Flemish dress drapery

Just a quick extra post this week!  I came across this drawing of a young Flemish woman modeling a lovely dress for us.  If you think back to last week's post I talked about the problems of understanding folds in the drapery of clothing.  In that post I recommended exercises like dropping cloth or crumpled paper on your desk then copying / comparing  the creases and folds you see.

I swear this Flemish artist did exactly that but then he added the woman's figure as if that cloth drape were her dress!  Doesn't it look like that to you?  I used to draw lightly crumpled paper then turn it into a craggy landscape with added trees and more carefully defined rocky cliffs.  That worked for me and I'll bet it worked for him!




(Kneeling Lady, School of Hugo van der Goes, 15th century)