Studying the Masters
One of my favorite things to do when it comes to creating art is studying the works of other artists and trying out their style. While the idea of recreating a masterpiece in might seem near impossible, just keep in mind that the idea is not so much to painfully paint line by line, dot by dot, but to find a piece of artwork that you connect with, and then, let yourself get lost in the feeling of recreating the piece.
My own personal study of Picasso's Blue Nude is a perfect example in finding this balance in time and creativity. To start off with, it's a piece that is great to study, but doesn't take a terribly long time to recreate. The piece essentially took one quick sketch to outline the nude. The rest of the time was spent painting away.
So if you're ready to find inspiration, here are a couple sites that feature online galleries of interest:
Olga's Gallery- While the name and site design might lead you to think it's just another attempt to make a personal website at geocities, the content is
worth an extended visit. The site contains over 10,000 works of art, which are organized by artist, country, & movement along with a search feature. One of the things that sets this sites above most archives is the navigation on the artist pages. As an example, Van Gogh's gallery consists of two pages and yet contains a total of 122 thumbnails that link to decent size images. On top of all that, the main page includes a list of the top 20 artists that will get you brainstorming on different artists to study.
Online Picasso Project-Comprehensive illustrated catalogue with 9,030 works catalogued, 6,274 biographical entries,173 listed museums & collectors, 2,170
selected references, & 3,165 archived articles…in other words, this online project is amazing beyond words. I just wished there was one of these on all of the famous artists out there.
National Portrait Gallery - If the latest round of cool art sites inspired you to create a self portrait piece of art, this site contains over 10,000 portraits to study and ponder.
Thank you !
Went to Olga’s, took a peek, and immediately added a link in my blog !!
Thanks, again !!!
~ Alex
Ooh, neat! I need to give this one a try.
Loved the Online Picasso Project. Thanks for sharing the link.
Are you reading the Muses book?
Glad to hear you both like some of the links…and yes, I’m still reading the Muse book. It’s one of those books you can pick up again and again to reference no matter where you’re at in the creative cycle.
Merry Christmas to you and your family - I miss your presence on dA and your warm comments - will you be back in 2006?