How to Do a Master Copy Painting in Art

​Artists throughout history have studied the works of earlier masters in society to improve their technique. The best means of doing this is by making copies. In this demonstration I show you one approach to making copies. I have chosen to copy John Vocaliser Sargent's painting of Lady Agnew of Lochnaw.

Stage 1: choosing your reference

The simplest approach to doing master copies is to print a loftier quality reference at the same size equally your sheet. This allows y'all to step back and brand comparisons using the sight-size technique. You tin even have measurements directly from the photograph if you really get stuck, but it is always all-time to try to make them by 'eye' first. You tin can refer to electronic copies only information technology is much more hard to exist certain well-nigh your color mixes if you exercise.

I wanted to focus, in detail, on Sargent's paint treatment, colour and brushwork. On this occasion I decided to crop the painting slightly, since the original has a large quantity of wearing apparel and background that I did not feel was particularly crucial to understanding these aspects. I found the best reference I could and had it printed the same size as my sail.

Stage 2: colour study

In social club to allow myself to work equally freely as possible on the final re-create, I decided to brand a color report of the original, which enabled me to go a feel for the colour combinations Sargent used.

There are different levels of analysis you can have things to when doing a master copy. At the most involved, you can carry out historical research on the precise pigments used and purchase them in dry out or tubed class, or y'all can approximate them using modern substitutes. Given the wide range of colours Sargent employed I decided to opt for the 2nd approach and used a modern 'double primary' palette of Lemon Yellow, Cadmium Yellow, Cadmium Red, Alizarin Scarlet, Ultramarine Blue, Cerulean Blue, Raw Umber, Ivory Black and Cremnitz White. Substantially this amounts to a warm and cool variety of each of the primary colours, plus three others which are used to modify values and saturation. This gives an extremely broad range of options for colour mixing, which was appropriate for a re-create of this kind where I wanted to explore the employ of colour.

The image above is a simplified version of the overall shapes, done on a pocket-sized canvas board with a cherry-red chalk pencil.

Stage 2 continued: colour report

To complete the color written report I ignored all of the details and subtle modelling and simply tried to isolate around a dozen colour mixes. I mixed each on my palette and held my palette knife upwardly to the original to ascertain when I was getting close, modifying until I could not go whatsoever closer with my chosen palette. I added a very small quantity of mineral spirits to add together a little fluidity to the paint. Unless you are working in a museum it is about impossible to be certain that your mixes match the original. Having found the best image I maybe could of the original, my intention hither was, rather, to friction match the overall impression of the reproduction equally closely equally I could.

After covering the canvas with patches of colour mixed in a piecemeal mode, it is important to step dorsum and reassess whether those mixes are working together as a coherent whole and lucifer the overall impression of the reference. Several of mine required modification at this stage, simply I remained open to reassessing the mixes farther as the final painting developed.

Stage 3: starting the final painting

Images of Sargent's unfinished work reveal that he frequently began his paintings with a wash of diluted paint and I decided to adopt this approach myself. However, before doing then I felt it would exist helpful to give myself the opportunity of placing the image on the canvas and getting some central compositional elements downwards to provide a structure for hereafter piece of work. This can be done using Raw Umber diluted with mineral spirits, or (as on this occasion) speedily with charcoal, sprayed with fixative.

Knowing I would exist working back into the painting, my focus was non and then much to reach a facial likeness at this point, just to divide upwardly my sheet in club to allow myself to mimic Sargent'southward assuming brushwork in the dress and groundwork without risking the need to make major revisions to placements later on.

Stage iv: washing in the values

With the major shapes placed in charcoal, I begin massing in values in a monochomatic launder. I used predominantly Raw Umber and White, tempered with a piffling Ivory Black. My focus was to establish the major value shifts across the image and ensure the mass of the caput and shoulders were conveying the same gestural impression as the original. I too used this stage to foreshadow a sense of the brushwork that would come up later, past isolating the location of some of the primal brush marks that lend such a vibrant impression to the Sargent'southward painting.

Stage 5: first laissez passer in solid colour

The importance of the preparatory stages leading up to this point now brainstorm to bear witness. With the composition satisfactorily placed on the canvas, and my mixes more or less worked out by means of the colour study, the painting has progressed rapidly. In a single painting session I cover the canvas entirely and having noted their location in the earlier stages, I tin fifty-fifty begin to place some of the bravura brushmarks. At this point, however, I am commencement to recollect nigh how Sargent has built up his final paint layer. Some of his marks are clearly placed over the superlative of others and I am careful not to crusade problems for myself by failing to be aware of these factors. For this reason I am not placing any marks so thickly that they cannot exist easily painted over. For example, the neckband of the dress is thinly painted and the highlights on the chair are omitted completely. I have also kept the face up relatively generic, knowing that I will work on this during the next stages, going and so far as to remove the eyes altogether and just painting in the middle sockets.

I am using pigment thinned with mineral spirits and a few drops of refined linseed oil to lend fluidity, which dries adequately chop-chop.

Stage vi: refining the details

Although the last stage seemed to bring the painting on a not bad deal, I spent by far the majority of my time at this stage. The face has been worked up to better likeness and I have carefully modified the clothes in gild to convey the transparency of the material. I also develop the anatomy of the neck, and some of additional detail in the chair (including adding the highlights on the cloth). Having reached this phase information technology became apparent that the mix I had used for the wallpaper groundwork in a previous stage was not matching the overall impression of the original reference, and so it was repainted. I knew that it would be necessary to check this towards the end, so I had taken the precaution of omitting the markings on the wallpaper to avert repainting them later on.

Stage seven: finishing

In the final stages I go on adjusting the overall colour impression where necessary and making corrections to aspects of the drawing. My focus in this copy was to explore Sargent's use of colour and brushwork. Once I am happy that the overall colour impression is as close equally I can achieve to my reference photograph, I reinstate several of the important castor marks and add the Chinese characters to the background. Having worked relatively thinly in many of the areas of the dress and face, I can keep working on the likeness and exploring the brushwork further in order to bring the copy to a cease.

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Source: https://www.drawpaintsculpt.com/an-approach-to-master-copies/