If you are interested in art and drawing then it’s important to use whatever drawing resources you can. It can be hard finding the time to get to an art gallery or museum (if we are lucky enough to have them close by) and too often, when we do, we don’t get to see what we want. Drawings in particular are often not on permanent view. However, many collections allow viewing online which is a chance to see close up how artists before you have handled different genres and different media.
Seeing how other artists work – their composition, how they use light and shade, the effects different media achieve, and much much more can be learned by looking at other artists’ work.
In the time of Michelangelo and Leonardo copying Old Master drawings was an integral part of an apprentice’s education and ‘copying’ didn’t have the unsavoury connotations that it can do today.
Looking close-up at artist’s work you can sometimes see where they have changed their mind about a position of line – how they’ve adjusted a pose or corrected something they weren’t happy about it. There is much to learn from looking at drawings – often they show the process that is hidden from us when we look at a finished painting.
Many of the websites featured here allow you to explore a particular work of art in close-up – and on some of the sites such as the Royal Collection thisreally means close up. You couldn’t get that close if you were standing in the print room itself!
This page offers an online drawing resource – it’s being added to all the time so please drop by every so often take a virtual wander through the gallery illustrating some of the world’s great artists.
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