A Visit to Winslow Homer’s Watercolors

Yesterday I had a chance to visit the Art Institute of Chicago and see the exhibit “Watercolors by Winslow Homer: The Color of Light—which was organized by the Art Institute and will be shown exclusively in Chicago. It is the largest exhibition of Homer’s watercolors to be presented in more than two decades. It features 25 rarely exhibited Homer watercolors from the Art Institute’s collection, set in the context of watercolors, drawings, prints, and oil paintings on loan from other museums and private collections. A total of 130 works tells the story of Winslow Homer’s development as an artist.”

It was not high on my list of exhibits that I needed to see, but since it was available I took advantage of the opportunity to learn something about an artist whom I had not previously studied. The exhibit turned out to be an exhilarating experience. The technical exploration that Winslow Homer used told a story of inventiveness and use of art materials that was enormously satisfying to examine up close. The paintings are hung in a very intimate way so that it is possible to get very close to each one in order to see exactly how he achieved interesting effects by experimenting with different glazes, paint viscosity, color relationships, and the use of opaque and transparent paint, especially white.

I was especially interested in the very early paintings because they were very experimental in nature. By the time Homer was working in his mature water color style he was so adept at the various techniques that the sense of technical discovery within the art was no longer important. The paintings are extraordinarily beautiful. They manage to capture a sense of the moment because of his use of transparent and opaque watercolor paint. Each painting has a vibrancy and brilliance that make them sparkle even though they are displayed in very dim light in order to prevent fading that is a particular problem with watercolor paint. This ease and naturalness defines the watercolor medium perfectly.

After seeing the exhibit I was inspired to go home to my studio and take another look at some of the watercolor paintings I had been working on. Seeing Homer’s paintings directly resulted in my adding more contrast to my own paintings, especially highlights of white. 

Winslow Homer began his career as an illustrator and became very adept at creating wood engravings and lithographs. His work as an illustrator during the Civil War stimulated him to be very inventive and creative in describing what he saw and transcribing his line drawings into prints. This printmaking experience was the background for his interest in working from dark to light and from light to dark. In lithography, a print maker has to scratch away the lithographic grease crayon in order to allow white to appear in the print. The lithographic system works because the grease drawn area will hold ink and the white area of the stone will not, so when the print is pulled, that area which has been either left white or has been scratched through to be white will print with white because it won't hold the ink. I recognized this way of thinking in his early watercolor paintings because of added white lines and areas created by using opaque white paint or scratching through the darker paint with a knife to reveal the watercolor paper. 

Winslow Homer's added gum Arabic and other materials to increase the viscosity of some of his pigments in order to give them the body of oil paint. Scratching away of painted areas also was a technique I had not noticed previously. This exhibition allowed for very close inspection of the paintings. In addition, the Art Institute had an entire section of the exhibit devoted to the technical aspects of Homer's work. Art Institute of Chicago's  Behind the Scenes  has an interesting page devoted to this particular aspect of his art. 

Making art is like a movie to me

Whenever I am in the middle of a painting I feel as though I am creating a movie in one dimension. The characters are abstract shapes on the canvas and where they land is the drama. This is one way of thinking about abstraction that gives it life and animation in my imagination.

I started writing this exactly one year ago. Since then I have had a lot of time to work and think about art and the following is the continuation of this idea including the painting that was finished in February of 2008.
Anthropomorphizing shapes is not uncommon. Lots of people look at ink blots in psychology testing and give these ships attributes that are not contained within the randomness of the ink blot technique. The same goes for abstract shapes that spontaneously occur in my paintings. The dimensions and anatomy of the shapes aren't preplanned. They come about because of what has happened before in the painting. I may draw them in and then paint around them, or I may start painting and they appear.

In this painting, that is a cross between the flower paintings I had been making and the interest I have in continuing to work in an abstract manner. It has some of the qualities of the flowers and a weird container popped up out of my brain that is holding the flowers. It appears that the container is about to close. I did not think about that until I looked at it now, but apparently, I am trying to end the flowers if I can.

My First Art Commission

A number of years ago I was asked if I would paint a particular kind of
painting on commission. The purchaser was a well known architect and I was
very flattered to be asked to create a work of art for his home. We had
several conversations about what was required and we came to an
understanding about the price and the specifications of the painting.
He had recently purchased a one of a kind rug that he planned to use as
a wall hanging. What he wanted me to do was to design a large painting that
would hang on the opposite wall from the rug. The painting should have a
similar or complementary color scheme and be in the style he knew I was
working in at the time. Also, the size needed to be a very specific size,
six feet square.

I immediately began to draw a number of small sketches that would give
him an idea of the way I was thinking about this project. We agreed
verbally that I should go ahead and create the painting. Well I was full
speed ahead on this project and began the work of building the stretchers,
and laying out the new canvas. The actual painting took a number of weeks
and it was very stimulating to be working on this project.

This was my first experience with having art commissioned. I was very
naive and ignorant of the way business works so I agreed to the project on
the basis of trust and a handshake. I now know that is not enough. I had
not asked for a down payment when I began the project because it didn't
even occur to me to do so.

When the painting was finished I called my client and he and his wife
came to my studio to see the painting. And there's where the first mistake
showed up. His wife was not involved in the purchase and when she saw the
painting, she didn't like it. She liked my work, but she didn't like the
painting. I believe she was angry at him because he hadn't included her in
the decision making. She had the veto power, and unfortunately, I was the
one it was aimed at.

When it turned out that the painting was rejected, I immediately offered
to sell them another painting from my studio at the same price. They agreed
so all was not lost. The only problem was that I was now in possession of a
painting that was so specific that it would be hard to sell it to someone
else.

Several years later I sold the painting to another collector but the
experience I gained from my first commision taught me a lot. I now know
that I need a written contract and a down payment on the price agreed upon
as well as a schedule of payment as the work progresses. I also know that
all parties involved in the purchase need to be on board.

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First published on Qassia.