Leonardo da Vinci Becomes a Great Artist as an Apprentice in Verrocchio's Florence Studio, Page 3


	Pigments and Paint We buy paint at the art supply store, but when Leonardo was an apprentice in Verrocchio's workshop he had to make his own. Oil paints were brought to Italy by visiting Flemish artists. Earlier artists used tempera paints and water-based paints. Painting with oil allowed artists to create different shades and to paint one layer over another without mixing up colors. The paint went on surfaces smoothly and didn't run. Pigments (or colors) were made from many things, such as ground rocks, precious stones, and plants. Artists ground these into a fine powder and then mixed them with liquids like oil or water to make paint. The color ultramarine, a bright blue, was made from grinding up a precious stone called lapis lazuli. Artists made bright yellow by crushing crocuses. They even made brown paint using crushed mummies from Egypt! Black pigment came from burnt wood and soot, green from copper, and purple from crushed shellfish. Before the introduction of oil paints, artists used tempera paint made by grinding the pigments into powder and mixing them with egg yolk. In Leonardo's time, they usually used this type of paint on wooden panels covered with linen. When painting murals with the "fresco" technique, they used water-based paint. For a time, gold leaf was very popular. Artists would beat the gold into thin sheets and then press it on the surface of the painting.

	dimensional. The artists in Florence developed techniques to portray objects and people as having depth and as living in space. Leonardo learned to carefully calculate the placement of lines in his drawings and paintings to create this illusion of perspective. He used math and geometry to create his art. It was an exciting time and the perfect place to be an artist. Florence was a great center for

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	art and sculpture, and whenever Leonardo could leave the studio he went to look at these works of art. Leonardo spent many hours studying the frescoes and shrines and statues of Florence. He also sought out teachers in the fields of science, mathematics, and philosophy. Leonardo began to think that everything was connected in some way, and he wanted to learn it all. He used what he learned in his paintings and drawings. And just like he did as a child, he took paper and chalk with him everywhere and sketched everything he saw. Some of the things that Leonardo liked to sketch most were animals. He studied birds' wings so he could paint the wings of angels in a realistic way. Leonardo loved horses and spent hours at stables watching the way they moved and sketching them. Leonardo felt strongly that an artist must learn from nature and draw inspiration from what he or she observes. He thought it was important to thoroughly understand a thing in order to paint it. This passion for observation began to show in Leonardo's work. The plants and flowers in his paintings looked exactly as they did in the fields. His portraits were so realistic it was as if the people were right there. Eventually he graduated from his apprenticeship and became a “garzone,” or journeyman. His father stopped by the bottega one day and asked Leonardo for a favor. “Would you paint something on the front of a shield for a friend of mine?” he asked. Leonardo took the wooden shield and smoothed it down and prepared its surface. He thought carefully about the use of a shield while trying to decide what to paint on it. A shield held up to an enemy in battle should present a terrifying image, he thought. He decided to decorate it with a painting of a menacing dragon. Whenever he could get away, Leonardo wandered out to the countryside and came back


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