What Albrecht Dürer Taught Me: Discipline, Line, and Tuning-in
I visited Nuremberg once while living in Munich. I remember seeing Albrecht Dürer’s house marked on a tourist map, but I didn’t know who he was. I didn’t go in. At the time, his name didn’t carry meaning for me.
A year later, I came across him again—this time in Rediscovering Gouache by Aljoscha Blau, a book I still consider the best gouache resource I own. On page 23, Blau lists the great artists who used gouache. And there he was: Albrecht Dürer. That changed something in me. I already loved gouache, but I hadn’t realized how far back it went—that even someone like Dürer had worked with it. Suddenly, I wanted to study him.
But Dürer never felt like “my kind” of artist. Too meticulous. Too rigid. Too revered. I tend to work intuitively, emotionally, and fluidly. And yet, maybe that’s exactly why I needed to do this study. Sometimes, studying someone completely unlike you is how you grow.
Study 1: The Skull (1521)
I chose a lesser-known drawing for my first study: Dürer’s skull from 1521. It has this restraint to it—delicate white highlights, soft shadows, and just enough line to suggest form. I painted it over a cobalt teal gouache background, inspired by his use of Venetian blue paper. Mine was darker, but I liked that.
I layered graphite, black gouache, and lighter/darker cobalt teal to build up the forms. Then came the table, the atmosphere, the soft pastel highlights—and, finally, the ruler-sharp white lines on the left.
At one point, I added a monogram: MG, where his AD might go. It felt like a quiet nod.
Later, I tried to seal the piece with Sennelier fixative and Krylon UV spray. Disaster. The spray fogged the surface. It settled eventually, but I learned the hard way to test varnishes on scrap paper first.
Finally, I used Palette Scout to build a triadic palette, selecting a cobalt teal-like shade ("Ocean") and adding its triadic pair, "Ibis" — a hot pink that brought the whole thing to life. I added it sparingly, but it gave the piece a kind of modern hum beneath the classical weight.
Study 2: The Rhinoceros
This study began with a memory. When I lived in Beijing, my partner and I got into refined Italian wines. We’d pick bottles together: I chose by label, he chose by grape. One day I picked one with a stylized rhinoceros. I didn’t know it was Dürer’s at the time, but I kept the bottle. Six years later, I recognized it. That image had stayed in me.
I used leftover gouache as the background and sketched over it with graphite. For the linework, I used Sailor Yurameku ink (color "You") with my Waterman Edson Sapphire Blue Gold Trim fountain pen. But the gouache hadn’t fully dried—the ink bled. The lines bloomed. Nothing stayed crisp.
This piece felt endless. The lines never stopped. I was drained. This level of detail doesn’t come naturally to me—but in struggling through it, I began to understand Dürer’s discipline. He built value with line density, something rare in his time. And while it wasn’t comfortable, it showed me the emotional weight line alone can hold.
Final Portrait: Inspired by Dürer’s Self-Portrait (Prado)
For the final piece, I used AI to generate a more realistic version of Dürer’s self-portrait (the one with the striking black-and-white hat). I cropped it in, made it more intimate.
Then I added an emperor moth.
He was the emperor of artists in his time—respected in Germany, admired in Italy. There’s a kind of narcissism in the way he portrayed himself, and the moth felt right. I’ve always been drawn to moths—their stillness, transformation, and that instinct to fly into flame. From this portrait forward, the moth will appear in every Masters Reimagined piece I make.
I tried to echo some of the white pastel linework from the skull, but it didn’t work. It felt forced. Not everything you love needs to show up in the final painting. Sometimes, admiration lives best in restraint.
I didn’t use a monogram here. Instead, I stamped my name with a Japanese seal in gold ink—something I do when the energy of the painting matches the shape of the stamp.
Scrap throughout my Durer Studies
What I Took Away
At the end of it all, I didn’t walk away painting like Dürer. I walked away feeling what it’s like to try. To copy is not the goal. The goal is to listen. Observe. Test. And decide what fits you—and what doesn’t.
And maybe now, when I see one of his lines, I won’t just admire it. I’ll feel it.
—Miwa
Video of the process: Albrecht Dürer Art Study in Gouache — What I Learned Trying to Paint Like Him
