Artist Secrets Series: Using (legal) images from the web as inspiration for your artwork.

Understanding how to make use of the millions of Creative Commons Images as inspiration for your artwork.

When painting in the studio, there are many situations that I find myself needing several images to help in making one painting.  Often I have an image that I have taken myself but want to add elements that aren't in the original photo. When this happens, I turn to Creative Commons images.

Creative Commons is a nonprofit organization that allows the use of no cost images. There are several types of licensing for CC images (see the bottom of this post for licensing details)

To take advantage of the millions of images available I use a Google search engine to filter and show only these images.

1. Navigate to www.google.com and type in a search such as "gargoyles"
2. In the results of your search, click on the "Images" text at the top of the page. This will show you only images.
3. On the far right of the area where you choose "Images" click on "Search Tools". This will bring up another menu below the first. 
4. Look for the "Usage rights" option and click the arrow to its right.
5. In the dropdown menu choose "Labeled for Noncommercial reuse with modification"

These images can be used as models without infringing on anyones rights.

Creative Commons Licensing

1. Attribution: CC BY - lets others distribute, remix, tweak, and build upon your work, even commercially, as long as they credit you for the original creation. 
2. Attribution-ShareAlike: CC BY-SA - lets others remix, tweak, and build upon your work even for commercial purposes, as long as they credit you and license their new creations under the identical terms. 
3. Attribution-NoDerivs: CC BY-ND - allows for redistribution, commercial and non-commercial, as long as it is passed along unchanged and in whole, with credit to you.
4. Attribution-NonCommercial: CC BY-NC - lets others remix, tweak, and build upon your work non-commercially, and although their new works must also acknowledge you and be non-commercial, they don’t have to license their derivative works on the same terms.
5. Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike: CC BY-NC-SA - lets others remix, tweak, and build upon your work non-commercially, as long as they credit you and license their new creations under the identical terms.
6. Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs: CC BY-NC-ND - most restrictive of our six main licenses, only allowing others to download your works and share them with others as long as they credit you, but they can’t change them in any way or use them commercially.

Source: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/