Copy of Homer's "The Blue Boat"
A local art gallery in Newport, R.I. hosts an art show every year called "Fakes and Forgeries." You can submit a copy of a famous work of art, or a copy with a twist or parody -- there are always paintings, for example, of the Mona Lisa as a cat, or whatever. Also some serious, technically amazing copies of Dutch masters, etc. For this year's show I decided to try my hand at a serious copy of one of my favorite paintings by one of my favorite painters, "The Blue Boat" by Winslow Homer. I decided to paint the copy actual size, which is a half sheet of watercolor paper (15 x 22 in.). I had never done a painting that large before, and discovered it's nowhere near as intimidating as I had imagined. In some ways its harder (managing large washes) but in others it's actually easier (no fiddling over tiny details). The color mixing was really interesting as I tried to match Homer's palette with paints he would have had access to. It's actually a pretty limited palette -- cobalt, prussian, payne's gray, winsor yellow (standing in for cadmium), alizarin, burnt sienna, burnt umber. Definitely white gouache on the surface of the water! I used a bit of perylene maroon in the clouds, which Homer didn't have. I used neutral tint where he probably used lamp black. Then again, I'm sure the colors of his painting have changed somewhat in 140 years. One of the most interesting aspects of this painting, to me, is that the boat and figures are very well drawn and tightly painted, but the rest of the painting -- the majority of it -- is extremely loose. You can easily see that Homer was a professional illustrator as well as a "fine art" painter. The original of this work is in the permanent collection of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts but is not currently on exhibit -- what a shame!
A friend of mine who is a great painter and art teacher is a big believer in copying the old masters as a way of learning their techniques. I had never tried it before but I'm glad I did, and will certainly do more. As a guitar player, it reminds me of the process of learning a great old blues song from a recording by a long-gone master. Overall I was pretty happy with the result and, more important, learned a lot. Here's my painting followed by the original Homer.
Excellent, I’d hang both on my wall and thank you for the written explanation - greatly informative.
as a beginner I’ve recently read that the focal point should have bolder stronger colours and be more detailed and other elements less detailed and looser. This would seem to be a good example of this in action.