A few weeks ago, I was lucky enough to visit the (recently closed) special exhibition “Of Light and Air: Winslow Homer in Watercolor” at the Museum of Fine Art Boston. In case you missed it, I thought I’d share my impressions of the show and top takeaways for improving your watercolor practice if you want to paint like Winslow.
Everything about this exhibition guided the viewer towards a better understanding of Homer’s process as an artist. A recreation of the porch where he worked in Maine. His paint box and brushes. Video and text explaining how watercolors are painted. Most importantly, the curators highlighted the way the paintings were created and how Homer gained the skills that made him such an exceptional storyteller and decisive painter.
Top Takeaways If You Want to Paint Like Winslow:
- Practice, practice, practice – and draw a lot Winslow Homer learned his craft, just like the rest of us. The exhibition showed us early childhood works – pencil-drawn stick men on rocket ships. He spent his early professional career making sketches of Civil War battlefields and military encampments for newspapers and other publications. He needed to draw quickly and accurately and capture the essence of a scene. This is the strong foundation that allowed him to make such powerful watercolors later. For me, this really drove home the importance of practicing drawing and sketching from life. Later, we can see him teaching himself to paint, making small paintings to experiment with opaque and transparent layers – another great practice for learning.
- Keep your kit small and uncomplicated Homer’s tools were simple. His paint box, included in the exhibition, was a simple enameled tin with a fold out palette on each side, of the same type that is readily available today. Twenty full pans were lodged inside, not a huge range of colors. His brushes were two sable quills (with handles actually made from feathers) that were about the size of an 8 or 10 round. The paintings he created for sale were almost entirely on a half-sheet of Whatman watercolor paper.
- Work from life Homer drew and painted from life, going to great extremes to “get the shot” (as it were). He once rowed a mile out to sea in order to draw fishermen at work in their dories. It’s hard to imagine executing the work on exhibit in a small boat, bouncing on the waves, underscoring again his skill as a draftsman and how much value he must have placed on working from life.
- Make underdrawings with authority In contrast to many watercolor artists of today, Homer’s pencil underdrawings are highly visible in all his work. He drew using dark, assured lines – and it works. The pencil lines add movement to the work.
- Paint decisively On top of those authoritative lines, Homer painted with direct, sweeping, unhesitating and highly visible strokes. Again, there are no fussy little marks. This is direct painting without glazing to adjust the color or value or washes to blend edges, and with very few, if any, layers – what you’d call “a la prima” if you were an oil painter. His clouds are particularly striking with their sharp, graphic borders which make them an important part of the composition.
- Use some opaque pigments Homer used a great deal of opaque paint on top of his transparent painting, frequently creating clouds and sea foam using a mixture of blotting to remove paint and overpainting with opaque white. Small splashes of vibrant, full-strength yellow and red opaque paint create the illusion of sparkles of sunshine.
- Don’t worry about revising your paintings, and don’t worry about wrecking your (hard-sized) paper Homer sometimes made significant revisions to his paintings after they were (at least mostly) fully painted. One painting showed a major adjustment to the shape of a sail – Homer scraped off a good 2” square area and repainted it over the fuzzy paper. He scraped an entire white dog into one painting, noting on the back “that worked well.” His paper was obviously good stuff. Though Whatman paper is no longer made, Saunders-Waterford’s Millford paper is made to replicate its qualities, especially the very hard sizing. Extra sizing facilitates scraping and wiping to make adjustments.
- Paint what you love Homer loved to fish. He spent much of his year traveling and painting, and he chose his destinations based on the fishing opportunities. Many of his paintings feature fish, fishermen, and other waterfront scenes. His love for and understanding of the subject matter is clear. He was able to sell many of his watercolors to collectors who shared his love of fishing and presumably connected with the passion evident in the work.
Luckily for folks who couldn’t make it to Boston, MFA Boston’s website is still loaded with great content from this show. Besides photos of all the paintings, there are informative videos and the audio tour that was created to go along with the show. I highly recommend checking it out. You can also still purchase the beautiful book that was produced for the exhibition.
What are your takeaways from Homer’s work? If you saw the show, do you think it will change the way you paint? Join the conversation in the comments – and as always, subscribe if you’d like to get more writing on watercolor delivered to your inbox every Sunday.
Carrie Glessner 