TASHEN - LEONARDO THE COMPLETE DRAWINGS
This book was very important for me actually. Because it kind of opened my eyes. For the reasons of where i live it was always made sure that we felt a rush to get a job, do something quickly. If i could not achieve something be it drawing a picture or getting a job in a certain period of time it always felt like a critical mistake. Which always made me feel deppressed, resulting in me quiting the work i am doing at the time. Now looking back a lot has changed about me on this topic and this book along with many other things really helped me change.
HOW OLD MASTERS WORK
One thing really inspired me actually was to see how old masters actually work. It is known that even a simple portrait might be finished in a few months in the old days of art. But the thing that really inspired me was to see how much study works Da Vinci has done. When you flip thru the pages of the book you see tens of works that are just finished products of tens of other study works. I knew that doing studies were important but i just did not get it before reading this book. Even for a simple head Da Vinci has a lot of stuides done for that spesific head. It makes sense when you think about it. The paintings took a lot of time to complete so even the sketch of a painting should pretty much be a final product in itself. So to achieve this it is only logical for one to practice even one spesific drawing a lot of times to get it right the first time when finishing the painting. Let's check out some examples.
Now all the pictures you see here are a study of a painting that is going to be finalised. He basically just first draws a completely fine drawing of what he will paint out later.
Now this can be seen as something simple since they are only one phases of drawings before starting to do the actual thing. If you think so you need to look at this one:
Now there are two drawings before the actual thing. However wait! You did not see anything yet. What really opened my mind was this one:
With this one he really pushed until he got something he really liked. 4 different almost all completed drawing studies before the actual thing. Which really came to me as incredible to me. I really understood that there is no rushing in art (until there is with all the deadlines :D) at least not on something that is important to you and will be your personal thing. After seeing all this i started sstudying myself too and this really got me enjoy doing studies. They were not pointless exercises before doing the actual thing anymore. They are important stuff by themselves too and now i really enjoy doing them.
HIS ANATOMICAL WORKS
Now another thing that really caught my attention in leonardo's drawings is how he depicts anatomy. His anatomical drawings are almost as if they are designed to teach anatomy. They are simplified in such a way that they kind of look like a wireframe view of a 3D Model and this really made me understand some anatomical parts that watching countless proko videos could not. Of course i am still not that great at anatomical drawings but my understanding is now way more wast compared to what was it ( meehhhh hjuuuust drop some basic shapes here and there come on bro who even sees those anatomical details ANYWAY?).
OTHER COOL STUFF
Apart from all the very important teachable stuff. I really like leonardo's sketching style. I personally think that his drawings and rough sketches are way better than his paintings. However that is a personal taste, he was great for his time where the style of paintings were linearly and tectonic. So of course in the criteria of his own time he is great. I just think that his drawings are way more free and feelfull than his paintings. Now here i will just put his works that are my favorite.
(this one is my favorite)
I would really want to add a lot of his works here but i think further experience by the actual source material would just be better for anyone. Thanks for reading. Thank you if you are following from RSS. Hope to have you here again!