Friday, December 9, 2016

Sketching Vermeer (day three)

Today's sketch is from Vermeer's Young Woman With a Pearl Necklace.





I wan't be sketching tomorrow--or if I do, I won't post. I am working hard on my new Madonna and Child, and will probably share it Monday.


6 comments:

  1. What a beautiful -although old - very modern - work of art. Your drawing is beautiful also and I feel the love. Looking at some notes I wrote for myself in April - "looking at/sensing a work of art I think about the hand, mind, soul which made it...."

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    1. Isn't it beautiful? I love the stillness, the quality of light. I love that isn't full of drama and movement, but just a quiet moment. Wouldn't it be amazing to see the real painting? A Vermeer exhibition came to The Art Institute of Chicago ages ago, but I was young and foolish and didn't go, and now I regret it. I read on Wikipedia that Vermeer was a slow painter--which meant less income--and that he used expensive pigments. When he died, he left debt. That's a tiny piece of a real life puzzle that we can't put together now with any assurance of real accuracy, but I found those little fragments of fact moving. I imagine the pressures of life pulling him toward a cheaper, more efficient way of exercising his profession, while he remained unable to imagine a different way of painting than the way he painted.

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  2. I think it's great that you're studying from the old masters. I'm thinking about following your example. Keep drawing!

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    1. I hope you do follow "my example." I'm having fun with it.:)

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  3. Yes I would love to see the original. Even on my tiny screen the detail is amazing down to the tiny cracks in the back wall. I especially love the colors and the composition. He was a master and the subject is so personal.

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