Layer modes! they make the colouring process easier, that it almost feels like cheating, but it takes up a bit of extra time. On the layer below my sketch I start by throwing down general colours, only focusing on value and checking it by switching to grey scale and back again.
Then I duplicate that layer, set the duplicate layer opacity to 50% or below and then use tonal correction and gradient maps (or u can use filters). Just to harmonise the colours together. I play around with different hues until I feel like I have a good base to work from. It has the same affect as an underpanting would in traditional art but it does some of the work for you. Adding a multiply layer above it helps with fixing contrast/shadows and a soft light layer helps lighten parts of the painting and bring them out of shadow.
I render above my sketch layer and for that it’s pretty much just colour theory knowledge:/ but these two tips I probably think about the most when colouring:
The Triumph of Death – il Trionfo della Morte – is a huge fresco filling most of the end wall of a large and lofty hall in Palazzo Abbatellis, the National Gallery of Sicily in Palermo. It was not painted for that room, but for a wall of the courtyard of another palazzo in the city, Palazzo Sclafani, still standing and still to be seen, though not visited, close to a public garden east of the Cathedral. That palazzo was built in 1330, originally for a Count, Matteo Sclafani, but exactly a hundred years later, in 1440, the City Administration (the Senate), wishing to rationalise its hospital provision and have one big hospital rather than seven small ones, requisitioned the palazzo, by then in a poor state, and set about converting it into the main hospital for the city. This development evidently included commissions for artists, and one of those was given to the painter of the Triumph. It is unfortunate that the commission document has never been found, but we can be thankful that aerial bombardment of Palazzo Sclafani in 1943 did not destroy, only damaged, the fresco, which was soon after removed, restored and displayed where it now is.
Details from Triumph of Death (clockwise from top): Death rides of a skeletal horse; The Fountain of Life; Death’s Victims; Lute Player
The painter’s choice of subject was a natural one for the courtyard of a hospital in those days. Sclafani’s palazzo dated from the time of the Black Death, but in Sicily, as in mainland Italy and the rest of Europe, Death in the form of plague had galloped back into people’s lives unpredictably and most often fatally ever since. Skeletal Death rides his skeletal horse full tilt across the fresco; his victims lie in a heap at the bottom of the picture. There is, however, Life, a Fountain of Life, beside which a harpist plays his silent music. Elegant ladies converse with animated gestures of shared alarm; there are men to the left, young and old, but, one observes, no children. Above the men a menacing wolfhound and another dog strain at the leash. Death, in short, threatens Life, for the mitred as for the unmitred, but Life is there. Memento Mori, you who enter this place and may not leave it alive; but remember, too, that you have lived, and life, with all its music and conversation, will continue after you.
Such is the general message. I have chosen this work as the focus of my latest Studies in Connoisseurship partly because we are living through a global pandemic. The hospitals of Palermo, as of many other cities in Italy and beyond, have once more been filled with very ill people dying, or threatened with dying, as life outside them struggles to continue.
As a connoisseur my motive is different. The fresco, unsurprisingly, has captivated many visitors and inspired some writers, but the fact that without a surviving contract or other document from the early 1440s we still do not know who painted this work surely plays its part in our fascination: we see it as a unique phenomenon, sui generis. This of course is unreal: someone painted it. Sicilians wonder if he was Sicilian. The last owner of Palazzo Sclafani lived in Spain; could he have proposed a Spanish artist? Some, bizarrely, have suggested that the painter may have come from the Netherlands. If he was Sicilian, did he afterwards leave the island to seek his fortune, like Antonello da Messina, on the mainland? Or did he come from the mainland, invited by the hospital’s rector, Pietro Speciale, or someone else who was commissioning works of art for it? A work like the Triumph of Death does not appear from nowhere; what other works by its creator preceded it?
I cannot answer these questions, but privately I have shared the quest for answers over many years, and I think I can at least contribute to our understanding of this anonymous artist by adding other works that may reasonably be attributed to him. As with all exercises in connoisseurship, what is ‘reasonable’ is what can be argued visually through juxtaposition of images.
First, a general observation should be made about the work from an aesthetic point of view. Iconographically, the Triumph of Death is well known and quite a lot has been written about antecedent examples of the theme, at the Campo Santo at Pisa, in the work of Orcagna, and elsewhere. In this case, however, the horse and the rider are not enough to pull the composition together, because all around them are disparate groups of figures and animals and objects that relate awkwardly to each other and fail to bond into a coherent whole. Whatever else he was, this artist cannot be said to be a great composer. Seen from a distance – as the fresco can be – it reminds one of some large and similarly incoherent tapestries. This is a serious defect which no doubt excludes it, as a whole, from the very highest rank of artistic achievement.
Details from Triumph of Death (clockwise from top left) – Death’s Horse; The King; a Survivor of Death; Death’s Victims
The words ‘as a whole’ are to be emphasised, though, because as soon as we draw close and our eyes take in the details (as would those of anyone standing or walking under the arcade of that hospital courtyard in 1442), they are everywhere amazed by what they discover in the sphere of draughtsmanship. There the artist excels, both in ‘disegno’, his brilliant invention of representational forms, and in the extraordinary refinement and elegance of his line, whether in the tail of the hound, the head of the horse (like something out of Guernica), in the aristocratic ladies or, most originally of all, in the heads of the dead tumbled together at the bottom. It is the quality of this artist’s drawing, rather than his colour or composition, that makes it less important that all the colour reproductions offered here are of questionable fidelity.
Comparing drawings at the Louvre (top left and top centre) with details of the noble women from Triumph of Death
Comparing the similar hand gesture of the drawing of a Lady (left) and a Survivor of Death (right)
To pick out the draughtsmanship is, I believe, to pick up the key that can unlock the mystery of what else this artist did. Over many years of intermittent study I have kept a look-out for any drawings that might be associated with him by virtue of their extreme linear elegance combined with a certain oddity. Among the drawings in the Vallardi Album at the Louvre are a few that are not by Pisanello, and among these is a pair of profiles, one of a mature Lady, the other of an older Man. The one of the Lady is the more developed and the more remarkable, for the fine lines of the hair and the purity of contour in her profile. Compare this drawing with the depiction of the aristocratic ladies in the Trionfo, especially the one seen in profile who likewise wears an eardrop, and I think a definite similarity is observable. It is confirmed when we turn to the raised left hand of the Lady in the drawing. Artists describe hands and their gestures in such interestingly different ways: this one favours two fingers (first and second) straight, two fingers (third and fourth) bent. Anyone who tries to put their own fingers into the same position will soon realise that it is not natural and not sustainable; but there it is, not only in the drawing but in the Trionfo, exactly in one instance, and to varying degrees of bentness in many more. To anyone acquainted with the history of connoisseurship this could be a textbook illustration of Giovanni Morelli’s ‘method’.
Drawing of a Man with a Fur Collar (Staatliche Graphische Sammlung München)
Comparing the Louvre Drawing (left) and Munich drawing (right) with faces from Triumph
At the Print Room at Munich (Staatliche Graphische Sammlung) there is another drawing, this time of a Man with a Fur Collar seen close-up, his head turned to our left, his neck emerging from a fur collar encircling it. this is not finished, but those fine lines drawn in long parallel strokes that distinguished the tresses of the Lady in the Vallardi Album are also here, along with a very particular shape given to the eye (upper lid and corner nearest to the nose) and to the ear, philtrum> and lips. These features are most clearly matched in the face of the young man on the extreme left of the Trionfo, and that of his companion.
Portrait of a Lady – Johnson Collection, Philadelphia
Comparing the Drawings from the Louvre (Top Left and Bottom Right) and Munich (Bottom Left) with the Painting of the Lady at Washington
At this point in my quest for drawings by the Trionfo Master the trail goes cold. There is, however, a painting in the Johnson Collection at Philadelphia, attributed, unconvincingly in my view, to Ercole de Roberti, which exhibits exactly the eye-shape, ear-shape, lips and philtrum of the Munich drawing, as well as the sharp, rounded eyebrows of the Vallardi Lady and the ear of the Vallardi Man.The Johnson painting has morphological similarities with the Trionfo, but it seems to belong to a later period, and there is reason for thinking that it does. It may indeed be the link between the Trionfo and a whole body of much later work by this artist, not in Sicily but in Ferrara.
Comparing faces with fresco in Palazzo di Schifanoia of Virgo recumbant with her Decani (bottom panels)
In the Salone dei Mesi of the Palazzo di Schifanoia in Ferrara it is possible to distinguish fairly clearly the work of Francesco del Cossa, but there is another artist, credited with many of the Months whose identity has always puzzled art historians. He has been called the ‘Maestro di Ercole’ or the ‘Maestro degli Occhi Spalancati’, but these names have not led to much development of an oeuvre for an artist of such weird imagination and invention, a man capable, as Cossa was not, of creating extraordinary images like the figure of Virgo, for August, the giant lobster, for June, or the sign of Libra, for September.
Scenes from the Fresco at Palazzo Schifanoia: Virgo in the Allegory of August (top); The Lobster from the Allegory of June (centre); Libra from the Allegory of September (bottom)
From Palazzo Sclafani to Palazzo Schifanoia is not only a leap of geography; there must also be a gap of many years, perhaps a quarter of a century. It is frustrating and unsatisfactory that there is, as yet, so little to fill that gap. I do believe, nevertheless, that Palermo and Ferrara are connected in the career of this painter. The argument depends as always on a juxtaposition such as this one: the Munich drawing, the Johnson portrait, the heads of Virgo.
Detail of Virgo (top left) to compare with the Lady in Philadelphia (top centre) and the Man in Munich (top right), and comparisons of the horse from Triumph of Death (bottom left) and horses from the Allegory of March (bottom right)
From August we can move to other Months in the astrological zodiac, and discover that the eccentricity manifest at Palermo has not deserted this artist, but it has changed. In the many years that have elapsed he has developed, for example, a bizarre way of representing drapery – like sharply creased paper folded one way and then another – and rocks – like laminated tombstones. Despite the lapse of years there is a horse’s head whose structure can still remind us of the one at Palermo.
The Allegory of August, Triumph of Ceres and representation of Virgo – Palazzo Schifanoia
The Allegory of September (top) and detail of Mars in bed with a Nymph (bottom) – Palazzo Schifanoia
There is also a change of theme. The work at Palermo is dominated, very obviously, by Death, his work at Ferrara quite largely by Sex, especially so in August. The bare-breasted figure of Ceres brandishes the reaped corn and then, recumbent, sprawls luxuriously across three divisions while looking out seductively at the spectator. In September Mars is in bed with a nymph, Ylia, and the figure of Libra is set between two figures of a physique reminiscent of male ballet dancers, their calves developed like athletes on Greek pots. Sex, yes, but also, to complete the trinity, War. There is now a definite martial streak to the artist’s imagination, no doubt fuelled by the idea of ‘triumph’ and expressed in images of Mars, Vulcan’s Forge, armour.
Detail of Vulcan’s Forge from The Allegory of September
His contributions to the Triumph scenes are at least as ill-composed as the Triumph at Palermo, but under them, in the Months, he wisely sets his figures and creatures against plain dark backdrops. We remember them all the better for their standing out pale, even white, against the deep blues and browns. At Palermo this had only begun to happen in the upper left quadrant and behind the horse.
Clearly I and others must look diligently for other works by this artist that will allow us to see how he developed between the two periods of activity and what he was doing before the first one. The drawings that I have proposed as his must belong to the earlier, Palermitan phase of his career, but how did he draw in later years? His name is more likely to be discovered by historians and archivists. I would like him to be a Sicilian – the island has too few major artists besides Antonello da Messina – but I must declare a doubt that he was. We need the evidence in any case to tell us whether he was brought to Palermo from the mainland or was native to the island at the time of the Sclafani commission. Without the facts we are left in ignorance. If the thesis presented here, of a connection between Palermo and Ferrara, should find acceptance, I hope that it will have armed us with a little more understanding of his character as an artist. He has an abundance of character. As painter, as draughtsman, as inventor of images, he appears to be one of the great eccentrics of European art, and one that can speak to us, of life and death and love, in another dark time.
OMFG the secret is out! The reason my Moleskine sketchbook looks so good is because it’s the one I chose to show you. The one you don’t see is where all the work was really done and all I had to do was copy myself.
The only real excuse for my art looking better than yours is I’ve been doing it all my life, possibly longer than you’ve been alive, and I keep practicing and working to improve.
New Post has been published on https://easythingstodraw.net/are-there-art-secrets-easy-things-to-draw/
Are there Art Secrets? - Easy Things to Draw
Are there art secret? – easy things to draw
This article is related to the theme that if there are actually art secrets, usually comments as that appear in the videos and I like to take them and ask my art friends if they think this is real, Obviously I would also give my opinion, but I like to have theirs too, maybe one day I’ll record the discussion we have about the idea of art secrets and if there are people who keep information for themselves.
Also, don’t forget to check another tutorial Quick Art Style Tips – Easy Things to Draw
Another thing, before I start, what I show on the screen do not pay much attention because it’s just there with the reason that you’re not looking at a blank screen during the video…
So, are there people who deliberately hide information to ruin you or so you do not get to the top of the mountain? I mean there are people like that, there are some artists who prefer to hide information, that exists, but in terms of there being information that nobody knows except the professionals, I mean, once you get very specific types of art you will see that I learned to draw the fine art way.
I learned to draw through life drawing the basic address and I drilled that stuff like crazy, maybe too long honestly, but then I started with the illustration and started to get involved in more conceptual art, when I went to the art center school of design in LA, that school was great, there were some things that I had never heard before and I could say that those were like some kind of secrets.
I was like, why I haven’t learned this before?, for example, if you took a look at me shading videos 101 you know that shading is more strict and mathematical, it’s not just, okay, light comes from here, so these parts must be obscured, that’s just part of what it is to shadow.
Almost everything on my channel I’ve heard from really good teachers and I straight up to teach it immediately for two reasons, the first one is to help you guys and the second one is that it helps me retain the information, you know, I can record it and look back as a reference for myself, especially those drawings of 101, those videos I like to look back and refresh my mind.
Another thing I remember, I was doing a photo bashing, that’s probably a secret because that’s something that
people know but does not talk about it, I’ve noticed that.
If you do not know what photo bashing is, I think I made a video about this, but in shorter words, for you to understand is to incorporate photos into your art, is almost like a college.
Like for example, if you want a mountain in your background, but you just do not know how to draw it, just put an image and then try to mix it with the real drawing, although this is really hard to do, it is much easier than drawing mountains from scratch.
Another example is, when you’re working on a movie, you need to do the artwork fast, only in a few hours, so it works for that, to make the job easier, but I’ve seen some guys, who do all the drawing in this way and there are times where they do not mention it so this could be considered as a kind of secret.
But as I said there is every type of professional, by the way almost every teacher I had in the art center told me everything they could, I think they taught me everything they had to teach and I could learn better because I genuinely had an interest in listening, when you are doing that and it is the most important thing, you will say anything, your censorship bar will be off.
You only say what is in your head and you will not retain information at that point. kind of like when I rant about stuff not really withholding anything that is pretty bad, like the shading videos 101 it could be like something you buy or something like that, but no, it’s just something I want to talk about, is what I have learned and I want to record it for myself. I never felt the vibes of people holding things, you know.
I had great teachers in the art center and even in art school, I think they did not tell me certain things just because they did not know them, that’s my explanation, although I had bad teachers, let me talk about the most selfish kind of teacher I’ve ever seen, she kept things or just did not know them, I’ll do a full video about bad teachers later on, but for now I’ll talk about the worst I’ve had.
I will not tell you her name or what school she teaches because I do not want her to be identified, so, I was eighteen years old, and it was at the junior college in the area, she works for a drawing program 101 and she was quite young…
Probably in her 20s and she was supposed to teach us how to draw and every one asked them to teach us how to shade, since they knew how to draw and we realized that she really did not know how to do it, it’s quite strange.
It’s like a Spanish teacher who does not know how to speak Spanish, this teacher did not even know the basics drawing and she used to boast that she went to a school with professionals and did not know anything even students of our class were better than her, so I think that was my worst experience, she made me very upset.
To finish all this I will summarize in a short answer the question of the principle: are there secrets in art? The answer to that is there not really secrets…
See you in another tutorial where I will guide you in yours drawings step by step as I always do and where I also teach you how to draw easy things or how to create your characters, also, to improve them by giving them more realistic characteristics.
You can know that this tutorial can be useful for you no matter if you are a beginner or a more experienced artist, although you also know that I am not only interested in helping you to draw, I want also to give you some advice on things that happen to most artists at some point in their life, bye, see you later.
I go through a question I’ve talked on and off about for several years. I talk about if art secrets do indeed exist. This is purely my opinion on the matter.
Also, don’t forget to check another tutorial Quick Art Style Tips – Easy Things to Draw
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Inktober started in 2009 by Jake Parker. It has since grown into a worldwide thing with thousands of artists taking up the challenge every year. The amount of beautiful ink drawings filling our social media feed is incredible; making this month very interesting artistically. What is the secret though behind Inktober’s big…
same nonny from before here! those bots look great! i really want to know what you use to do your coloring!
I actually use a combination of Ohuhu markers (think in the same vein as Copics, but actually way cheaper, but it’s WORTH it), Tanmit pens (I have the 240 set), and a lot of lighting reference and tutorials to do that shading.
If you’re wondering where to get the Ohuhus, they have them on Amazon. A set of 40 is around 20 dollars, set of 60 is around 30 dollars, and a set of 80 is around 40 dollars. I actually found them through one of my favorite youtubers and I’m glad I have them, they are so much more fun to work with.
Wanna know an art secret? I draw my characters with scarfs or other neck items because I'm never satisfied with how I draw necks, I think they're either too skinny or too thick so I just draw something that would hide a neck
