Author: bluthin

Hey, my name is Brad Luthin. Let me tell you a little about myself. I currently live in South Florida and hold BA in Art from SDSU. My two passions in life are painting and woodworking. On Painting: My biggest influence as an artist is Édouard Manet. He once quoted: "A painter can say all he wants to with fruits or flowers, or even clouds. You know, I would like to be the Saint Francis of still life." I too believe you can express everything in your life through objects we see everyday. My hope is that people who see my paintings will begin to look and appreciate the little things in life. The works are painted with a thick application of paint along with a balance of expressive and controlled brush strokes. Along with Manet, I have also learned a great deal from the old dutch masters, such as Vermeer and Rembrandt. I take their techniques and mix with my own. I add a lighter palette of colors that reflect my life here in South Florida.
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Graphite Drawing After Annibale Carracci

Pencil drawing of a male torso after Annibale Carracci

Here we have another drawing in pencil copied from a work by the Italian painter Annibale Carracci. I really don’t know much about Mr. Carracci, so let’s find out about him together unless you are an expert on Italian art then I must warn you that you will be extremely disappointed by not only this post but by my entire website. The following has been taken mainly from the Metropolitan Museum of Art Timeline. More specifically called the Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. The Heilbrunn Foundation funded the art history timeline. The Heilbrunn Foundation was founded by Robert H. Heilbrunn, an investor and philanthropist. Unfortunately, Mr. Heilbrunn died in 2001. His estate still owns the entire history of art. So next time you want to go to a art museum or write a article on art history, stop and think, do I really want to be sued by the Heilbrunn Family?

Carracci and company also were influenced by the bright colors of Titian.

Let’s get back to Annibale Carracci. I’ve decided to get my information from Wikipedia just to play it safe. Carracci was born in 1560 and died in 1609. He was an art teacher and painter who lived in Bologna and Rome. Annibale along with his brother and cousin, who were also artists, created a style of Baroque art that was both dynamic and monumental in a classical sort of way. Their draftsmanship was greatly influenced by Andrea del Sarto and Raphael. Carracci and company also were influenced by the bright colors of Titian. They took effects of natural light created by Northern Italian artists and the composition of artists like Raphael. Annibale Carracci was instrumental in creating a classical style of art that also borrowed heavily on ancient Roman and Green artists. He along with Caravaggio were two of the most influential painters in the 1600s. As a teacher, the artists he taught went on to become the most influential in Roman painting.

If you would like to see the original drawing of a male torso by Annibale Carracci then by all means click here.

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Graphite Drawing After Anthony Van Dyke

Graphite Drawing of Woman Sleeping

Up next on our master copying adventure, we have a graphite drawing of a woman sleeping copied from a work by Anthony Van Dyke or if you want to be more formal, Sir Anthony Van Dyke. Of course, if people have a choice they usually like to be less formal. That is why sweatpants are so popular. Let’s get back to Anthony Van Dyke. If you would like to see the original drawing of a woman sleeping by Sir Anthony Van Dyke, click here. Now let’s talk about Van Dyke. According to the Britannica website, which was the encyclopedia Britannica, which was a set of large books that occupied a lot of shelf space and included lots of information on a wide variety of topics. Yet somehow never included enough information on one topic to write an entire school report. Now let’s talk about Sir Anthony Van Dyke. He was born in 1599 in Antwerp which is now Belgium. He is second only to Peter Paul Rubens, as the most important Flemish painter of the 1600s. Van Dyke is best known for his portrait paintings of the aristocracy but he also created mythological and religious work. He was the 7th of 12 children and displayed all the common characteristics of a 7th child. His father was a successful silk salesman. He started a painting apprenticeship at the age of ten. His approach to applying paint was relatively simple for the time. He applied thin coats of blue, gray, pink, ochre and sienna. This gave his work a soft and harmonious look. There are 500 portraits created by Van Dyke still in existence, which is an incredible output considering he only lived to the age of 42. He greatly influence younger Flemish artists, perhaps even more than Peter Paul Rubens. English portrait painters such as Thomas Gainsborough in the 18th century also borrowed heavily from his work. Scholars not only continue to study his portrait paintings but also his drawings, watercolors and etchings of landscapes and other various subjects.

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Graphite Drawing After Michelangelo Buonarroti

Graphite drawing of a male back after Michelangelo

Graphite pencil figure drawing copied from Michelangelo Buonarroti. According to the book of drawings I’m working from the description is “Study for one of the resurrected of the last judgement”. It also says it is in ‘British Museum’. Once again I’m going to assume it is The British Museum and not one of the garden variety British museums. The British Museum labels the drawing “A FIGURE RISING FROM THE GRAVE, IN THE FOREGROUND OF THE LAST JUDGEMENT.” Yes, they wrote it out in all caps. If you’re THE BRITISH MUSEUM you can do things like that. If you are The Viktor Wynd Museum of Curiosities, Fine Art & Natural History, also in London, then you cannot get away with things like that. The last thing people want is Viktor Wynd appearing to yell at them. Let’s get back to the drawing. Michelangelo did his in black chalk heightened with white. I just did mine in pencil. The scratchiness of chalk bothers me somehow. Like pastels and so forth. So I try to substitute it for something non-scratchy. The term “non-scratchy” was not underlined so I guess it’s a real word. Thanks computer for taking my side for once.
On the back of the drawing is another drawing. Michelangelo was perhaps very frugal in his use of paper and/or environmentally responsible. In hindsight, I think it would have been OK if he would have used two sheets of paper. I mean I don’t think he would be ‘cancelled’ of discredited for using more than one piece of paper. I mean I’m all for getting the most out of your materials but really, I mean it’s Michelangelo.

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Graphite Drawing After Michelangelo Buonarroti

Standing Male Nude Seen From Behind After Michelangelo

The drawing above is a copy of a work entitled ‘Standing Male Back Nude’ by Michelangelo Buonarroti. The original is housed in the Albertina Museum in Vienna. Michelangelo’s drawing was done in brown pen over black chalk. I drew mine in graphite pencil over another layer of graphite pencil. I have copied drawings from Michelangelo before and perhaps I’ve even talked about him. But I mean it is Michelangelo, so I guess we can always talk about him some more.
The following information comes from Wikipedia. Actually, the German version of Wikipedia that was then translated into English using the built-in translator feature on my browser. I guess I could just go to the English version of Wikipedia or translate the Italian Wikipedia page but this method is more fun and exciting and if you’ve read the rest of my blogs you will see that fun and exciting and me go hand in hand. Moving on, the German wikipedia page says Michelangelo came from a middle class family in Florence, Italy and that their family was distinguished. The family was distinguished, not Florence. Although you could say the city of Florence is quite distinguished. But the article states that his family was distinguished. However, it doesn’t say what exactly makes the family distinguished. It does say his father worked for a year as a city bailiff in Caprese. So I guess that is enough to make a family distinguishing.
Michelangelo had always wanted to become an artist even though his father was against it. When he was thirteen he convinced his father to let him study art. So he became an apprentice in the workshop of Domenico Ghirlandaio where he learned to paint on fresco. So let’s get this straight, Michelangelo knew as a child what he wanted to do the rest of his life. And not only that, he was also able at the age of 13 to convince his father to let him do it. I’m going to let that sink in and call it a day. More to come later…

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Pen and Ink Drawing After Rembrandt van Rijn

Man Sitting on the Ground After Rembrandt

Next up we have a copy of an etching done by Rembrandt van Rijn of a man sitting on the ground. I drew my copy with a pen called “inkjoy” which is made by the really great folks at the Papermate company. Unfortunately, this particular pen is not that great for drawing. However, whenever I have a bad day at work I like to come home and grab my “inkjoy” pen and all my troubles start to melt away. In these tough times it’s nice to know that the outstanding people at papermate are fighting for our “joy”. The “inkjoy” pen is available at Walgreens or anywhere fine art supplies are sold. I basically copied that from my Instagram account because I’d like to think I’m kind of an expert when it comes to myself. And there is no Wikipedia page on me. Believe me I have searched. When you type in ‘Brad Luthin’ at Wikipedia, a prompt comes up saying did you mean ‘brand luther’. If you click on ‘brand luther’ it takes you to a page saying that the page does not exist. So I googled Brand Luther and there is a book entitled ‘Brand Luther‘ which is about Martin Luther who started the Protestant Reformation. Martin Luther used the power of publishing to promote his ideas. And wouldn’t you know it I used to work in publishing. I designed newspaper advertisements. Martin Luther also gave us the Lutheran church. Growing up there was a Lutheran church in our neighborhood and it was listed in the phonebook next to our family name ‘Luthin’ and people would sometimes call and ask if we were the Lutheran church. I know that’s not much of a story but it is true and this is a Free blog with no ads (yet). At this point, you’re probably asking yourself what is the point of all this. That is a great question. My answer would be nowhere, because this post went nowhere. Enjoy the rest of your day!

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Prismacolor® Pencil Drawing After Charles Le Brun

Drawing of Prometheus Bound After Charles Le Brun

Right above this text you should see a copy of a drawing by Charles Le Brun. The original was done in Sanguine with some white added. Sanguine is a chalk with a reddish-brown color that resembles dried blood. If you want to buy some for drawing you can find it at better art supplies stores everywhere. Just ask for Sanguine chalk for drawing. I have found that this is more effective than asking for something that looks like dried blood. Sanguine or Sanguigna in Italian or Sanguis in Latin has been around for centuries. There was also some white added to Le Brun’s drawing. It didn’t say what kind of white so you are on your own. I drew my copy using Black and white Prismacolor pencils on gray toned paper. The subject of the drawing is Prometheus Bound. Which is a Greek play written by Aeschylus sometime between 479 bc and 424 bc. This tragedy is about the Titan Prometheus who disobeys Zeus by giving fire to mankind. Apparently, Zeus did not believe man deserved fire but Prometheus thought man would need fire to stay warm, cook food and ultimately over cook that same food. Zeus punished Prometheus by tying him up with chains and then let an eagle eat his liver. The liver would grow back every night and then the eagle would then eat the liver again. So there are two things we can learn from this story. First of all, only eagles are willing to eat liver and secondly you should never do anything that benefits mankind.
Let’s talk about Charles Le Brun. According to Wikipedia, he was baptized in Paris, France on February 24, 1619 and died on February 12, 1690. He was a painter, an art theorist, an art school director and a physiognomist. You probably are unsure what a painter does. He paints. You are probably even more confused about what a physiognomist is. Apparently, and this is according to Wikipedia, it is someone who judges a persons character by their appearance. I’m going to leave it there.

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Graphite Drawing After Rembrandt

Nude Woman on a Stool After Rembrandt

This next blog post is a drawing of a female nude sitting on a stool copied from a work by Rembrandt. Also known as Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn, Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn, Rembrandt Harmensz. van Rijn Rembrandt Harmensz. van Rijn, Rembrandt Harmensz. van Rhijn Rembrandt Harmensz. van Rhijn, Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn, Rembrandt Harmensz. van Rijn, Rembrandt van Rijn. Thank you to the Art Institute of Chicago for not only housing the drawing we are referring to but for also providing us the variations of his name just in case we didn’t recognize the name Rembrandt. I was totally confused when I saw the drawing was done by someone named Rembrandt. I always called him Haremszoon or simply Harmensz. I think most people make that simple mistake.

I always called him Haremszoon or simply Harmensz.

As I mentioned before, the original drawing is on display at the Art Institute of Chicago. Which if I remember correctly is some kind of art institute that is located in or around the Chicago metropolitan area. Sometimes instead of just regurgitating some information I haphazardly found on the web, I like to express my own knowledge about art and the world around myself and the world around art which would be I would guess the same world. If you have ever been to the Art Institute in Chicago and had the time or inclination to visit the drawing department you might have seen it. At the time of this post however it is not on view so you will have to wait. Sometimes it is out on loan to a major museum in a major city. If you live in a small town like Margate, Florida then it is highly unlikely that you will see this drawing. If fact it is highly unlikely that you will see any major work of art. If you want to see lots of bad copies of old master drawings then just stop by my place.

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Graphite Drawing After Domenichino

Pencil drawing of a Foot after Domenichino

The next drawing on my old master copy marathon is a graphite pencil drawing of a foot. If it does not look like a foot then I have failed unless I wanted to confuse you then I succeeded. If I was trying to confuse you about what the drawing was but you could tell it was a foot then I have failed. My drawing is a copy of a work done in chalk by the 17th century Italian Master Domenico Zampieri or as he was known, Domenichino. Domenichino means little Domenico because, according to my well researched research he was a small guy. Yet he was a giant when it comes to 17th century painting. From the 17th through the 19th centuries, he was considered one of the greatest painters of all time, second only to Raphael. Domenichino studied art in Bologna under Annibale Carracci and became Carracci’s favorite student and assistant.

Domenico Zampieri, I feel strange calling him Domenichino, maybe he didn’t like that nickname. Moving on, Domenico was an excellent draftsman who carefully studied nature as well as ancient sculpture and then idealized his forms making them nearly flawless. He also created idealized landscapes that later influenced the great landscape painters such as Claude Lorrain and Nicolas Poussin. Domenichino was also a talented musician and architect. He was also incredibly well read. He believed art is a type of poetry. Some of his greatest work is at The Church of St. Louis of the French which is a Roman Catholic church in Rome, and also the The Last Communion of Saint Jerome altarpiece which can be found in the Vatican. Later in his life he was bullied by younger and perhaps jealous artists and he is believed to have committed suicide because of it.

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Graphite Pencil Drawing After Peter Paul Rubens

Graphite Drawing after Peter Paul Rubens

My next offering is a copy of drawing done by the Flemish master Peter Paul Rubens sometime between 1617-18. The Victoria and Albert Museum where the drawing is displayed describes his work as a study of a nude man that is in a recumbent position and then trying to raise himself up and that seems to confirm what we see. But wait there’s more. There are also two studies of legs, that are in a kneeling position. The original drawing was done in black chalk with touches of white. I drew my copy with various graphite pencils. Actually just two different pencils, I just don’t remember which ones they were. One was light and the other dark. There are drawing pencil sets with several different types of pencils but I personally find it difficult to keep track of when to use each one so I usually only use two. I hope you had as much fun reading about pencils as I have writing about them. Just in case you can have too much of a good thing, let’s move on.

The original drawing was a study for the painting “Miracles of St. Francis Xavier”, which is a large altarpiece that is on display at the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna. The subject in the drawing is not St. Francis but some ‘regular joe’ that is raising from his grave or perhaps he is being healed from the bubonic plague. Maybe he died of the plague and then St. Francis Xavier brought him back from the dead or he was still alive and want to sit up to see what all the commotion was about. Different websites have different ideas about what is actually going on with that pale fellow. But one thing we do now it that he is a man who is in the presence of St. Francis Xavier and that is something in and of itself.