OLD MASTERPIECE PROJECTS:

"Masterpiece Project Lessons are direct copies of master artists’ works whose copyrights have expired because the paintings are at least 75 years old. My efforts in producing these paintings were directed toward two goals. First and foremost, the paintings were a learning tool for myself. Since I greatly admire the technical and academic principles all these paintings were based on, and since it is so difficult to find training locally, I have done the only thing I could do … I’ve gone to the paintings themselves and allowed them to teach me. Second, I made meticulous notes and photographs in the process, recording exactly how I accomplished each painting so that I could pass on what I learned to my student/client customers. I believed there would be others who would want to accomplish what I have been able to do with these Masterpiece paintings by master artists."

"Having no teachers to learn from, in a direct line from the master painters, I went to what is left of the source…the paintings in London, Paris, Amsterdam, Glasgow, Aberdeen, Rome, Florence, Geneva and, of course, the U.S. I made countless trips to Europe (and major collections in the United States) to search out paintings by particular painters. Then I looked at the paintings; I studied the paintings from arm’s length to within six inches of my nose; I purchased every book I could lay my hands on that gave the slightest morsel of information about the procedures and techniques these painters used and those used by the teachers who taught them. As a result, I have an education from first-hand knowledge that can’t be bought, and a library of hundreds of books on the period of the painters and their works. Unfortunately, not one of those books describe how any single painting was executed. Technique is mentioned in only the broadest of terms, if at all."

"Slowly, however, the pieces gleaned from such divergent sources began to relate. I began to understand. Descriptions of techniques in books took on a whole new meaning when I was able to see two 5 x 8 foot paintings executed entirely in grisaille at the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, Italy. The imprimatura and bistre techniques were immediately obvious in Raphael’s unfinished work on tour in the Tate Gallery, London. The verdaccio is undoubtedly the defining color characteristic in DaVinci’s Mona Lisa at the Louvre in Paris. Armed with book knowledge, personal examination of the paintings, and a good understanding of how to execute the academic techniques, I feel I have been able to lift the veil from the complex, wonderful masterpieces I’ve chosen for the Masterpiece Projects. While I can never say with certainty exactly how a master painter created one of his works, I have been able to reproduce the end result very closely. In doing so, I have deliberately used a variety of Old Master, underpainting techniques to explore how each affects the outcome of the painting."