How To Paint Like DaVinci

Art school will not teach you to paint like Davinci because art school knows nothing about him or the Renaissance. Art school will teach you to paint like Sargent at best--I.e. badly. If you want to learn about Leonardo you must spend 20 years studying him in museums and books. Luckily I have done some homework for you over the past 20 years so I can help you copy a DaVinci that would make your neighbors jealous. Remember, there is no such thing as cheating in art so I will help you cheat your way through this painting.

The first thing you need is to print the picture above out in Kinkos or Staples. It is 10.5 inches wide so print 11 x 17 on color printer. (You can put on a thumb drive and print from a thumb drive right to a copier in either kinkos or staples)

After you have printed out you want to bring it home and trace it very carefully! If you dont have a lightbox you can use the glass on your front door. I have used this trick on many a mural job onsite. TRACE CAREFULLY! DONT BE LAZY...my drawing is flipped here--dont worry about that, Ill explain later.

Now go back to kinkos and have them make a black and white copy of your tracing! A kinkos person can flip your drawing left or right horizontally in the copier (called a mirror) very handy!

Now, for 5 dollars the kinkos person make a blow up of the image up to 24 inch wide. in this case that is exactly 230%

Now the blow up is 24 by roughly 34 inches the canvas is 24 x 36 so I added two more inches to image when i started painting. Ill explain later. Now put your tracing paper on top of this (use a roll of tracing paper that is 2 foot wide) carefully trace whole image again on a window or door. be careful and don't be lazy. I will post more each day on this project and also include time lapse video. Go make your copies and dont slack.