All is lost!!
I'm seriously bummed. I am back in the studio, which is good. But I found out that all my reference photographs and materials for the 5 paintings I was going to finish from last semester are all gone. I don't know if it was the janitorial staff or some overzealous staff member, but whoever did it has caused me some serious trouble.
What I'm really mad about is that its not like I had these photo prints strewn around the studio. If that were the case, I'd understand them getting thrown away and it would be my own fault. But I had these prints neatly stacked together and placed with two or three paintings that were put up in the shelves. There was no reason for someone to take the paintings out, see that there were paper photo reference there-and it was obvious these were for those same paintings-and chunk them. NO FREAKING GOOD REASON AT ALL.
Now I seriously don't know what to do. Should I try to recreate from memory the altered/edited photos and finish them? Finish them from memory? Or try and just resolve the painting from the point they are at? I'm supposed to show these in November. Most of these painting are in the 85-95% range as far as how complete they are? I can't afford to screw them up and take a huge chunk out of what I'm supposed to have done.