Vitruvian Man

Leonardo DaVinci’s “Vitruvian Man” with a twist :) – Illustration in “Photoshop”. For the last couple of weeks I’ve been burning the midnight oil working on “Lord of the Rings” illustrations for the upcoming book and I have to admit, I’m a little bit sick of it :) I’ve been doing the same kind of illustrations over and over and this is something I don’t enjoy very much. I desperately needed some visual variety but the project is huge and the deadline is tight so there’s no time to stray away even for a little while and do something else for a change. The parchment and old paper texture is burnt in my retina and photographically imprinted on the inner side of my skull so I see it every time I roll my eyes (and that happens quite often lately). Furthermore, the series of plates I’m working at the moment are all done in pencil and I really needed to paint some color so I did Leonardo’s Vitruvian Man. Using old paper texture, of course :)

Now, I have to tell you, I’m one of the lucky few who have seen the original drawing. This beautiful and unforgettable moment happened over fifteen years ago, when I was in Venice, but the memories are still fresh, like it was yesterday. I say lucky few because the Vitruvian Man is not publicly exhibited (not the original drawing, that is) so when the opportunity presented itself, I took advantage of it, thanks to a BBC crew which was doing a documentary on Leonardo. When they have finished filming, I spend about ten minutes absorbing this masterpiece in all its glory. I even touched it once and, although, with every breath I take I breathe in a few thousand molecules of air Leonardo was breathing, I felt this touch connection much stronger :) The firmness of the lines was surprising, at some places the lines are almost etched into the paper. I don’t know, I was expecting Leonardo to be gentler with it, I guess. The compass marks below the belly button (around seven or eight of them) are still clearly visible after five hundred years and show that Leo had some problems with the circle around the figure. Obviously it took some time until he positioned it right.

See the_detail»

This artwork is available in printed form. Find out more about zoran-art prints.

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