New copy, Day One, "Before the Ballet" by Edgar Degas

After finishing my last copy, I wandered around the museum both in real life and on the NGA website to choose my next painting. I decided to copy something in the Impressionist area, because it's scheduled to close for renovation in February.

I chose "Before the Ballet" by Edgar Degas. Here is an image of the original painting, taken from the NGA website. (Fun fact: did you know that you can download high resolution images of all the artwork on their website?)

I find this composition very exciting! It's an unusual shape, very wide in relation to its height. The two dancers in the foreground are the focal point, and the toe of one of them is touching the edge of the door in the back wall, exactly halfway across the painting, and pointing at the little dancers in the back of the room. I also love the movement and action of all the figures as they stretch to get ready for the ballet.

The original painting measures 15 3/4 x 35 inches, and we copyists must stay at least two inches smaller or larger than either dimension. Using my husband's handy Excel spreadsheet that he made for me (thank you, Hal!) I decided to go with 13" x 28 8/9", which I rounded up to 29", since stretcher bars only come in whole inches. I figured the 1/9" difference wouldn't be that big of a deal. I stretched the canvas and drew some light pencil lines on it, marking halfway and quarter of the way in both directions. I also printed out a picture of the original and folded it in quarters. I marked the diagonals on both the printout and my canvas. I wasn't planning on relying too heavily on the printout, but I would just use it to double-check my placement of the figures, since it's so important to the composition to get it right. I could have done without this bit of help, but it would have taken to much longer to get it all correct.

Here is a picture of my printout, with the quarters and diagonals marked:

But first things first! Looking at the painting, I could see that Degas had toned his canvas. You can see that the color behind everything ranges from pink to ochre. So the first thing I did was paint a thin coat of color on my white canvas. I would later have to make it darker, but at least I wouldn't be starting from white. Then I used a small brush to place all the figures, the door, and the edges of the room.

I then started blocking in some color. I could see that Degas used basically greens, pinks, and ochres, but I googled "What pigments did Degas use?" I found out that he used Viridian green, ochres, and vermillion (a red which I didn't have with me, so I used quinacridone red and a little cadmium red light.) I think it's very cool to work with just these few colors, plus white. This is as far as I got when it was time to break for lunch:

After a long, relaxing lunch with my fellow copyists, it was back to work. I stopped for the day when I had finished putting some paint everywhere on the canvas. The underpainting of color needs to dry before I address adding green to the floor, so I'll tackle that next week. Here is where my copy stands now:

Next Thursday I will paint the floor, adding dabs of light Viridian green over the warm pinks and ochres. The back wall on the right is scumbled with a lighter tint of Viridian. I'll further develop the figures on the right and paint those little dancers stretching at the barre. I don't think I'll have to work very long on this, because it's not very large. Your comments are always welcome! (Click on "Post a Comment" at the bottom to leave a comment.)

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Day Three and Final, "Narragansett Bay, 1864" by William Stanley Haseltine

I forgot to post last Thursday, but I finished working on this copy and turned in my permit. I know there's more I could have done to be closer to the original, but at a certain point I just stopped caring about that. What I was most interested in was the "geography" of the rocks in the landscape. This is something I deal with when I paint in Maine, so I'm hoping that by copying this painting, I'll be better able to "get" the Maine shoreline.

My next copy will be a Degas painting titled, "Before the Ballet". It's a unique composition, on an unusually proportioned canvas. I'm excited about it!

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Day Two, copy after "Narragansett Bay, 1864" by William Stanley Haseltine

Today was kind of a short day - I arrived late (a bus cancellation and train problems) and left early. But I feel like I got a lot done! I tackled the water and painted that wave, and I corrected some of the drawing of the rocks. I put in the far shoreline. I did not repaint the sky yet. I started to correct the color of the dark areas of the rocks until I ran out of steam. In two weeks (no copying on Thanksgiving) I will put in the tiny people and the distant boats, finish correcting the rock colors, and repaint the sky.

A few interesting things happened today. A man told me he had just been to the place where this was painted last week. A woman told me that her father-in-law had given this painting to the National Gallery. And the guard in my gallery did a spot-on impression of Barak Obama. Never a dull moment!

Here is how it looks now:

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New copy, after "Narragansett Bay, 1864" by William Stanley Haseltine

For my next copy, I chose "Narragansett Bay, 1864" by William Stanley Haseltine. I chose it because it reminds me of the coast of Maine, where I've been painting since about a year ago during extended trips. (Retirement is grand!) I'm hoping that by copying this painting, I'll be better prepared to paint those rocks. Standing in front of this painting, it's easy to feel like I'm there in the landscape, with the advantage of having what feels like all the time in the world to work on getting the colors right, without the light changing, the wind blowing, or the bugs biting!

I went in with a completely white canvas, so I had to spend a very long time figuring out where to put the horizon. I measured repeatedly, making little tick marks with my brush to indicate where different elements in the composition fell. I also used an app that superimposed gridlines over a photo of the painting, which helped a lot. After about an hour and a half, I finally felt like I had the horizon and general rock shapes in the right places, so I started to block in the darks. Then I went to lunch.

After a nice long lunch with my fellow copyists (who have become good friends, especially since we also go out painting the landscape together!), I turned on the speed to try to get the whole painting covered by the end of the day (which is 4:00, when we have to stop copying.) I didn't quite make it, leaving the water on the right still unpainted. I'm a little afraid of that wave! That will be the first thing I do next week.

I'm excited about this painting! And I'm looking forward to next June and July, when I'll be back in Maine to tackle the real thing again.

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Day Four and Final, "Palmer River" by Edward Mitchell Bannister

Happy Birthday to Edward Mitchell Bannister! He was born on November 2, 1828 in St. Andrews, New Brunswick, Canada. St. Andrews is a place I have been to many times to take painting workshops in the early 2000s at Sunbury Shores Art & Nature Center, taught by Sharon Yates. I didn't know that Bannister was born there before I started this copy, nor was I aware that he was a Black artist who was denied a formal art education because of his race. He moved to New England and was active in the abolitionist movement in Boston, and later moved to Providence, Rhode Island. He was one of the founders of the Rhode Island School of Design.

Today I lightened the clouds by scumbling over them with white. To my eye, I got pretty close to the color of the original clouds, but this photo makes them look very different. I think because the painting on the wall is lit by spotlights, and my painting on the easel is lit by the skylight, with the iPhone camera exaggerating the yellow in the clouds in the original painting. That's what I'm telling myself, anyway!

So I lightened up the clouds, and then I worked on the hillside, adding more yellow flowers, and also adding more dark values in the foreground and in the trees. I fiddled with the water some, but ultimately I felt like I was just noodling and not really getting much done. So I decided to stop.

I thoroughly enjoyed working on this copy, because it's exactly the kind of scene I like to paint when I paint outdoors. I hope the experience, especially the clouds, help me with my plein-air work. I'm going out painting tomorrow, at the State Arboretum of Virginia. I hear the gingko grove is a magical place to paint, even though most of the leaves blew off this week.

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Day Three, "Palmer River", by Edward Mitchell Bannister

I am so sorry, I've been so busy that I never posted about Day Two, and now Day Three has come and gone, so I'm just going to skip Day Two and go right to Day Three! Day Two actually was very productive, and at the end of the day I thought I could just say I was done. But when I got home, I realized that I just didn't want to stop working on this painting. I thought my rendition of the clouds was too dark and I wanted to develop the hill on the left a little more, and work some more on the trees in the background. Here is how the painting looked at the end of Day Two:

So, I went back into it this past Thursday, Day Three. I totally repainted the clouds, trying to brighten them up. I also repainted the trees, introducing more darks and reds, because they looked too blue. And I did a little bit to the hillside. I didn't touch the water at all, and probably won't, but I will revisit this once more on my next copying day. Here is how it looks now, after Day Three:

I'm glad I didn't stop after Day Two. I still want to work on the hillside a bit more, and maybe the clouds again? Not sure. What do you think? Please comment below. (If you're unable to comment here, please let me know - I think I've adjusted the settings so you can comment without having a Blogger account.)

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New Copy, Day One, "Palmer River" by Edward Mitchell Bannister

For my current copy, I've chosen "Palmer River", a landscape by the American painter Edward Mitchell Bannister. Here is what the National Gallery's website has to say about this painting: 

"The Palmer River flows from Massachusetts into Rhode Island. Bannister’s depiction reflects his admiration for French landscape artists, but it is also a study of weather. In the foreground, the shoreline is sprinkled with wildflowers. Over the calm waters of the river, a band of clouds dips low, heavy with moisture.

Bannister first made his living as a barber after being denied access to formal artistic training because of his race. Early portrait commissions from prominent members of the Black community in Boston launched his career. Following the Civil War — during which he was deeply involved in antislavery activities — he moved to Providence, Rhode Island, and turned his attention to landscape painting."

I was not familiar with Bannister before I chose this painting to copy. I chose it because I've been painting  a lot of plein-air lansdcapes recently, and I think that copying a master painting can only help me in my pursuit of painting outdoors and capturing the scenery, weather, and light. I was particularly drawn to the clouds - it will be wonderful to paint clouds that stay still! I look forward to working on this copy over the next several weeks. The original measures 24 1/4 × 34 1/8 in., and my copy measures 22 x 31 in.

I started by spending a very long time getting all the elements of the composition drawn onto the canvas with an outline in paint, erasing with solvent when it needed correcting. I didn't grid the canvas out beforehand, mainly because I've been too busy to do anything but get the canvas stretched and gessoed, so I just measured and remeasured, sighting along my outstretched arm, until I was satisfied that it was good enough. I forgot to take a picture of it before I started adding color.

Here is my copy at the end of Day 1. I've covered the entire canvas with paint and have everything blocked in with paint. Next time I will go over everything again. I'm excited about this copy, because it's just the type of scene that I would choose to paint from real life. And did I mention before, the clouds stay still? Hopefully this will give me the tools to paint clouds when I'm out there!

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Day 5, Woman with a Red Zinnia by Mary Cassatt, Final

Somehow I neglected to post when I finished working on Woman with a Red Zinnia by Mary Cassatt. I had taken off the rest of the summer, because it was too hot for me to commute back and forth, walking with all my gear from the train. I finally went back on September 14th, so I've dated this blog entry for that day.

I pretty much went over the whole painting, but I ultimately decided not to take it any further. Sometimes I reach the point where I feel that either I'm just too far off, or I've learned enough, or I'm just tired of this one, or all of the above. I turned in my permit and started looking for my next painting to copy. 

Day 4, "Woman with a Red Zinnia" by Mary Cassatt

Today I didn't work on the face at all (maybe I'm hoping it will improve on its own haha), but I repainted just about everything else. I darkened the bench and repainted the entire background, and I developed the woman's clothing. I'll probably do it all again next week, as well. I can see that Mary Cassatt used thick paint, and I guess I'm being tentative, but my paint is of a thin consistency. I think I'll get braver now that I have the folds and pattern of the dress in place, so that next week I'll go over it with more paint. Then I'll have to pay attention to her hand that's holding the flower. I know its color needs to be darker and more neutral, and my drawing is a little off, but I'll tackle that when I get to it. I think it's coming along.

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Day 3, "Woman with a Red Zinnia" by Mary Cassatt

Back to the National Gallery after taking some weeks off for a trip to Maine. I needed to correct the proportions in the face, mine looked pretty different and my colors were too garish. A likeness in a portrait is so dependent on getting all the little shapes right. I went in and just repainted the whole face. I don't know if it's right, but it may be the best I can do.

I started by reducing the size of that ear, by bringing her hair down over it a bit. I also reduced the height of her head by bringing the background down a bit. I think it might still be too big. Or maybe the face is too small? I worked on the landscape in the background. I still need to darken those trees. Here is how it stood when I broke for lunch:

After lunch, I worked on the dress. I didn't really get very far, but felt like I was getting the gist of it. As always, I try to get the feel rather than the exactness of the brush strokes. I know her hand needs to be darker, but I didn't have it in me to work any longer. Here is how it looks now:

Next time, I'll work on the face and hair again, and do more with the dress. The great thing about standing in front of the original painting to copy is that you can see which brush strokes were put on last. You can't see that in a reproduction. I don't know if Mary Cassatt actually painted this outdoors in a park, or worked on it in her studio, but it really looks like she did it outside. The light bounces around, reflecting up onto her face and neck from the white dress. I'll keep that in mind as I work on it.

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Day 2, "Woman with a Red Zinnia" by Mary Cassatt

 It's been three weeks since I've been in to copy, because I've been busy going out and painting landscapes while the weather in the DC area has been amazingly gorgeous. But today I got back to the NGA to work on this copy.

I spent today mainly obsessing over the face. I corrected the shape of her jaw and worked on mixing all the flesh tones in her face. I also worked on the green landscape on either side of her head. Interestingly, I ended up using only cadmium red light, ultramarine blue, white, and cadmium yellow, in different combinations, all day. Nothing else. So cool how many different colors you can make with just this limited palette. (This only applies to what I worked on today - I think I used more colors on Day 1.)

Cassatt's

Mine

I'm interested in painting the figure in the landscape, so I'm working as if from life. My person does not yet look like Cassatt's. I don't expect that my painting will be an exact copy. I'll be happy if it looks like Mary Cassatt and I were both working from the same model. After painting outdoors for the past several weeks and dealing with all that changing light, working from a model and landscape that doesn't change feels like such a luxury! Copying a master painting is so educational. I know that what I do here will carry over into my own paintings.

Now I'm off to spend a few weeks in Maine, painting up there. I'll be back to copy in July. See you then!

Day 1 - "Woman with a Red Zinnia" by Mary Cassatt

Yesterday was my copying day, and I'm so happy the National Gallery has resumed the Copyist Program after suspending it for the past three years because of COVID. I especially enjoy taking the VRE train into town, rather than driving or taking Metro. I take the last train of the morning (they only run in rush hour), which is at 8:15. Not too many people are still commuting to work at that late hour, so the train is fairly empty. Today I thought it would be fun to take you along with me on my whole day.

The train is nice and empty at 8:15 am

My ride lasts almost an hour, so I always choose a window seat so I can take photos

Crossing the Potomac

Dramatic skies over the Capitol

My walk to the Gallery is only 1/2 a mile, and the museum doesn't open until 10 am, so I sit outside and wait. This little guy was keeping me company.

No, sorry, I don't have any food for you!

The museum opened, and I got to work. This is as far as I got by lunchtime. I helped myself out by gridding the canvas at home, and I also printed out a photo of the painting and gridded the photo. (I marked the centers horizontally and vertically, and then the quarters horizontally and vertically.) I used the gridded photo to mark where all the major components of the composition fell, to save myself time. I used to stand there and laboriously measure everything with my arm straight out, like I do when drawing from life when I really want to get everything right, but I've gotten kind of lazy with the copies! So I rely on the gridded photo to double-check and it saves a lot of time. When I got the basics drawn in, I put the printout away and just looked at the painting on the wall.

After a very enjoyable 2-hour lunch with a classmate from art school whom I haven't seen since 1979 (!) I worked for another hour and just managed to get all the white canvas covered. The shape of the face needs work, but I think it's off to a decent start.

I chose to copy this painting because figure drawing and painting has always been a special interest of mine. Unfortunately, I don't get the chance to work from a model very often. (I like to surreptitiously sketch people in public!) Copying a figure painting is almost as good as painting from a model, and a model posed outdoors is extra special, since I love to paint outside. I'm happy I chose this painting to copy. I think Mary Cassatt's portraits and figure paintings are so beautiful. I think I will learn a lot by copying this gorgeous painting.

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The Riders, Day 6 and done!

I'm glad I decided to work on this for one more day. I found plenty to do. I worked on the green areas in the foreground, which I thought were too garish. I did a lot of glazing and dry-brushing. Glazing to darken the greens, and dry-brushing (or scumbling) to add the lighter warm color that I believe was Degas' base coat. I feel that it worked pretty well. I also fiddled a little with the size of the rider on the far right. I had made him too small. But as is usually the case, the more I worked on it, the more problems I saw. I went to lunch - that was when I took the first photo.

After lunch, I worked on it a little longer, mainly repainting the sky, which I hadn't touched since the first day. I finally decided to stop before I noodled it to death. Even with the drawing errors, I feel pretty good about this copy. Of course it wouldn't pass for a forgery, but that's not what I'm trying to do. I enjoy trying to recreate the gesture that the artist, in this case Degas, used when painting this painting. I especially like that rearing horse, who doesn't even really have a defined head. This painting is all about the movement and gesture of the horses, and the jockeys sitting relaxed in the saddle. It was fun trying to capture the mood. Now, on to the next one!

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The Riders, Days 4 and 5

 My apologies, I neglected to post last week! Last Wednesday, March 22nd, was day 4 on this copy. This is how it looked at the end of the day last week. I didn't take a close-up photo of it, not sure why. I remember I left early, so I was probably feeling tired that day.

Yesterday was a much more productive day. I arrived before the doors opened (thank you, VRE, whose last train is at 8:15 and gets me to town almost an hour early.) The museum was extremely crowded with school groups and I attracted lots of people who stood and watched me paint. I managed to get a lot done, even with frequent breaks to chat with visitors, who are always so kind and boost my ego and spirits. The guard was great and literally had my back, reminding visitors to stay back and give me room.

I worked on the horses and the land around them. I glazed over the too-bright grass and worked on where the horses' hooves meet the ground, so they wouldn't look like they're floating. I think I'm almost finished with this copy. Not that it's a perfect copy - I see many mistakes, including the space between the horses. But as I've said before, I'm copying, not "making a copy". It's not possible to get everything correct (at least for me) and still keep the feeling of loose and scribbly that I love about this painting.

This is how it looked when I went to lunch:

After lunch, I continued glazing and putting the darker marks in the foreground. Here is how the painting looked at the end of the day. I thought of turning in my permit, but I think I'll work on it for one more day, making more corrections, before I say I'm finished with it.

I'm already trying to figure out what my next copy will be...

The Riders, Day 3

I got off to a late start this morning, and I took a different Metro line, to see what it was like. I think it took about twice as long as the one I usually take! But the station was a little closer to home and it was easier to park. Still, I'd rather have a shorter ride on the train, so I won't be doing that again. 

So it was late morning by the time I got started on my copy. The museum was really crowded! So many people all around me that I couldn't even step back to get a good look at my painting. I was surprised, since the last two Wednesdays it was pretty quiet. Somebody said they thought it was Spring Break, which would explain the crowds.

I concentrated on the horses and riders today. Those horses' legs are really confusing! Degas let the bodies of the horses run together, and sometimes the legs that I thought belonged to one horse actually belonged to another. Also, one of the horses (the very left forefront one) is very unclear as to which direction its body is facing. Sometimes I think it's one way, and sometimes another. I painted for two hours, had lunch for an hour, and then painted for another hour and a half. Suddenly I had just had enough. I was so desperate to get away from the crowds that I forgot to take a photo of my painting on the easel, so I photographed it in the Copyists' locker room, which has garish fluorescent lighting. I also photographed it out in the hallway, which has very little lighting. I'll post both here.

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I'm looking forward to returning fresh next Wednesday, hopefully earlier than today. 

The Riders, Day 2

Today I started by painting in the sky. I had toned the whole canvas yellow, which turned out to be the wrong color. It's actually got a more orange underpainting. And I shouldn't have included the sky, but that's OK, because today I painted the sky in and it covered the underpainting. Then I started working my way down the landscape. The museum was pretty full today, and a lot of people wanted to talk to me, asking me things like, can anybody just come in here and paint? So I got to educate a lot of people about how to become a Copyist. And everyone was so complimentary, it makes up for the fact that you get interrupted a lot.

I had gotten an early start, took the Metro, and arrived at the museum just as the doors were opening. My initial block-in last week was pretty accurate (how did that happen?) but I found plenty of corrections to make when I got down to the jockeys. My canvas is slightly less wide in proportion to its height than the original, so things don't really work out the same way, especially in that clump of horses, riders and negative space, but I guess it's good enough. I love how the horses blend in with each other - Degas didn't bother defining everything. It's a very gestural painting, it really has a feeling of motion. I stopped as soon as I started feeling tired, which was about 3:00. I think this copy might be done in another couple of weeks. 

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