Careful research is required, and you will find that each Master painter has his own techniques in producing different textures and effects. The importance of producing reproductions is to get practical, applied technical knowledge.

You should not feel insulted because you are making a reproduction. An artist must be confident in that he can be capable of producing art which is beautiful and awe inspiring to an audience. However, he must reserve some humility and acknowledge that there have been painters before him who have had to study and slave away to refine their technical knowledge and technique, as any artist should.

Even if an artist might consider himself a “modern,” “abstract” painter, it would still benefit him and free him from parochialism to learn as many techniques and styles as possible.

“Things are not so cut-and-dried in modern times, as the reader has probably already discovered. There is still no shortage of teachers, but the requirement that one possess a high degree of technical ability to obtain a teaching position has somehow been lost. Furthermore, the distinction of master has been conferred on so many graduate students (recipients of Master of Fine Arts degrees), and people who call themselves artists but whose skills are well below those of Masters of centuries past, that that word “master” has lost its meaning. One result of this is that the general level of art instruction suffered immeasurably during the twentieth century and has yet to recover to any appreciable degree into the twenty-first.” 

- Virgil Elliott, “Traditional Oil Painting: Advanced Techniques and Concepts from the Renaissance to the Present,” 2007

Study, understand, practice, develop your own technique through practice, and develop your own style after having mastered several styles.

Study:

• Study art history and the different art movements.
• Study the differences between different styles and periods, what elements (subject matter, technique, color, pose, structuring, etc.) identify different pieces of art as to belonging to their period.
• Study different techniques by different artists, schools, and brotherhoods. You will find quite a lot of information on the Internet. If you feel you cannot find enough resources online, you can get some books with comprehensive information.

Understand:

• Understand why certain techniques, styles, subject matter, became favored and influential during the different art movements.
• Understand how the different techniques and tastes evolved.
• Understand why certain artists, schools or brotherhoods became influential and identifiable.

Develop your own techniques through practice:

• Practice different techniques from different artists, schools and movements. When you study different art movements, you will find that there are many different techniques, i.e., pointillism, expressionist techniques, tempera painting, underpainting, impasto, etc.

Develop your own style

• When you learn these to a fairly good degree, you will be able to create your own style by mixing techniques to make them original and make them your own.

I am in the process of doing this myself. There is always room for improvement. I grew up in a poor country which is still quite underdeveloped. I did not have ready access to good museums like the Louvre or the Prado. I couldn’t just hop into a car to go and study paintings, so it was very important to me to study by actually practicing and trying to replicate significant paintings from the limited references that I had. If you have ready access to good museums, then you should get an up close look at paintings, decipher how they were made. Study them everyday and up close if possible, and understand why they capture an audience.



- Connie Madson