Learning objectives
■ Learn Old Master techniques
■ Practise completing a painting alla prima
■ How to paint the effects of twilight
If you have been following my articles here in Leisure Painter you will know that I set great store by making studies of Old Master paintings. You can learn techniques and technical processes by imitating great paintings of the past. You can discover what their themes were, and how artists discovered their own style, what sets them apart from other painters and makes their work instantly recognisable.
I first discovered the work of Edouard Cortès (1882-1969) in an upmarket antiques fair. His paintings are fashionable, very commercial, and highly sought after. Cortès painted idealised views of Paris. He showed the city as it was in the late nineteenth or early twentieth century, the Belle Epoque or the 1920s. The roads are
