[Returner]

I'm planning to learn the basic of painting soon (only drawn/sketched before).
But I am curious to learn what the point is of copying and studying great artists paintings. Is it that by copying them you will really remember visually the specifics that master had, for inspiration? Can you track his steps somehow?
I guess studying paintings isn't what you start out to do as a beginner but I'm curious.

How do you approach studying paintings?

[Cicinimo]

It forces you to break the image down into its parts so you can begin to understand the decisions the original artist made. Painting is really about thinking and making good decisions from beginning to end.

When you do master copies, don't just copy tones and shapes...think about the building blocks of the painting so you can understand why it works. Think of it as reverse engineering. You're taking it apart, but paying attention to its parts so you can put it back together later.
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[octavian]

Nice jaime.... I think I always forget to do that. I usually just copy shapes.

[Returner]

Thanks, made it clear. Effective brush strokes is a beautiful thing! Really going to try to hang in there to learn some basics. No pain no gain, ughhh...

[watmough]

awesome, Jaime! such a great explanation of why its important.

[mattgamer]

thanks Cicinimo! i always forget that way of studying!