece looks completely different than the original. (id be adding my own colors to it as well)

[Jason Rainville]

If you just intend to try to learn from it there's no harm in that. Though I don't know what you can really learn by fiddling around with colour adjustment tools in PS. A much better way as far as I'm concerned is painting or colouring (digitally or otherwise) from observation, trying your best to match the colour by eye.

Doing this for learning and posting it on a forum, for presentation, critique or otherwise is kind of iffy. Calling it a completely original piece of work would be wrong.

Trying to sell that 'new' piece would be very, very wrong.

[Red_Rook]

What exactly would that teach you?

If your going to grab someone elses colour pallette then look at some really cool traditional pieces, hell if ya really want to learn colour pick out of a digital piece, but draing ontop of someone elses thing wont teach you anything, your just get a false sense of pride if it looks decent and its not all yours.

In the same vein of thought, and probably alot more productive, is to make a traditional painting or pen drawing as a master copy, you will learn alot about how they handled paint by copying them exactly.

If your changing everything like your suggesting what do you need the original piece of art for?

[Beelow]

I am pretty sure that all concept artist have learned on their own. Yeah it will be frowned upon if you do that. Especially if some notices that your doing that. You may even obstruct copyrights that way as well. Also, I can agree with red Rook about doing that; it doesn't teach you anything. Do master studies and do stuff from life. It's much better to know that you can do the work, than to try to deceive people into thinking you are the originator of the skill displayed. Holla. XD

[Leukeh]

If you take a piece of art and use it to help create your own, you need the copyright holders express permission. If there is no copyright, ethically you should ask, let them know the purpose you need to use if for and then maybe give them a description of what you intend the final product to be like. Once it is done, they should, again, ethically be the first to have access to it. It won't be called an "original" because you have based it off another artwork. It would be an appropriation, of sorts...

[univiii]

hmmm; thanks alot for your input guys; i'm now inspired to write a philosophy concerning the ethics of art and inspiration. ill post it when im done. ;D

[rachelmrich]

so you're using our responses to get ideas for your "original" philosophy concerning ethics of art. is this before or after you steal someone's artwork?

[Seedling]

If there is no copyright,

In the US, any created work is covered under copyright from the moment it is created.

so you're using our responses to get ideas for your "original" philosophy concerning ethics of art. is this before or after you steal someone's artwork?

Since when is it not okay to develop an idea by first having a discussion with others? Ease up.