The Painter in Oil Part 16

Try to keep things simple. Keep the impression of unity; have the sketch one thing only.

Express things as they look. As they look to _you_ and at _this time_.

How they seem to some one else, or seemed at some other time, is not to the point. What you know they are or may be will not help you, but only hinder you in a sketch. The more facts the worse, in sketching.

Remember always what a sketch is for. Don't be beguiled into trying to make a picture of it, nor a study of it. Above all, don't try to make a clever thing of it. Make something sincere and purposeful of it, and have it as concise, as terse, as direct, and as expressive of one thing as you can.

=Keep Looking.=--Always keep your eyes open and your mind receptive; do not be always looking for reasons. Accept the charm as it presents itself; note it, if you have anything handy to express it with; if not, study it, and get something into your mind and memory from it.

The simplest way of expressing it, and the simplest elements which cause it, you can study without the materials to preserve it, and you so keep your receptivity and quicken your power of observation.

Your sketch will be more quickly done, directly and more forcefully, if you map out the thing rather deliberately first with a few very exact lines and ma.s.ses in some way: then you have a free mind to concentrate on the effect. A few values and ma.s.ses well placed are the things you most want; you can almost always spare time to ensure their exactness by a few measurements and two or three rubs of color first. Of course if the sketch is of a pa.s.sing gleam you can do nothing but get a few smudges of color. But get them true in value and in color relation; get the glow of it, or you will get nothing.

=Canvases of a Size.=--In sketching from nature, have the habit of using always the same sized canvases or panels. They pack better, and you learn to know your s.p.a.ces, and so you do quicker and better work.

Make them big enough to do free work on, yet small enough to cover easily, so that you lose no time in mere covering of surface. Ten inches by fourteen is plenty small enough, and fifteen by twenty large enough, for most persons. Suit yourself as to the size, but settle on a size, and stick to it. Nothing is more awkward and inconvenient than to have stacks of canvases of all sizes and shapes.

Always have plenty of sketching materials on hand. You will lose many a good effect which will pa.s.s while you are getting your kit ready.

In sketching, avoid details. When you want them, make a study of them.

In a sketch they only interfere with frankness of expression. One or two details for the sake of accent only, may be admitted.

Make a frame with your hand, or, better, cut a square hole in a card, and look through it. Decide what is the essence of it, what is vital to the effect, and do that; concentrate on that. Put in what you need for the conveying of that, and leave out everything else.

=Work Solidly.=--Work in body color, and lay on your paint fully and freely. In getting an effect of light, don't be afraid of contrast either of value or of color. Paint loosely; get the vibration which results from half-mixed color. Don't flatten out the tone. Load the color if you want to. In twenty years you will wonder to see how smooth it has become.

Freedom and breadth give life to a sketch. Don't work close to your work. Don't bend over it. Use plenty of color, large brushes, and strike from the shoulder.

CHAPTER XXVII

THE STUDY

The qualities which make a good study are the reverse of those which make a good sketch. In the sketch all is sacrificed to the effect, or to the one thing which is its purpose. The study is what its name implies, and its purpose is not one thing, but many. In a study you put in everything which may be valuable. You store it with facts. You leave out nothing which you wish to put in. It is all material. You can take and leave in using it afterwards, as you could from nature.

Of course every study has some main intention, but you must take the trouble to give everything that goes to the making of that.

A study is less of a picture than a sketch is. For unity of effect is vital to both a sketch and a picture. But this quality is of no essential value in a study--unless it be a study of unity. For you can make a _study_ of anything, from a foreground weed to a detailed interior, from a bit of pebble to a cavalry charge.

But in a study of one thing you concentrate on that thing, you deliberately and carefully study everything in it, while in a sketch you work only for general effect. The study is the storehouse of facts to the painter. By it he a.s.sures himself of the literal truths he needs, collecting them as material in color or black and white, and as mental material by his mental understanding of them, only to be gained in this way.

In making a study you may work as long as you please, timing yourself by the difficulty and size of the thing you are studying. A study of an interior or a landscape may occupy a week or two; one of a simple object for some detail in a picture may be a matter of only a few hours. But in any work of this kind you should be deliberate, and remember that what you are doing is neither a sketch nor a picture, but the gathering of material which is to be useful, but which can be useful only so far as it is accurate.

In making studies, don't try for surface finish; get the facts, and leave all other qualities for the picture. Don't glaze and sc.u.mble, but work as directly as you can. Study the structure and texture of whatever you are doing. Understand it thoroughly as you go on, and search out whatever is not clear to you. This is no place for effects; nor for slighting or shirking. If you do not do work of this kind thoroughly, you might as well not do it at all--better; for you are at least not training yourself to be careless.

There are places where you may be careless, but the making of a study is not that place.

Take plenty of trouble with preliminaries. Get all your foundation work true. Have a good drawing, get the groundwork well laid in, and then build your superstructure of careful study.

Don't be afraid of over-exactness, nor of hardness and edginess here.

All that is only an excess of precision, and it is just as well to have it. You can leave it out if you want to in your picture, but a groundwork of exactness is not to be despised.

Be exact also with your values. If your study is not sure of its values, it will weaken the results you should get from it later.

Make your studies in the same light as that which the picture will represent. You can paint a picture under any light you please if your studies give you the facts as to light and shade that the truth to nature requires; but studies made in one light for a picture representing another are useless to that picture.

No good painting was ever made without preliminary studies. When you are to make a picture, therefore, take plenty of time to prepare yourself with all the material in the form of facts that you may require. Don't trust to building up a picture from a sketch or two and your "general knowledge." That sort of thing is something which a painter of experience may do after storing his mind for years with all sorts of knowledge; but it will not do for most people--least of all for a student. And it is a dangerous way for any one to work. Even the experienced painter is apt to do the worse work for it, and if he does so constantly, his reputation may suffer for it. Take time to be right.

[Ill.u.s.tration: =Study of a Blooming-Mill.= _D. Burleigh Parkhurst._]

Don't be afraid of taking measurements. Every one who did anything worth looking at took measurements. Leonardo laid down a complete system of proportions. You can't get your proportions right without measurements, and if your proportions are not right, nothing will be right. Use a plumb-line: use it frequently, and measure horizontals and verticals. If you are in doubt about anything, stop a minute and measure. It takes less time than correcting.

Whatever you do, get the character first, then the details. Character is not a conglomeration of details. The detail is the incident of character. See what the vital things are first, then search farther.

Use your intelligence as well as your eye and hand. Think as you work.

Don't for a moment let your hand get ahead of your brain. Don't work absent-mindedly, nor without purpose. If your mind is tired, if your eye won't see, stop and rest a while. Tired work runs your picture down hill.

CHAPTER XXVIII

STILL LIFE

The name of still life is used in English for all sorts of pictures which represent groupings of inanimate objects except flowers. The French word for it is better than ours. They call it "_nature morte_"

or dead nature.

There is no kind of painting which is more universally useful--to the student as well as to the painter. It furnishes the means for constant, regular, and convenient study and practice. You need never lack for something interesting to paint, nor for a model who will sit quietly and steadily without pay, if you have some pieces of drapery, and a few articles, of whatever shape or form, which you can group in a convenient light.

You can make the group as simple or as difficult as you wish, and make it include any phase of study. The advantage of its possible variety, scope, and particularly, its convenience and cheapness and manageableness, make it the fundamental work for the beginner.

=Materials.=--Practically anything and everything is available for still life. You should be constantly on the lookout for interesting objects of all kinds. Try to get a collection which has as much variety in form, size, and surface as you can. Old things are generally good, but it is a mistake to suppose old and broken things the best. An object is not intrinsically better because of its being more or less damaged, although it sometimes has interesting qualities, as of color or history, because of its age.

What you should avoid is bad proportion, line, and color in the things you get. The cost is not of any importance at all. You can pick up things for a few cents which will be most useful. Have all sorts of things, tall slim vases, and short fat jugs. Have metals and gla.s.s, and books and plaques. They all come in, and they add to the variety and interest of your compositions.

=Draperies.=--The study of drapery particularly is facilitated by still-life study. You can arrange your draperies so that they are an essential part of your study, and will stay as long as you care to paint from them, and need not be moved at all. This fact of "staying power" in still life is one of importance in its use, as it reduces to the minimum the movement and change which add to the difficulties in any other kinds of work. The value of the antique in drawing lies in its unvarying sameness of qualities from day to day. In still life you have the same, with color added. You can give all your attention and time unhurriedly, with the a.s.surance that you can work day after day if you want to, and find it just the same to-morrow morning as you left it to-day. This as it applies to drapery is only the more useful.

You can hardly have a lay figure of full size, because of its cost. To study drapery on a model carefully and long, is out of the question, because it is disarranged every time the model moves, and cannot be gotten into exactly the same lines again.

Still life steps in and gives you the power to make the drapery into any form of study, and to have it by itself or as a part of a picture.

In draperies you should try to have a considerable variety just as you have of the more ma.s.sive objects,--variety of surface, of color, and of texture. Do not have all velvet and silk. These are very useful and beautiful, but you will not always paint a model in velvet and silk.

Satins and laces are also worn by women, and cloth of all kinds by men, and so you should study them. Sometimes you want the drapery as a background, to give color or line; and yet to have also marked surface qualities (texture), would take from the effect of those qualities in the other objects of the group.

As to color, in the same way you should have all sorts of colors; but see to it that the colors are good,--in themselves "good color," not harsh nor crude. It does you no good as a student to learn how to express bad color. Neither is it good training for you, in studying how to represent what you see, to have to change bad color in your group into good color in your picture.

Good useful drapery does not mean either large pieces, or pieces with much variety of color in one piece; on the contrary, you should avoid spotty or prominent design in it. Still, the more kinds you have, the more you can vary your work.

If your drapery is a little strong in color, you can always make it more quiet by washing or fading it to any extent. There is very little material which is absolutely fast color. But when it is so, and the color is too strong, don't use it.

Don't scorn old and faded cloth, especially silk and velvet, or plush.