Imaginative Realism: How to Paint What Doesn't Exist: Summary & Key Insights

Everything begins with looking. No matter how otherworldly your subject, truth comes from the discipline of observation. In my career, even painting dinosaurs demanded studying the posture of birds, the massing of elephants, and the way sunlight scatters through leaves. The artist’s eye interprets, not invents from emptiness. To paint what does not exist, you must first know intimately what does. I’ve always urged artists to carry sketchbooks everywhere. The act of drawing from life teaches proportion and rhythm in a way photographs never can, and when the time comes to invent, those studies become the unseen scaffolding of your imagery.

References — whether photographs, live models, or small clay maquettes — aren’t crutches. They’re tools for understanding. I frequently build miniature models of imagined architecture, light them under a lamp, and observe how the shadow edges soften with distance. With a simple cardboard mock-up, you can test an entire city’s lighting before lifting a brush. This reliance on reference is not to limit imagination but to strengthen it; each detail grounded in observation makes the illusion more convincing. After all, even the most extraordinary fantasy thrives on the ordinary made visible.

Creation begins with curiosity. Often my paintings start with a question — what if humans and dinosaurs lived collaboratively, or what would an ancient civilization look like if history had taken a different turn? The next phase is research, because speculation gains depth when anchored in reality. Archaeology, zoology, classical architecture — these disciplines provide vocabulary for image-making. I spend weeks gathering notes and sketches, studying fossils and period clothing, collating all these bits until they form a coherent vision.

Then imagination weaves those facts into fiction. A believable painting is not a collage of references but a synthesis of them. I find joy in recombining accurate details in new ways — a creature based partly on a rhinoceros’ muscle structure, illuminated by Renaissance chiaroscuro, standing in a city planned with Roman engineering logic. By respecting how the real world works, your invented world earns credibility. This stage is also where story enters. Each painting should hint at a narrative; light, gesture, and setting become devices of storytelling. Imaginative realism succeeds when curiosity about how something could exist replaces disbelief that it cannot.