The Dutch artist Rembrandt van Rijn created nearly one hundred self portraits during his 63 years of life. Roughly 40 of these self portraits were oil paintings. The rest were drawings and etchings. This was, and is, a fairly unusual number of self portraits for an artist without a smartphone. He might have made self portraits to practice rendering facial expressions, while he also carried out his own self expressions and examinations. He might have made self portraits because they were free, whereas models cost money. He could have also been making them as a kind of self promotion. A self portrait would allow him to advertise his skill, mark himself as memorable, and possibly even earn some cash for the sale.
Below you’ll see a couple of ink drawings and then a couple of related etchings, roughly mirror image from the ink sketches, as the plate he drew the final image onto would have then printed in reverse.
Anthony Eyton was born May 17, 1923. He is a British figurative painter working in the post-Impressionist tradition. He started studying art in 1941, his studies delayed by the war, and then returned to his education at the Camberwell School of Art, completing in 1950. Eyton was Head of Painting at St Lawrence College, Kingston, Ontario in …
Between 1914 and 1917, Matisse made a series of 69 monotypes, the only monotypes of his career. Matisse created his black-and-white monotypes by covering a copper plate with black ink and then lightly and swiftly scratching into the pigment with a tool, so that the linework emerged through the dark ink ground. To transfer the …
[image_with_animation image_url=”8949″ alignment=”” animation=”None” box_shadow=”none” max_width=”100%”] Been a while since I posted. Here’s a cheerful watercolor clusterlump of flowers painted by John Singer Sargent in 1905. My stars, look at that beautiful blue! Each flower perched atop a brushstroke. That can’t be transparent blue to be that bright on top of other colors. Maybe he …
The Seattle Artist League is opening a clay studio and will be offering IN PERSON pottery classes in South Seattle this summer. In addition to our drawing and painting classes both online and in person, we will be offering classes in wheel throwing and handbuilding clay forms. I am tremendously excited about this. When I …
Rembrandt’s Self Portrait Drawings
The Dutch artist Rembrandt van Rijn created nearly one hundred self portraits during his 63 years of life. Roughly 40 of these self portraits were oil paintings. The rest were drawings and etchings. This was, and is, a fairly unusual number of self portraits for an artist without a smartphone. He might have made self portraits to practice rendering facial expressions, while he also carried out his own self expressions and examinations. He might have made self portraits because they were free, whereas models cost money. He could have also been making them as a kind of self promotion. A self portrait would allow him to advertise his skill, mark himself as memorable, and possibly even earn some cash for the sale.
Below you’ll see a couple of ink drawings and then a couple of related etchings, roughly mirror image from the ink sketches, as the plate he drew the final image onto would have then printed in reverse.
Sketch vs Etching
Sketches – just a few
Etchings
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Anthony Eyton was born May 17, 1923. He is a British figurative painter working in the post-Impressionist tradition. He started studying art in 1941, his studies delayed by the war, and then returned to his education at the Camberwell School of Art, completing in 1950. Eyton was Head of Painting at St Lawrence College, Kingston, Ontario in …
Matisse’s Monoprints
Between 1914 and 1917, Matisse made a series of 69 monotypes, the only monotypes of his career. Matisse created his black-and-white monotypes by covering a copper plate with black ink and then lightly and swiftly scratching into the pigment with a tool, so that the linework emerged through the dark ink ground. To transfer the …
Blue Gentians by John Singer Sargent
[image_with_animation image_url=”8949″ alignment=”” animation=”None” box_shadow=”none” max_width=”100%”] Been a while since I posted. Here’s a cheerful watercolor clusterlump of flowers painted by John Singer Sargent in 1905. My stars, look at that beautiful blue! Each flower perched atop a brushstroke. That can’t be transparent blue to be that bright on top of other colors. Maybe he …
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