Mastercopy Painting

Learning how to paint is much more than learning techniques. Although for a beginner learning techniques is essential, however it is also very important that one develops a keen eye for observation. This process will make you more aware of what is around you, that most of the time is ignored due to our busy and fast pace of life. Once you develop the habit to look at things in more detail you will start looking at the world from a different perspective and you will start seeing beauty in everything even the simplest objects. 

There are various methodologies used in art schools to improve the skill of seeing as well as other skills such as colour mixing, getting the right tone and improving brushwork. One of the approaches is to paint copies of master paintings. Obviously you need reliable sources as points of reference and hence the best options are museum works of art. Using these master pieces as references also avoid any issues related to copyright laws as long as the artist passed away more than 75 years ago. 

So I decided to paint a copy of a still life painting done by the Irish-American painter William Harnett entitled "Just Dessert", which was painted in 1891. This painting is a complex still life where you have various objects and materials such as metal, wood, glass and fruits all on a table with a marble top. Each object will require a different technique in terms of brush strokes and application of paint in order to recreate the effect of light and texture of that particular material.

For this study I used very fine Belgian linen (smooth surface) attached to board size 61 x 35 cm. Since the dimension of my canvas was different from those of the original painting (above left) I had to do some modifications to the proportions of the objects. Before starting drawing I prepared my surface by applying a very thin layer of burnt sienna diluted with 15% cold pressed linseed oil in odourless solvent. Using a rag I wiped off excess paint and left the surface to dry completely.

As colour palette I used the following paints: Ultramarine blue, burnt umber (Michael Harding), permanent alizarin crimson, burnt sienna, flake white replacement (all from Gamblin), Naples yellow deep (Old Holland), Pyrrole red (Langridge) and cadmium yellow light (Masterclass).

Since I knew that it could take me a week or more to finish this painting I wanted to avoid the need to re-prepare my paints on my palette. So on the first day I invested a significant amount of time preparing my paints on my palette and mixing them with a very slow drying medium that will keep your paints workable for more than a week on your palette. To do that I took out of each tube a significant amount of paint and mixed it with an amount of medium until the consistency of the paint was similar to that of mayonnaise. The slow drying medium consisted of the following components: odourless solvent, cold pressed linseed oil, stand linseed oil, walnut oil, clove oil and Venetian turpentine. If anyone is interested in the recipe please contact me. 

After I finished the drawing I started by blocking in the background with a very dark value mix of chromatic black consisting of burnt umber and ultramarine blue. The objects were tackled one by one starting from the darker ones in order to avoid using white paint too early in the painting. I was amazed how each subject presented a different challenge and the way how it had to be tackled was different from any other in the painting. While doing this painting I fully understood the capability of the artist and how wisely he chose the objects.  The direction of the light was clearly from the left hand side probably coming from a window (there was no electricity at that time). There were some objects that initially I thought that they are going to give me a hard time to paint such as the marble table top but in fact they were quite easy while others that initially seemed to be easy but they were difficult such as the grapes and the wooden box in the centre.  The grapes were the most complicated as they had all the effects of light on them. Painting these grapes was similar to painting a human eye, both being round fluid filled and translucent objects. The grapes had a cool bright highlight coming from the window light, followed by a dull internal shadow and a bright transmitted warm light on the opposite side of the highlight. Some grapes also had reflected light of a reddish colour coming from objects around them.The brightest values in the highlights of any object were not higher than mid-value on the palette and they only look so bright when seen in relation to the darker values around them in the painting. 
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Although not easy, painting a mastercopy is slightly easier than working from a still life or in the case of portraiture it will be easier than working from the model. This is because the artist already did a lot of work translating the real colours into paint, something that you need to do yourself if you are painting from life. In the case of a landscape it is the same situation. Painting a copy of a landscape painting can help you understand colour as one can relate the paint to the colours used by the artist and you do not need to translate these yourself either from life or else if using a photo. However the knowledge acquired from doing these copies will help you to create your own paintings from any source of your choice.