Learning from the greats

I've found that advancing my painting skills has been achieved by copying art from some of the greats: Matisse, Picasso, Degas, Sargent and the like. Each painting I've done has given me some nugget of knowledge.

This is a large copy (30 x 40) of a painting by Gentileschi. I added and subtracted a bit from the original, (more hair, less detail), and am generally happy with it.

I started with a digital copy of the original, which I gridded and transferred to the canvas using charcoal.

Here you can see where I've drawn over the charcoal with thinned sepia and blocked in the basic values. The great part about copying early paintings is that they're done almost exclusively in earth tones and are therefore require very inexpensive paint.