Here's a link to an interesting article on an artist who used Google Street View to create a series of landscape paintings. He's working with traditional physical art media to build his paintings, but there's no reason why you couldn't run with the concept and build your paintings digitally using Studio Artist.
Google has given permission to artists to use Street View as a reference for their original art works without fear of copyright infringement. Plus, you can do on location landscaper paintings from the comfort of your home.
Anyway, thought i would pass this on for anyone interested.
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Thanks John
the Google images can present great source material. Especially as one can choose (to an extent) the angle and perspective of the view.
I think it was Digital Artist magazine that did an tut using Google aerial views as a source for Matte paintings.
I have sourced "fly overs" of Manhattan for material in SA rotoscoped animations.
Great idea. I have always been attracted to the Google Earth angle (from above):
Googlicious
... but there is something wonderfully lo-res about using Google Street.