The Art of Watercolour (20)

John Singer Sargent , Watercolor as a legacy

John Singer Sargent (1856 - 1925) is a prolific American painter who composed more than 2000 watercolors.

His watercolors show the realities that delight the eye and from time to time pose a veil of imagination on these realities, suggesting something deeper than the reasons why his watercolors are celebrated today. They have a feeling of impromptu, as if the artist had stumbled upon a scene and had translated it into painting. He was the opposite of an "image maker"; his watercolors are fragments, pieces which he has removed from the visible world because they pleased his eye, and not because he was a picturesque subject or evoked an atmosphere.

Page 68 Evan Charteris

Four watercolorists who, to varying degrees and for different reasons, were influenced by Sargent, explain the reasons for this attraction.

Iain Stewart, See the shapes before the subject

Sargent painted what he saw. His sense of composition and his mastery of watercolor are simply breathtaking, but above all I remember the idea of painting the feeling of being in a specific place and not the place itself. In my studio work, for example, I try to make the lights as I remember when I was on the ground. But the constraint is to spend a lot of time outdoors; if not, then you run the risk of painting fancy things that are not based on observation.

Page 68   Iain Stewart

Ted Nuthall, transparency and opacity

I myself am a big fan of the transparency of watercolor and the effects it produces. In fact, one of the results I would like to achieve is to make the darkest shadows as transparent as possible. I also want to keep the white paper for my whites, whatever their size. Instead of waxing or drawing gum, I take care to get around and preserve my details - something Sargent did not bother about!

What I saw and read about Sargent's works convinced me that he worked tirelessly to compose and build his works, adding at the very end of his work reckless touches that make an impression of naturalness and spontaneity. This is something I really observed at home and tried to implement in my own work. Even today, this is an aspect to which I attach great importance.

Page 72 Ted Nuthall

Lucy Willis, Shadows and lights

I knew the portraits of Sargent before discovering his watercolors. It was a revelation. I learned from watching them that it is quite possible to make an interesting watercolor by painting only a wall or an open door; it suffices simply to observe the shadows and the lights. Before discovering his work, I was already using similar techniques, but it was by seeing his studies painted in Italy that it reinforced even more my desire to go in the same direction. I have thus observed its use of color and the way it makes light reflections, its economy of keys. Like him, I try to avoid overloading details.

Page 73 Lucy Willis

Keith Hornblower, Render light

As an architectural illustrator, my work was necessarily detailed and detailed, but seeing the watercolors of Sargent was like a breath of fresh air. My work has become more spontaneous and freer ... and still is today. To paint with the minimum of touches is for me the Grail of the watercolor, but as I am human, I never succeed at the first stroke and adjustments are therefore always necessary, adding this or removing that.

The most important thing is to remember what attracted me to the subject in the first place. You must never lose sight of this initial point along the way. It is very easy to be distracted by the details. Be brave and take big brushes!

Page 74 Keith Hornblower

Sargent made me understand that it is possible to capture a scene without having to include all the details. If the values are right, the painting will work. Overlaying the keys, adding spots and complementary color contrasts results in common mortals in an incoherent magma, but in Sargent, it works. As a nod to the Impressionists; I know he had met Monet and it shows in his later paintings.

Pearl merchants in Morocco: a subject that certainly could have painted John Singer Sargent during one of his many trips. Far from pasticher his style, Keith Hornblower explains to us how to work in the manner of the master: to paint what we see, neither more nor less. As the artist himself says, "trying to render in one watercolor all the know-how that Sargent has developed over the course of his entire life is obviously doomed to failure. an interesting exercise. And funny !"

HOW TO GET EFFECTS WITH SALT?

Salt is ideal for achieving crystallization effects in a background. Avoid coarse salt, whose crystals absorb too much color and have a hard time dissolving completely. The difficulty is to judge the right humidity of the support: too early and the salt creates exaggerated big stars, all the more unsightly if the grains of salt are too close together and merge. Too late and salt does not have enough water to absorb, reducing the effects. Everything is therefore a question of "timing".

THE CUTTER, A PRECIOUS TOOL

At the end of my work, I use the cutter. So I can delicately scrape the surface to get highlights on the edges of hollows and craters.

Step by step Memories 38 x 48 cm

1. The preparation of the sheet: I start by putting fine sandpaper on my sheet, then I wet it, both front and back. Then, I spend various washings based on cadmium yellow, cadmium orange, burnt sienna, burnt shade and cerulean blue. I work wet on wet and from dark to light.
2. The door handle: I focus on the lock and door handle while working wet on dry. For this, I use the following colors: burnt sienna, burnt shade, cerulean blue and indigo. I do not forget the shadow on the left, to bring not only contrast, but also depth.
3. Enhance the details: I come back to the details. I paint at this stage dry on dry to make the textures.
4. A wash to unify the shadows:I finish the last details. I then put a light wash on the shadows, composed of the mixture of the same colors used for my subject. I complete the details of my textures using projections, dry technique dry.