PROCEDURE IN A PICTURE
Some pictures, particularly those begun and finished in the open air,
may be frankly commenced immediately on the canvas from nature as she
is before the painter, and without any special processes or methods of
procedure carried on to completion. But many pictures are of a sort
which renders this manner of work unwise or impossible. There may be
too many figures involved. The composition, the drawing, or other
arrangement may be too complicated for it, and then the painter has to
have some methodical and systematic way of bringing his picture into
existence. He must take preliminary measures to ensure his work coming
out as he intends, and must proceed in an orderly and regular manner
in accordance with the planning of the work. It is in this sort of
thing that he finds sketches and studies essential to the painting of
the picture as distinguished from their more common use as training
for him, or accumulation of general facts.
=Preliminaries.=--There must be made numbers of sketches, first of the
slightest and merely suggestive, and then of a more complete, kind,
to develop the general idea of composition from the first and perhaps
crude conception of the picture. All the great painters have left
examples of work in these various stages. It is a part of the training
of every student in art schools to make these composition sketches,
and to develop them more or less fully in larger work. In the French
schools there are monthly _concours_, when men compete for prizes with
work, and their success is influenced by a previous _concour_ of these
composition sketches.
This preliminary sketch in its completed stage gives the number and
position and movement of the figures and accessories, with the
arrangement of light and shade and color. There is no attempt to give
anything more than the most general kind of drawing, such details as
the features, fingers, etc., being neglected. The light and shade on
the single figures also is not expressed, but the light and shade
effect of the whole picture is carefully shown, and the same with the
color-scheme. It is this first sketch that establishes the character
of the future picture in everything but the details. Sometimes this
work is done on a quite large canvas, but usually is not more than a
foot or two long, and of corresponding width.
=Studies.=--After this there must be studies made for the drawing of
the single figures, and for more exactness of line and action in the
bringing of all together into the whole. This work is usually done in
charcoal, from the life, and sometimes on a piece of drawing-paper
stretched over the same canvas that the picture will be painted on, or
otherwise arranged, but of the same size. Often, however, this work,
too, is done on a smaller scale than that of the picture, especially
when the picture is to be very large. This is based on the preliminary
sketch as composition, and is intended to carry that idea out more in
full, and perfect the drawing of the different figures, and to
harmonize the composition. The composition and relation of figures
both as to size and position on the final canvas depend on this study.
[Illustration: =Study of Fortune.= _Michael Angelo._]
=Corrections.=--In making these studies and in transferring them to
the canvas, corrections are of course often necessary. The correction
may or may not be satisfactory. To avoid too great confusion from the
number of corrections in the same place, they are not made always
directly on the study or canvas, but on a curtain of tissue paper
dropped over it. The figure may be completely drawn, and is to be
modified in whole or in part. The tissue paper receives the new
drawing, and the old drawing shows through it, and the effect of the
correction can be compared with that of the first idea. The study
itself need not then be changed until the alteration which is
satisfactory is found, as the process may be repeated as many times
as necessary on the tissue paper, and the alterations finally embodied
in the completed study.
=Figure Studies.=--The studies for the various single figures are now
made in the nude from the model, generally a quarter or half life
size--a careful, accurate light and shade drawing of every figure in
the picture, the model being posed in the position determined on in
the study just spoken of. Sometimes further single studies are made
with the same models draped, and generally special studies of drapery
are made as well; these studies are afterwards used to place the
figures in position on the canvas before the painting begins.
=Transferring.=--The composition study must now be transferred to the
canvas, to give the general arrangement and relative position, size,
and action of the figures, etc. If the drawing is the same size as the
canvas it is done by tracing, if not, then it is "squared up." In this
stage of the process mechanical exactness of proportion is the thing
required, as well as the saving of time; all things having been
planned beforehand, and freedom of execution coming in later. This
establishes the proportions, the sizes, and positions of the several
figures on the final canvas. The drawing is not at this stage
complete. The more general relations only are the purpose of this.
Onto this preparation the studies drawn from the nude model are
"squared up," and the drawing corrected again from the nude model.
This drawing is now covered with its drapery, which is drawn from the
life in charcoal, or a _frottee_ of some sort. At this stage the
canvas should represent, in monochrome, very justly, what the finished
picture will be in composition, drawing, and light and shade. If the
_frottee_ of various colors (as suggested in the chapter on "Still
Life") has been used, the general color scheme will show also. This
completes the preliminary process of the picture, and when the
painting is begun with a _frottee_, this stage includes also the
_first painting_.
="The Ebouch."=--An _ebouch_ is a painting which, mainly with body
color, blocks in broadly and simply the main masses of a composition.
Sometimes an _ebouch_ is used as one of the preliminary color studies
for a picture, especially if there is some problem of drapery massing
to be determined, or other motive purely of color and mass. Or if
there is some piece of landscape detail such as a building or what not
to come in, _ebouches_ for it will be made to be used in completing
the picture. But more commonly the _ebouch_ is the first blocking-in
painting of the picture, by means of which the greater masses of color
and value are laid onto the canvas, somewhat rudely, but strongly, so
as to give a strong, firm impression of the picture, and a solid
under-painting on which future work may be done. Whether this
_ebouch_ is rough or smooth, just how much of it will be body or solid
color and how much transparent, just what degree of finish this
painting will have,--these depend on the man who does it. No two men
work precisely the same way.
Some men make what is practically a large and very complete sketch.
Some paint quite smoothly or frankly, with more or less of an effect
of being finished as they go, working from one side of the picture
gradually across the whole canvas. Others work a bit here and a bit
there, and fill in between as they feel inclined. Another way is to
patch in little spots of rather pure color, so that the _ebouch_ looks
like a sort of mosaic of paint.
In the matter of color, too, there is great difference of method. Some
men lay in the picture with stronger color than they intend the
finished picture to have, and gray it and bring it together with
after-painting. Others go to the other extreme, and paint grayer and
lighter, depending on glazings and full touches of color later on to
richen and deepen the color. All the way between these two are
modifications of method. The main difference between these extremes is
that when stronger color is used in the first painting, the process is
to paint with solid color all through; while if glazings are to be
much used, the _ebouch_ must be lighter and quieter in color, to allow
for the results of after-painting. For you cannot glaze _up_. You
always glaze _down_. The glaze being a transparent color, used without
white, will naturally make the color under it more brilliant in color,
but darker in value, just as it would if you laid a piece of colored
glass over it. And this result must be calculated on beforehand.
[Illustration: =Ebouch of Portrait.= _Th. Robinson._
One sitting of one hour and a half.]
Which of all these methods is best to use depends altogether on which
best suits the man and his purpose in the picture or his temperament.
A rough _ebouch_ will not make a smooth picture. A mosaic gives a
pure, clear basis of color to gray down and work over, and may be
scraped for a good surface. It is a deliberate method, and will be
successful only with a thoughtful, deliberate painter. If a man is a
timid colorist, a strong, even crude, under-painting will help to
strengthen his color. A good colorist will get color any way. For a
student, the more directly he puts down what he sees, the less he
calculates on the effect of future after-painting, the better.
But whichever way a man works as to these various beginnings, the
chief thing is, that he understand beforehand what are the peculiar
advantages and qualities of each, and that he consider before he
begins what he expects to do, and how he purposes to do it.
=Further Painting.=--The first painting may be put in from nature with
the help of the several models in succession. More probably it will
be put in from the color sketch which furnishes the general scheme,
and from a number of studies and _ebouches_ which will give the
principal material for each part of the canvas. With the next painting
comes the more exact study from models and accessories themselves. The
under-painting is in, the color relations and the contrasts of masses,
but all is more or less crude and undeveloped. Every one thing in the
picture must be gradually brought to a further stage of completion.
The background is not as yet to be carried farther as a whole. If the
canvas is all covered, so that the background effect is there, it is
all that is needed as yet. The most important figures are to be
painted, beginning with the heads and hands, and at the same time
painting the parts next to them, the background and drapery close
around them, so that the immediate values shall all be true as far as
it has gone.
No small details are painted yet. The whole canvas is carried forward
by painting all over it, no one thing being entirely finished; for the
same degree of progress should be kept up for the whole picture. To
finish any one part long before the rest is done, would be to run the
risk of over-painting that part.
After the heads and other flesh parts, the draperies should be brought
up, and the background and all objects in it painted, to bring the
whole picture to the same degree of completion. This finishes the
second painting. It is all done from nature direct, and is painted
solidly as a rule. Even if the first painting has been a _frottee_
this one will have been solidly painted into that _frottee_, although
the transparent rubbing may have been left showing, whenever it was
true in effect; most probably in the shadows and broader dark masses
of the backgrounds. In this second painting no glazings or scumblings
come in. The canvas is brought forward as far as possible with direct
frank brush-work with body color before these other processes can be
used. Glazes and such manipulations require a solid under-painting,
and a comparative completion of the picture for safe work. These
processes are for the modifying of color mainly; you do not draw nor
represent the more important and fundamental facts of the picture with
them. All these things are painted first, in the most frank and direct
way, and then you can do anything you want to on a sure basis of
well-understood representation. There will be structure underneath
your future processes.
=The Third Painting.=--The third painting simply goes over the picture
in the same manner as the second, but marking out more carefully the
important details and enforcing the accuracy of features, or
strengthening the accents of dark and bringing up those of the lights.
The procedure will, of course, be different, according as the picture
was begun with an _ebouch_ of body color or a _frottee_ of transparent
color. The third painting will, in either case, carry the picture as a
whole further toward being finished.
=Rough and Smooth.=--If body color has been used pretty freely in the
two first paintings, the surface of paint will be pretty rough in
places by the time it is ready for the third painting. Whether that
roughness is a thing to be got rid of or not is something for the
painter to decide for himself. Among the greatest of painters there
have always been men who painted smoothly and men who painted roughly.
I have considered elsewhere the subject of detail, but the question of
detail bears on that of the roughness of the painting; for minute
detail is not possible with much roughness of surface; the fineness of
the stroke which secures the detail is lost in the corrugations of the
heavier brush-strokes. The effect of color, and especially luminosity,
has much to do with the way the paint is put on also, and all these
things are to be considered. As a rule, it might be well to look upon
either extreme as something not of importance in itself. The mere
quality of smoothness on the canvas is of no consequence or value, any
more than the mere quality of roughness is. If these things are
necessary to or consequent upon the getting of certain other qualities
which are justly to be considered worth striving for, then these
qualities will be seen on the canvas, and will be all right. The
painter will do well to look on them as something incidental merely to
the picture. If he will simply work quite frankly, intent on the
expression of what is true and vital to his picture, the question of
the surface quality of his canvas will not bother him beyond the
effect that it has upon his attaining of that expression.
=Scraping.=--The second painting will be well dry before the third
begins, especially if the paint be more rough and uneven than is for
any reason desirable. Almost every painter scrapes his pictures more
or less. There is pretty sure to be some part of it in which there is
roughness just where he doesn't want it. For the third painting, that
is to say, after the main things in the picture are practically
entirely finished, there remains to be done the strengthening and
richening and modifying of the colors, values, and accents, and the
bringing of the whole picture together by a general overworking.
Before this begins, the picture may need scraping more or less all
over. If it does need it, you may use a regular tool made for that
purpose; or the blade of a razor may be used, it being held firmly in
such a position that there is no danger of its cutting the canvas.
It is not necessary to scrape the paint smooth, but only to take off
such projections and unevenness of paint as would interfere with the
proper over-painting.
The third painting represents any and all processes that may be used
to complete the picture. There is no rule as to the number of
processes or "paintings." You may have a dozen paintings if you want
them, and after the first two they are all modifications and
subdivisions of the third painting; for they all add to furthering the
completion of the picture. They are all done more or less from nature,
as the second painting was. There should be very little done to any
picture without constant reference to nature.
If you glaze your picture, glaze one part at a time. Don't "tone" it
with a general wash of some color. That is not the way pictures are
"brought into tone," nor is that the purpose of the glaze. The glaze,
like any other application of paint, is put on just where it is needed
to modify the color of that place where the color goes. The use of a
scumble is the same; and both the glaze and the scumble will be
painted into and over with solid color, and that again modified as
much as is called for. The thing which is to be carefully avoided is
not the use of any special process, but the ceasing from the use of
some process or other before the thing is as it should be,--don't stop
before the picture represents the best, the completest expression of
the idea of the picture.
This completeness of expression may even go to the elimination of what
is ordinarily looked upon as "finish." Finish is not surface, but
expression; and completeness of expression may demand roughness and
avoidance of detail and surface at one time quite as positively as it
demands more detail and consequent smoothness at another.
And this final completeness comes from the last paintings which I
group together as the "third." Scumble and glaze and paint into them,
and glaze and scumble again. Use any process which will help your
picture to have those qualities which are always essential to any
picture being a good one. The qualities of line and mass, composition
that is, you get from the first, or you never can get it at all. Those
qualities of character, and truth of representation, and exactness of
meaning, you get in the first paintings, together with the more
general qualities of color and tone. Emphasis and force of accent,
such detail as you want, and the final and more delicate perceptions
of color and tone, you get in the third or last painting, which may be
divided into several paintings.
=Between Paintings.=--When a painting is dry and you begin to work on
it again, you will probably find parts of its surface covered with a
kind of bluish haze, which quite changes its color or obscures the
work altogether. It is "dried in." In drying, some of the oil of the
last painting is absorbed by what is beneath it, and the dead haze is
the result. You cannot paint on it without in some way bringing it
back to its original color. You cannot varnish it out at this stage,
for this will not have a good effect on your picture.
="Oiling Out."=--You can oil it all over, and then rub all the oil off
that you can. This will bring it out. But the oil will tend to darken
the picture; too much oil should be avoided. Turpentine with a little
oil in it will bring it out also, but it will not stay out so long,
but perhaps long enough for you to work on it. If you put a little
siccative de Harlem in it, or use any picture varnish thinned with
turpentine, it will serve well enough. There is a retouching varnish,
_vernis a retoucher_, which is made for this purpose, and is perfectly
safe and good.
The picture must be well dried before it is finally varnished.