HOW TO PAINT YOUR OWN VERMEER
The CD-rom
a two-part painting project by Jonathan Janson
In the CD-rom How to Paint Your Own Vermeer: A Painting in Progress, the viewer may observe a hypothetical Vermeer composition as it progresses step-by-step from the stretching of the canvas to the final touches executed according to the detailed guidelines given in the book. High-quality images, arranged in sequential order, let you follow every significant passage of the three-step painting program used by Vermeer and many seventeenth-century Dutch fijnschilders (fine painters).
Below are four scaled-down images which illustrate the basic painting procedure.
The CD-rom presents more than 180 high-quality jpeg images arranged in sequential order. Included is a 22 page WORD document which furnishes description of each phase as well as the pigments, brushes, mediums employed in each passage. Numerous details highlight the most crucial passages.
Click here to view a full size image of the CD-rom.
1.
After the canvas has correctly been grounded and given a light brown tone, a so-called underdrawing is executed with the finest brush available in light, delicate strokes of raw umber diluted with a bit of W&N Liquin painting medium scarcely diluted with turpentine. The underpainting serves as a guide to the successive stages of the painting and fixes the definitive idea of the composition on the canvas.
2.
The monochrome underpainting is executed in a firm but brisk manner with fine-tipped brushes. The underpainting serves as a compositional and chiaroscural guide for the application of the final color and glazes. It plays a vital and complex role in the finished work and must be executed according to traditional standards.
3.
Once the underpainting is completely dry, the working-up stage is begun. Full color is applied to the background areas first. The figure and still life will be painted last so that their color and tone can be properly gauged in relation to the background grays which, in effect, determine the quality of the light which flows through the window.
4.
The entire painting has been worked up. At this point, the blue pale wrap worn by the model is glazed with pure ultramarine blue glaze on the lower half of this passage. This typical glazing procedure intensifies the wrap's local color and creates a unique, brilliant shine-through effect that cannot be created by any mixture of opaque paints. Vermeer used a similar technique in the blue turban of the Girl with a Pearl Earring.
THE BOOK
How to Paint Your Own Vermeer is a straightforward, practical guide on how to reproduce Vermeer's day-to-day painting procedures for today's discerning artist.
available exclusively at Lulu.com
THE CD-ROM
View the painting as it progresses step-by-step from the stretching of the canvas to the final touches. Included is an explanatory Microsoft WORD document which explains the pigments, brushes, mediums and special techniques employed for every image of the painting process.
Why Lulu.com?
Both the book and CD-rom are available exclusively at Lulu.com, the world's premier online book printer, for a good reason.
Although you will find a vast array of painting manuals on the shelves of any well-furnished bookseller, only a handful of these volumes seriously approach the techniques of the Old Masters and not a single one deals specifically with Johannes Vermeer.
Thus, due to the limited quantity of potential sales in such a niche market, pricing and marketing considerations would severely limit the efficacy a book of this kind. Inevitably, either the depth of the text or number and quality of the illustrations would have to be sacrificed leaving vital information unavailable to the reader.
Instead, Lulu.com presents a perfect, affordable publishing solution. Both the text and illustrations can be developed to their fullest potential as separate resources at a very reasonable price.
The book and CD-rom may stand independently from the other.
If one wishes to gain the most complete comprehension of the subject, the two resources fully compliment one another with little overlap.
about Lulu.com
In just five years Lulu.com has, in essence, become home to a new economy. With users in more than 80 countries and corporate offices in the U.S., U.K. and Canada, Lulu is a top 2500 website world wide (Alexa.com); a winner of the 2007 Web 2.0 Award for best websites (SEOMoz.com), and is the top ranked self publishing site on Alexa, boasting one of the largest online worldwide creative communities and a premiere global marketplace for new digital content on the Intenet.
Lulu.com is safe and reliable.