Watercolor
Exhibition Text
Taking inspiration from John Singer Sargent’s simplified but beautiful landscapes in watercolor, “ “ takes form, technique, and composition similar to Sargent’s work to create a landscape featuring the Black Hills of South Dakota. I was familiar with Sargent, but I'd only taken inspiration from his portraits in oil before, though I knew he made landscapes as well. Taking a trip to South Dakota, I realized that this was an opportunity to create a landscape that I've been wanting to do inspired by an artist that I've studied before and exploring a new medium to go along with it.
Inspiration
Artist in Focus: John Singer Sargent
When I looked at Sargent's watercolors, I noticed how simple or detailed they are in terms of the number of brushstrokes that there were on the pieces. He worked with both a large number of brushstrokes and a small number of brushstrokes. I decided that I would use a combination of this and make the focus of the piece obvious through composition and number of brushstrokes.
Another aspect of Sargent's work that I liked is how he plays with color, especially with shadows, like in Resting, where the shadows of the tree trunk is a gray that's tinted blue and another gray that's more on the yellow side of tincture. I wanted to be able to capture that element of his work into my own piece. Something else that I liked about his work was the way he'd make his compositions and how they are close to being balanced with the background, but not quite. The subject matter of the pieces in the foregrounds were at least one third of the paintings. |
Planning and Experimentation
taking pictures, figuring out composition, compare and contrast with Sargent's work, how to use watercolors (light before dark, layering), how often I had to clean the brush
For both planning and experimentation, I began to plan for the reference picture I would be using. I wanted to keep in mind that I wanted a composition similar to Sunlit Wall Under a Tree by Sargent or have that same sense of balance. This would shine through in the various pictures that I took. I wanted to have a sense of balance and/or contrast in color and hue in the reference picture so that it would look that way in the final picture. I tried different angles and different scenes, as there were cabins and a restaurant near me when I took the pictures. I wanted to see which one would reflect the work that Sargent makes. Since that's what I was keeping in mind, I realized that I wanted to have a tree as the main subject so that excluded a lot of the pictures I took already.
That means that the only pictures I had that I had taken were photos 3,4, and 5. Photo 6 does have qualities of contrast in color and balance as Sargent's Sunlit Wall Under a Tree, but I feel like the subject of the photo was the stone of the base of the ground, and not the trees itself because of the difference in hues between the stone and greenery. Photo 1 had three main sections of the photo and it was the ground, the trees, and the sky. It looks a little more geometrically designed in terms of the composition and as if the measurements of the sections were predetermined. The picture looks almost cut exactly into three different colors. This doesn't reflect the composition of Sargent's work. Photo 2 was out of the question due to how dark it was and how undetailed the trees would be if it was made into a painting. Photo 3 was very similar to the composition of Sunlit Wall Under a Tree and I highly considered it to be an emulation of that painting. Photo 4 was a good photo as it had about two sections of the photo (ground and sky) like Sunlit Wall Under a Tree (ground and wall, and the tree), but there wasn't a good focus or subject in the photo. Finally, photo 5 was very nice too and the focus was there, but the composition didn't look the way I wanted it to. I determined that I'd use photo 3.
In addition to experimenting with different angles, shots, and settings, I also experimented with how watercolors would layer on top of each other. This was especially helpful with the process of getting to understand how lights vs darks worked and how they could work together. To do that, I tried to make a practice landscape and I found that trying to apply darks first wouldn't work. The reason I had thought this way was because of the way I usually do when I'm dealing with oils. I did this when I was making the tree trunks in front of the structure towards the bottom middle and from then on I understood how I could use the watercolors to my benefit later on. This exercise made me realize that and helped me move forward.
Then, I also began to see how different techniques would work with or against each other and what would benefit me most. Obviously, wet on wet would benefit me for blending colors and wet on dry would allow me to change something's color if I wanted to. I just wanted to make sure that I didn't get enough water with the brush to make the pigments rub off. Once I knew the amount of water to use, I began my process.
|
Process
To start of the actual watercolor piece, I had to start mapping out a rough sketch of what I wanted the composition to look like. For the composition, I ended up taking inspiration from Sargent's "Sunlit Wall Under a Tree". I would have a tree that takes up the foreground so that there'd be emphasis on it, meaning that it'd be the detailed part of the painting. Then for the background, I mapped out the ground, sidewalk, and the trees that make up the middle of the piece, while I'd just give the pine trees a wash of green later on. At this point, I just wanted to have a clear idea of what I'd be giving emphasis to.
|
Next, I began to add the sky to the background and made sure to use long brushstrokes because I didn't want much streakiness in the sky. Any additional texture wasn't needed in the sky and would be more detailed than needed compared to Sargent's work, where it looks like he left his skies almost white. While I could've done this, I wanted there to be as much color as I could add into my piece. After I did this, I quickly saw how my initial brushstrokes were almost gone. I was happy about that because it allowed me to add lighter colors if I needed to and it helped me with the next step of the process which was adding the more detailed part of the painting, the main tree. It allowed me to fully focus on the tree and not think about the background so much.
|
As I said, I began to make the tree and gradually added on darker and darker colors which was a bit different for me since I typically work in oils now for personal use, so having to work opposite of my usual routine was stressful, but I got used to it after a while but not before I forgot to add a transitional shade. To keep myself from trying to "fix" it and then end up going overboard with the watercolor, I colored in the tree from the background and began adding leaves to the tree, using many brushstrokes for this section of the painting because I wanted it to look more detailed than the background.
This is when I decided to try to fix the tree trunk and added white to the bottom of the trunk. The more I kept adding on, the lighter but messier it got. Luckily it wasn't too bad considering how much white I tried adding onto it. |
Eventually, I added more dark brown to the painting to make up for all the white I added, this time I just made sure to keep it to the left side of the tree and left some space for highlights.
As you can see, right under where the tree branches start, there are marks that are there from trying to make the sky lighter. I would go ahead and fix these soon after. While I was experimenting with that, I ended up trying to water down the leaves to create blobs of color so that I'd have a base layer for the leaves and add onto it later. |
This is also when I added more color to the background through the green trees from the Black Hills and so I added white to the sky in the top right corner. At this point I wanted to start getting the trees that were between the main tree and the pines in the painting as well. I kept the design for these very minimal but made sure that you could still tell what they were. |
Then, I decided to add the shrubs that were in my reference picture and tried to give my leaves more life back to them, make them stand out from each other again instead of having blobs of color. |
Lastly, I ended up giving the highlights of the tree a touch up and gave it a bit more yellow tones than the blue ones I gave it before. For the pines, I kept having to remember that I had to leave them pretty vague to the viewer as it isn't the focus of the piece, so I just kept adding more layers of green.
I also added more definition to the leaves in the trees between the pines and the one in the foreground. I also added a shadow to the sidewalk and finished the little playground structure and the cabin in the background. |
Critique
Compare
To compare, I used the same medium as Sargent as well as the same subject matter. The main focus of the piece was a tree, as Sargent did in his Sunlit Wall Under a Tree. The more I looked at his painting, the more I began to realize that I made the leaves of the tree look very similar to this painting. In my work, I used different kinds of brushstrokes for each area of the painting, depending on what I wanted to put focus on. In both Sargent's case and mine, we both focused on trees. Another similarity is the amount of space that the subject matter takes up in the piece. In Resting, Sargent takes up about half of the painting with the subject matter and a little more than a third of the painting in Sunlit Wall Under a Tree. Luckily, about half of the painting ended up being the subject matter. Another thing that was similar between the three pieces was having the "floor" of the piece be painted in a way where it was basic and plain apart from some details scattered among the ground.
Contrast
To contrast, Sargent and I had different background for our paintings, as he had a person in the painting Resting and a wall in his Sunlit Wall Under a Tree. In my background, the Black Hills of South Dakota were featured and made for a good chunk of the painting. Another difference is how I decided to give the sky more color than Sargent tends to by painting it a bright blue. That was just a personal preference and I feel like that gave my painting a more playful feeling to it. Another difference was the way that I made the leaves, because while I did make them in a similar fashion, it's apparent that my brush was thinner than his. Either that or our linework was slightly different.
Reflection
During my time working on this project, I found that working with watercolors isn't that difficult when you practice, as with any other medium, but because I use oils so frequently, it felt especially off working in a way that is the complete opposite of my usual practice. Once I did get the hang of it though, I understood how Sargent could feel that making watercolor paintings could be freeing. Once I understood how it worked, I just had to envision the end result of the painting so that I'd know what my highlights were going to look like. This helped me control how I moved forward with the piece. I also learned that watercolor is a medium that could forgive you if you messed up because you could just go on top of it with water to wash the pigment off. This was an interesting medium, and I would use it again, but I think I'll save it for personal use. I think that thinking differently about how to approach a project was an interesting challenge, but it was definitely attainable to understand the concept of watercolor. I definitely think that starting with a small piece wasn't as scary as starting with a larger piece, but doing that could've left more room for experimentation and getting to know the medium better, but considering what I had at hand, I think I did pretty well.
Connection to the ACT
1. Clearly explain how you can identify the cause effect relationship between your inspiration and its effect on your work.
Sargent's watercolor landscapes very deeply impacted the way that I chose to approach using watercolors for the first time for a project. This is seen through the similarities between our work through composition, line (through brushstrokes), and technique.
2. What is the overall approach the author has regarding the topic of your inspiration?
Creating landscapes was something that was liberating for Sargent, and this was like that for me too since the techniques were fairly understandable.
3. What kind of generalizations and conclusions have you discovered about people, ideas, culture, etc. while you researched your inspiration?
I concluded that watercolors have an opposite process compared to oil paintings and while they are very different, they are both enjoyable mediums to work with.
4. What is the central theme around your inspirational research?
The theme around my research was Sargent's work in general because I knew I wanted to look at his watercolor work.
5. What kind of inferences did you make while reading your research?
I thought that the process of making watercolor paintings was going to be much more difficult than I thought.
Sargent's watercolor landscapes very deeply impacted the way that I chose to approach using watercolors for the first time for a project. This is seen through the similarities between our work through composition, line (through brushstrokes), and technique.
2. What is the overall approach the author has regarding the topic of your inspiration?
Creating landscapes was something that was liberating for Sargent, and this was like that for me too since the techniques were fairly understandable.
3. What kind of generalizations and conclusions have you discovered about people, ideas, culture, etc. while you researched your inspiration?
I concluded that watercolors have an opposite process compared to oil paintings and while they are very different, they are both enjoyable mediums to work with.
4. What is the central theme around your inspirational research?
The theme around my research was Sargent's work in general because I knew I wanted to look at his watercolor work.
5. What kind of inferences did you make while reading your research?
I thought that the process of making watercolor paintings was going to be much more difficult than I thought.
MLA Citations
John Singer Sargent Paintings (Oils and Watercolours). www.thehistoryofart.org/john-singer-sargent/paintings/#:~:text=Watercolours%20offered%20Sargent%20a%20freedom%20from%20both%20his,periods%20brought%20real%20enjoyment%20to%20this%20free%20spirit.