Leonado Da Vinci is a self taught artist, his formal education was very basic and finshed young. He had one of the bes creative minds of the Italian Renaissance, hugely by his art work and sculptors but also he was a engineer, scienctist and inventor.

Lenardo Da vinci was  apprenticed to a sculptor and painter called Andrea del Verrocchio. Da Vinci did is own version of "The Last Supper."  During his time in Florence he painted alot of portrait but the only one what survived was the famous " Mona Lisa."

In the painting the colour in the foreground are a lot brighter than the background what also creates a depth of tone. I prefer Da Vinci's drawing to paintings 

I like this drawing because of the little detail by the crosshatching what makes it have a shade where it makes it three dimensional, there is also a contrast in tone where the light is hitting the drawing.

www.leonardo-da-vinci-biography.com/

http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/da_vinci_leonardo.shtml