How to Draw Palermo Art

What You'll Need

• •Smooth watercolor paper, gessoed panel, or illustration board; a toned warm ochre surface is useful for the gold ground.
• •Acrylic or gouache in ochre, vermilion, ultramarine, malachite or emerald green, ivory, umber, and deep red, plus metallic gold paint or imitation gold leaf.
• •Fine round brushes, a flat brush, a small liner, a pencil, a ruler, a compass, and a sharp craft knife or stencil tools for repeating patterns.
• •Optional traditional materials: imitation gold leaf, water-based sizing, shellac or clear varnish, colored paper, and small pieces of painted or printed paper for simulated marble inlay.
• •Digital painting software with layers, clipping masks, vector or shape tools, symmetry guides, and pattern or tile brushes.
• •A pressure-sensitive stylus and a scanned texture library containing stone, plaster, paper grain, and irregular metallic surfaces.

Step by Step

1. 1

   Plan a centered ceremonial composition

   Begin with a vertical rectangle and reserve a broad central axis for the main figure or architectural opening. Divide the image into three zones: a gold field behind the subject, a framing structure around it, and a lower band of marble or patterned flooring. Keep the figure nearly frontal and stable, then place curved arches, hanging forms, or side columns symmetrically enough to feel ceremonial without making every detail mechanically identical.

2. 2

   Establish the warm ground and value map

   Cover the surface with a thin ochre, sienna, or muted terracotta wash, leaving no bright white gaps. Lightly sketch the largest dark, middle, and light shapes before adding decoration: the figure and deep arch recesses should usually be the strongest darks, while the gold field and pale stucco carry the light. Squint at the sketch and simplify until the subject remains recognizable as a small thumbnail.

3. 3

   Create the gold-ground mosaic

   Paint the gold field with an uneven base of ochre and yellow, then add small rectangular, diamond, or tessera-like marks in slightly different temperatures of gold. Vary their direction and spacing subtly, but keep the overall field quiet behind the face and hands. For imitation leaf, apply sizing, press on the leaf after it becomes tacky, soften the edges, and seal it only when fully dry; for digital work, use a gold base layer, a speckled texture clipped to it, and a low-opacity warm highlight layer.

4. 4

   Construct the stylized Byzantine-inspired figure

   Use a simplified head with a high forehead, almond-shaped eyes, a narrow straight nose, a small composed mouth, and a calm frontal expression. Keep the body elongated and relatively flat, with broad shoulders, simplified hands, and garments defined by angular folds rather than realistic cloth modeling. Paint the face with an ochre or olive underpainting, add a lighter plane to the forehead, nose, cheeks, and chin, then place thin dark contour accents and small warm highlights without blending everything into naturalistic realism.

5. 5

   Frame the subject with curved ceremonial architecture

   Build arches, domes, apses, columns, and deep recesses from simple geometric shapes before adding surface detail. Use nested curves around the main figure so the architecture directs the eye inward, and make the inner arch darker than its surrounding trim to create depth. Give columns slightly exaggerated capitals and use overlapping bands, pendants, or scalloped edges to suggest a richly decorated sacred or civic interior.

6. 6

   Design Norman-Islamic interlace and mosaic borders

   Draw a small repeat unit first: crossing bands, eight-point stars, rosettes, braided lines, or interlocking polygons. Transfer that unit around arches and along horizontal borders with a ruler, compass, tracing paper, or a digital pattern brush; alternate the repeat direction at corners rather than forcing it to continue awkwardly. Keep the interlace in two or three contrasting colors, such as ivory and dark red over green, and let occasional irregularities preserve a handmade mosaic character.

7. 7

   Add Baroque stucco and polychrome marble inlay

   Paint raised stucco as pale, thick-edged forms: scrolls, shells, leaf clusters, garlands, ribs, and clustered flourishes. Place the largest stucco masses near the architectural frame, then use smaller accents to connect them without covering the face or main symbol. For marble, block in angular panels of cream, red, green, black, and ochre, separate them with narrow dark or pale joints, and add restrained veins that follow the panel direction instead of becoming random scribbles.

8. 8

   Unify the Mediterranean light and surface

   Choose one warm light direction, usually from above and slightly to one side, and repeat it on faces, stucco ridges, column edges, and marble planes. Glaze transparent terracotta, honey, or coral over selected areas so the palette feels sunlit rather than artificially bright. Finish with a few crisp highlights in gold or ivory, then add controlled wear, tiny edge breaks, and uneven pigment so the work resembles assembled materials rather than a perfectly clean digital diagram.

Going Digital

Work in separate layers for the gold ground, figure, architecture, interlace, marble, stucco, and final light. Use vector shapes or guides for arches and repeated borders, then rasterize or paint over them with textured brushes so the geometry does not feel sterile. Create a gold layer with ochre, yellow, and brown noise, set a low-opacity Color Dodge or Add layer for glints, and use clipping masks to confine mosaic marks and marble veins. Add a subtle paper or plaster texture over the whole image with low opacity, but reduce it over the face so the expression stays clear.

Common Mistakes

FAQ