PAINTING PROGRESS

DRAFTING CENTERED PROCESS

"Starting a picture is very pleasant, for you always believe that this time you’re going to create a masterpiece; you take pains, and little by little the painting takes shape, the effect comes through. You feel marvelous sensations. When it’s done however things are different. You want to touch up the arm, the movement of the body doesn’t seem graceful…and you end up doing nothing for fear of having to redo the whole thing completely."

- John William Bouguereau

PRELIMINARY SKETCHES

• Start with thumb-nail sketches without references
• orientation selected: square, portrait, or landscape
• quick figure studies of more prominent subject matter

Layout Sketches

PREPARATORY PAINTING SKETCHES

Finished work

DIRECT PAINTING PROCESS

ADVICE FROM SARGENT

• Use plenty of paint, "no dabs of color"
• Use thick brushes, no "feathers"
• Turpenoid wash tone surface first
• Draw the true outlines of forms, i.e., light/shadow
• Paint with no medium

"You must draw with a brush as readily, as unconsciously almost as you draw with your pencil."
- John Singer Sargent

SARGENT'S PRINCIPALS

• He preached economy of effort in every way
• The sharpest self-control
• The fewest strokes possible to express a fact
• The least slapping about of purposeless paint

RICHARD SCHMID

DETAILED APPROACH

PRELIMINARY SKETCHES

• Rough thumbnails for general layout
• Experimentation with various orientations
• Focal point balanced intuitively

TRANSITION TO CANVAS

• Drawing is transferred to a panel mounted paper
• Detailed drawing focused on outer contour lines and shadow shapes
• Actual values and colors are largely left out
• Focal point detailed out further
• References used extensively

COLOR WASHES

DETAIL IN STARTING FROM FOCAL POINT

FINISHED PAINTING