Leonardo Da Vinci Portrait

January 3rd 2005 - This page is a bit different from most of the other tutorials on this site as it is more of me learning how to use a Wacom tablet and sharing the experience with you as I go. I bought my first Wacom tablet (an Intuos 3, A5 size) and I decided that I'd like to try my hand at painting with it. I'd also just finished Charles Nicholl's excellent Da Vinci biography and I having spent a long time looking at the portraint of the great man on the cover I'd become obsessed with his face. I initially drew a quick sketch using traditional art materials as I wasn't confident about starting straight on the computer. In this case I used pencil on layout paper. I firmly believe that you don't really begin to understand an image until you've drawn it so although my sketch is very similar to the actual sketched portrait it was worth doing to get me to really look at the drawing and begin to figure out how I might handle painting. The first image on this page is the drawing I did. Everything else is done on the computer with the tablet. I'll update the page as the painting progresses. I certainly don't promise work will continue daily as my schedule is very busy, but check back every now and again to see how it's come on/got worse depending on how I adapt to this new (to me anyway) medium. Andrew

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