John Singer Sargent

(C) 2014 Photograph Dale DiMauro

During this holiday period I have been reading a biography of John Singer Sargent by Stanley Olson (John Singer Sargent: His Portrait). I have all too often found big tomes on Sargent with lavish photographs of his work but wanted to read just a basic biography and this covers it.

After a brief trip to Boston earlier this week with relatives, the presence of Sargent seemed to increase in our lives. The August St. Gaudens historical site, dedicated to a Sargent colleague is not far from us here in Vermont. In addition, ancestors of my wife posed for Sargent in Boston and were related to Isabella Stewart Gardner.

The author emphasizes how Sargent escaped the civil war and reconstruction by living overseas with his family. In his life he painted some six hundred portraits while producing another 2,500 pictures in oil and watercolor. He became famous by the time he was twenty-five and went on to paint murals in addition to his portraits. The above charcoal drawing, one of some five hundred he produced in his life, is of Pierre du Pont of Longwood Gardens, one of the most spectacular estates turned into public places in America. I was taken by the charcoal portrait several years ago when we visited the garden while visiting relatives.

I saw his watercolors at the Museum of Fine Arts in a recent exhibition(in collaboration with the Brooklyn Museum) and was struck by his direct use of the medium. He truly recorded what he saw with precision yet didn't go back and fuss with any prior doings.

SOLD

(C) 2014 Dale DiMauro

This little painting (7"x 10") of a northern Vermont barn recently sold. It is winter after all even though at times it seems like we are in another season altogether!


On that note I want to wish you all a very happy New Year!

Are you ready for winter?

(C) 2014 Dale DiMauro

This is a picture I started very recently, drawn from inspiration from a trip my wife and I took down into Massachusetts, to have her car looked at. Following an early winter storm, the clouds parted, bringing out the sun, while illustrating the fresh snow with its well defined shadows.

To me the composition is strengthened with a lack of trees or other landscape elements in the foreground creating an eerie presence, reminiscent of a Hopper-like painting. There is human presence but no residents are to be found. It dramatizes the time of year when there can be great isolation, and reminds us how a winter storm can suddenly alter our world.

I work on many watercolors at a time, at various scales and states of completion and will post the finished product for your impressions.

Unlike some other artists, I prefer to include electrical and telephone lines in my paintings of houses.  I would be interested to know whether this appeals to other viewers as it does to me. 

My Palette

(C) 2014 Dale DiMauro

This is my well used watercolor palette. It is relatively small as far as modern palettes go even though it has 24 paint wells. It is convenient because it folds up to half its size for transport yet has multiple, large mixing areas. I only clean it if mold forms in a well which is the only place it has occurred. With water based wells it is bound to happen if you do not let it dry out periodically. With the heat on in the winter it is really not an issue. I like to leave the remnants of previous mixes because they provide memories of past paintings and can be used in the future to contribute to richer combinations.

I more or less arrange warm colors on the left with the cool colors on the right. I have learned by painting in watercolor that a cool color or combination can not only give you 'temperature' but can make an object or scene recede into the distance. Conversely, adding a warm color or combination can bring an object or landscape come forward which is important to know. 

I use many blues in my my paintings, however, I prefer ultramarine and cobalt blue. I also use cerulean, prussian and phthalo blue. Recently, I have bugun almost exclusively mixing my greens instead of using them out of the tube. Lately, my favorite green is a rich mixture of aureolin and prussian blue.

I started off by mixing darks from paynes gray and then used sepia but have evolved to mixing cadmium red with ultramarine blue which seems to offer a greater range of darks.

I put brushes in the above photograph to give a sense of scale to my palette.

Ogden Pleissner's Woodcock Cover

(C) 2014 Dale DiMauro

This is my version of Ogden Pleissner's watercolor painting called Woodcock Cover. Last spring I wanted to paint a full sheet (22" x 30') watercolor with a classic Vermont scene. I take daily walks in the winter through nearby preservation land called the Brattleboro Retreat where there are woodlands, open fields, and farmland full of many of the landscape characteristics visible in Pleissner's paintings. Central to the contemporary experience are people walking their dogs. 

Ogden Pleissner was a well established and well known artist who was thought to have painted over seven thousand paintings in watercolor and oil, both large and small. Before his passing in 1983 he donated over 500 watercolors, oils, and sketches to the Shelburne Museum in Shelburne, Vermont.

To paint a full sheet is a jump in scale over what I had been doing, which were closer to quarter sheets (11" x 15"). Since I live in Vermont and he was known for his hunting and fishing scenes of Vermont, I went about utilizing his inspiration.

I could have carried the picture further, but I do not think it would have made much of a difference. Sometimes it is hard to know when to stop. I thought the values in the picture were good in that there is depth to the image and a clarity of forms. I used Prussian blue for the water, and the rough paper brings out scratchy highlights on the surface of the stream, which I like. I used unstretched rough Arches 300 lb. watercolor paper for this picture.

The blues have it

(C) 2014 Dale DiMauro

This is a watercolor I did late last winter in my town. I like the variation in the sky and the trees. The sidewalk and light give warmth to the picture. This picture is 14" x 20" and the first I did using a Saunders Waterford watercolor block. This paper is like silk to work with. It is smooth to separate from the block with a palette knife which is not the case with an Arches block. They tend to tear a little if you are not careful. I think I brought optimism to this picture with colors I mixed because the days were getting longer and spring was coming after a long winter.

A Different Sort of Facebook

(C) 2014 Dale DiMauro

This is a little watercolor painting I did from a photograph. It is 7" x 10" done in an arches watercolor book among 25 portraits of men and women. 

I start by sketching the face right onto the watercolor paper with an HB pencil.  I develop the values enough in pencil so that the face has definition and shape. In considering the composition prior to painting I want to make the portrait as straightforward as possible. I try not to include anything, which would detract from the focal point - the person. In this case the clothing and how it falls around the head and shoulders is rather important. 

I wash in the background first by going over the whole sheet. In watercolor the paint dries much lighter than when it first goes on, so multiple applications are needed. I then build up the values of the skin while paying attention to the lips and eyes before addressing clothing last.

I have been told these little portraits capture a simple quality of the person without overworking the details. At this scale you can only include so much.  My art mentor Gerarde Doucette tells me these portraits remind him of Alice Neel portraits. I'm not sure. What do you think?

My Studio & Workspace

(C) 2014 Dale DiMauro

This is me in my workspace - a room in the front of our south-facing house. I realize most artists prefer the northern light which is even, not too bright and casts the least number of shadows. However, in our house the windows are small and high on the north wall. In the winter at times, I also work in the kitchen on our kitchen table.

I like to use 140 lb Arches watercolor blocks for smaller paintings because they are portable and usually won't buckle. These blocks are glued on all four sides with an opening in the middle of the back to slide a palette knife to separate the current sheet from the others.  For larger paintings I use 300 lb Arches or Saunders Waterford sheets of watercolor paper.

I prefer watercolor paint out of a tube, even though it comes in a pan format. I use Winsor Newton and Daniel Smith paints for their quality and reliability. I have a variety of brushes but primarily use six and they all are kolinsky sables which can be pricey. I particularly like the kolinsky sable rigger brush(size 6) which enables me to paint fine line work such as the rigging on boats. I use 'round' paintbrushes for most of my watercolors and a 1" flat for the early stages particularly in establishing the sky. I store any finished but unframed watercolors in a set of flat files I have in my office. These enable the paper to lay flat but out of the direct sun. The watercolor blocks available have a nice rugged cover sheet which folds over the paper to protect it until further use.

I will discuss other matters such as which palette to select and how to arrange your paint or at least what I do in upcoming blog posts.