Spent an afternoon at the Getty Center and changed my mind about digital painting

I've always been kind of a snob about traditional art versus digital work. But last month I visited the Getty Center in Los Angeles and stood in front of a Rembrandt for about 20 minutes. What got me was how he built up layers of light and shadow in a way that felt almost like a modern digital process. I realized that digital brushes are just another tool for the same thing layering and blending. So now I'm trying to replicate that effect in Procreate by using more transparent layers and slow builds. It's actually helping me understand underpainting better than any tutorial ever did. Has anyone else found inspiration for digital work by studying old master paintings in person?

2 comments

2 Comments

calebrivera5d agoTop Commenter

Guess I need to plan a trip to the Getty so I can justify buying a new iPad Pro for "professional development." My old tablet just isn't cutting it for studying Rembrandt's underpainting technique from my couch. Sounds like a solid excuse to me.

brian_ward551d ago

Started messing with egg tempera after a similar trip and it completely flipped how I layer colors in digital. The way those old guys had to wait for each layer to dry before adding the next one taught me more about patience than 10 years of Ctrl+Z ever did. Now I force myself to wait 30 seconds between brush strokes in Procreate just to break the instant gratification habit. Makes me wonder what other physical limitations we could fake in software to get better results.