Jeremiah, beware of substituting "formula" painting for reality. An example of this is the way decorative artists paint their "formula" flowers...they have their place but are not realistic and all tend to look the same (see below). I highly recommend that you learn from reality first and then you can make up your own individual formula when you wish to shortcut and "fake it."

Mike, thanks for cleaning the black spots off my drapery. Wisk and Photoshop is an unbeatable combo.:)

I compare learning to paint with learning a language, once you acquire command of that language you don't need to buy books on how to write memos, how to write personal letters, how to write business letters, how to write short stories, how to write small poems, etc. Because once you know that language, you should be able to write anything or almost anything.

Jeremiah,

It sounds like what you

Karin, I'm mostly interested in breaking down the science of it rather then finding short cuts to "fake it." Just as an artist should learn muscle structure for drawing the figure well, one should also do the same with other subjects such as drapery. I can see what's happening with my eyes but I want to know why it happens or why it looks the way it does. Da Vinci studied drapery exclusively for a while as well as other artists of the past.

Tito, considering painting as a language is a good analogy. However, such can be reversed to prove my curiosity as well. I could, theoretically, repeat a word to somebody in another language and have no clue what it means, this does not prove that I know the language. Same with painting. I could repeat everything from life like I was a camera but unless I know why I'm painting the things the way they are, I am nothing more then a camera.

Steven, that is a good idea. I never thought about fashion illustrations to learn drapery. That one that you mention, I have seen but never read. I'm going to do a few searches on that tonight and look at that book the next time I'm at the bookstore. Thanks.

I said you try to paint what you see, but you also have to have an understanding of the object you're painting and be selective, not just register automatically, like a camera.

My point is that if you observe carefully, drapery shows a variety of values between light and shadow and like painting anything else, you simplify those values to a few ones. You also notice highlights, cast shadows and reflected light in every fold. The important thing is that you have to paint only those folds that convey the action and the form underneath. You should not attempt to paint every single fold that you see or paint those that do not help to understand the form underneath.

It's true that some painters have studied draperies intensely and were very skillful at painting it. Ingres was one of those, but if you paint drapery too well at the expense of the rest of the painting, you lose unity.

I agree with Tito and Karin. The best way to learn is to just go at it. I see a lot of artists today that are too afraid to jump into water, afraid that it may not come out as they want it to be. Practice makes perfect so to speak.:thumbsup:

All good science begins with observation, i.e., In carefully observing the properties of different kinds of fabric with a sketch book in your hand, you will learn an awful lot about them. In other words, I think that you will learn more in a fabric store than in reading a book about fabric.
This isn't a bad place to start. If you can really paint that well, you certainly have well developed powers of observation and the entire "what is cloth" issue will quickly disappear.