The artistic journey has a lot of stops. The week started when I got Burton Silverman’s amazing watercolor book Breaking the Rules of Watercolor. It’s an invaluable book and I hope to get a watercolor or two done soon for this space inspired by his technique, but it became clear to me in looking at Silverman’s work how accomplished of a draftsman he was. Of course, painting and drawing are very interconnected, and in fact, watercolor has often been thought of as a drawing medium. Silverman’s brushwork is an extension of his ability to be able to draw what he sees. I knew that in order to paint like Silverman, I needed to be able to draw like him…so, as always, back to the drawing board.
I decided to do some sketches of Rembrandt portraits because the way he often lit the face created such wonderful shadow shapes. So much of what I see in Classical Atelier artist training involves rendering form by mastering these shadow shapes. I think of them kind of as a shorthand for form. If I can grasp the shadow shape, I think it will translate into my painting–or at least this is the theory. I’ve done about 8 or 9 of these now and they’re very gratifying. I would recommend it.