Rembrant, the master

Rembrant is by far the only classical artist that truely inspires me. Through his works and techniques that I learnt in college, I gained tremendous technical knowledge. I am still using and applying certain techniques in my own works till now, and no doubt, gave me the edge at teaching my students on some academic aspect of painting.

What I've been incorporating in my works inspired by him is the importance of contrast. Balancing light and dark to create mood. His paintings are blatantly dark, almost sinister, but with contrast with his depiction of light somehow balanced the mood and made his works a compelling visual delicacy.

Another useful thing I've learnt is to create an illusion of gold. There was no gold paint during this era, so to create this, he used yellows, ochre, highlights and many other colours reflected on the gold from surrounding objects to create the illusion of shine. Believe me, even with ready gold paints, this technique is the best and the most accurate to depict gold. I've taught some of my students how to create this too. Many are amazed by the fact that with just a mixture of simple natural colours, they can depict gold that looks astoundingly realistic.

more about him: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rembrandt