He makes a living from dirty pictures (8)
I believe the answer is:
restorer
'he' is the definition.
The answer is a person as well as being a singular noun. This is suggested by the definition.
'a living from dirty pictures' is the wordplay.
'a living' becomes 'rest' (rest is a kind of living).
'from' becomes 'o' (I've seen this in other clues).
'dirty pictures' becomes 'rer' (I can't explain this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'rest'+'o'+'rer'='RESTORER'
'makes' is the link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for restorer that I've seen before include "One makes good" , "One renovating (picture, furniture)" , "Furniture craftsman" , "(Picture) renovator" , "(Painting) renovator" .)