This guest post is by Martyn Chamberlin of Two Hour Blogger.
It was getting late.
The sick old man sighed and set down his brush. Learning back deeply in his chair, he gazed at his painting.
No matter how hard he worked, he couldn’t seem to finish it.
It was only a medium sized work—30 by 21 inches. And yet, the canvas seemed like a monolith of impossibility, stretching towards to the unforeseeable future…
Maybe he should just abandon it, like he had dozens of other works. This painting wasn’t getting anywhere. He couldn’t even give it a name. It was time to admit defeat.
After gazing thoughtfully at it for a bit longer, he shook himself away. Nightfall had long since fallen, and it was past his bed time.
It was May 2, 1519.
Leonardo Da Vinci never woke up. He died with his painting the Mona Lisa in his bedroom.
He never finished it.
He’d worked on it for four years, and given it nearly 30 layers of paint. But he never finished it.
Still, it’s considered the greatest painting ever brushed by mortals. Leonardo hit a home run. He created a masterpiece that would transcend the boundaries of location and time. How’d he do it?
Let’s peek at what Leonardo had going for him. The good part is that you’ll be able to apply these to your blog too.
1. He knew his stuff before he got started
Leonardo was a master at painting before he began the Mona Lisa. He spent decades learning and studying. He’d already mastered drawing and painting in oils.
There was a day when Leonardo picked up a paint brush for the first time. He made a lot of really lousy paintings when he started out—horrible, absolute disasters.
But he stuck with it and got better. After decades of unmitigated labor, he was finally ready to paint his masterpiece.
How this applies to you: If...
