Painting the Light: My Process of Painting a Still Life

The Boston School
I work in the Boston School tradition, part of the American Impressionist movement. This type of painting was founded by a group of men at the turn of the 20th century, most notably Edmund Tarbell, Frank Benson and Joseph DeCamp, who all studied painting in the established French and German ateliers where art instruction had been perfected to a fine science over the 19th century. Even mediocre students learned to draw quite skillfully; the works of many of the better students won the coveted Prix de Rome. 
      These aspiring young American art students learned the foundations of drawing and painting in the ateliers but were also introduced to the French Impressionists who were painting out of doors and making discoveries about color and light. They took home with them the combined knowledge of aesthetic design and vibrant color and  light and founded the Boston School of painting. They taught a generation of students, first at the Museum School and after 1913, in their own ateliers. The training required students to begin by making charcoal drawings of plaster casts. Once they had mastered the elements of cast drawing (proportions, values, edge variations and form), they learned to paint.
      It was into this tradition that I stepped in 1982 in the atelier of a painter named Paul Ingbretson. Paul had studied with Ives Gammell, Gammell with William Paxton and Paxton with Joseph DeCamp. I spent nearly 10 years working with Paul, learning drawing, composition, still life painting, figure drawing and portrait painting.  

My Process of Painting
I paint by natural light in a north lit studio with high windows, around 12 feet high. I have shades at the bottom of the windows so that the light streams in from a high angle. I set up several still life arrangements along the walls perpendicular to the windows so that the light pours over the set ups and creates lovely soft shadows. The walls are painted a middle value neutral color so that there is no glare.

1. The Set Up (Composition)

1. I arrange objects (usually flowers) so that they relate to one another in interesting patterns of lights, darks and colors.
   • I create an engaging center of interest.
   • I compliment it with surrounding objects that add to the center but don’t upstage.
   • I look for movement or gesture among the flowers.
   • I look for an overall design that will move the viewer’s eye around the canvas.
   • I look for magical color relationships and include red, yellow and blue tones.
2. When I think I have something exciting I go home and come back the next day and see if it’s still interesting. This process goes on for a few days until I’m satisfied.
3. After I have stretched the canvas, I underpaint it with a thin wash of acrylic paint (a middle value warm grey tone).
4. I put the easel next to the set up. I then stand back from the set up at least 3 times the height of the canvas so that my eye can take in the entire set up and canvas at the same time.

2. The Start

1. I blur or disfocus my eyes and look again at the set up through the viewfinder thinking about the largest light and shadow shapes, the edges with the highest contrast and how they will relate on the canvas.
2. I am only concerned with describing how the light falls across the set up, not with the objects themselves.
3. With a big brush I make marks on the canvas indicating the most important landmarks, trying not to paint around objects but instead making notations of where the light and shadows intersect. I find 2 or 3 of these, make notations for each and see if they relate correctly to one another on the canvas. I may use a plumb line here to check my verticals. I also rely on the ruler to check my angles at this early stage.
   • I run large shadow masses together (instead of drawing around objects I am constantly searching for areas where shadows merge).
   • I am working with 3 broad values (lightest lights, darkest darks and everything else becomes a soggy middle value).
   • As I make light and shadow notations, I am thinking about the colors at the same time and seeing how they relate. These will be broad general tonalities for later refinement. I put down one color and then check it by putting another next to it.
   • My shapes are general, no details, but attention paid to edge relationships (hard versus soft).
   • I spend a lot of time making sure the placement is correct. This is essential to getting a good design.

3. The Big Look

1. The start is complete when the canvas has captured the image that I see with a very blurred eye, the “big look.” 
   • Areas of light emerge from the shadows (referred to as areas of lost and found).
   • Light and shadow shapes are roughly indicated.
   • The start has a visual order with the brightest lights reading the strongest on the canvas and everything else in appropriate relationship to those.

4. Refinement – Looking for the “back straggler” and making adjustments

The rest of the painting process I am concerned with making a unified whole, in other words every part of the painting (values, color and shapes) must all be in the right relationship to each other. I never finish one area ahead of the others. All areas are brought along together, like herding a flock of sheep. 

I do this in stages by choosing the area of the canvas that is furthest off (we call this finding the “back straggler”) and painting that one day. Improving that area will mean that the next day another area will jump out at my eye as the back straggler and I will work on that area. Thus the painting is brought along in segments, each being adjusted in relation to the whole. Slowly the painting evolves like light emerging from a fog. 

5. Problem Solving

Once I have determined the “back straggler” I must decide what it needs. This always falls into one of three categories, values, color, or shapes. How do I know which it is?

1. Shapes need adjustment if the composition or design is off. I look to see whether the painting has the movement and gesture of the setup and if the areas of light and shadow are placed correctly on the canvas.
2. Values need adjustment if the light effect isn’t indicated. A value is always seen in relation to the values around it.  If I want an area to appear light, I must have a darker value next to it. Before I make a mark, I ask myself whether the blob of paint is in the shadow or in the light. This is crucial for getting a good light effect and I run into trouble when I forget to ask myself this question.
3. Colors need adjustment if the general effect of the color is absent in the painting. The colors should “sing” in relation to one another. I am always looking at one color in relation to one or more colors around it and asking myself whether it is too red, yellow or blue.

Sometimes it’s more than one of these and then I first adjust the shape, then the values and then the color. But I am thinking of all three while I am focusing on one. And while I am painting an area I am looking to see how it relates to the rest of the painting. I use a mirror (blurring my eyes and looking upside down at the set up and comparing it to the painting) constantly while I am working to see with a fresh eye. I also force myself to take breaks every few hours. 

6. When Is It Finished?

When there are no more back stragglers.  Every area is in the right relationship to the whole so that the painting has unity. The painting must have the same magic and drama that I intended when I set it up. It must have a strong feeling of light shining across the images or “light effect” and objects that read or stand out must have well-rounded form. It must have the effect of the colors, not the local colors but how they play off of one another, hopefully in a magical way.

This type of painting distinguishes itself from photorealism in that it is not an attempt to paint every detail that I see.  I am concerned only with the big visual impression of the lights and shadows. Details are important only to the extent that they describe the light.  I want my paintings to be atmospheric and allow the viewer to enjoy the mystery of the shadows as well as the striking beauty of the lights.

*The Frank Benson "Advice to Artists" quotation is from Frank W. Benson, Master of the Sporting Print by John T. Ordeman, privately published in 1983.