Unlocking the Secrets of John Singer Sargent's Technique

in this video i'm going to be painting a female portrait using john singer sergeant's a la prima oil painting technique if you're a fan of this channel then it's very likely that you're already well aware of sergeant's work but just in case you're not john singer sergeant was one of the most well-known portrait painters of the late 19th and early 20th centuries in an era when there were so many other outstanding realist painters he was particularly renowned for his virtuosity and his painterly style because of his incredible skill sergeant is also one of the most influential artists on realist painters today in some of my previous videos you may have seen i've already done a couple of sergeant master copies but for this video i'll be doing something different i'm going to be painting a portrait of a live model and i'll be attempting to use an approach that i believe is very similar to the way sergeant would have worked sergeant used an alaprima or direct oil painting technique where paint is applied wet on wet without letting earlier layers dry this way of working became popular following the influence of impressionism and was used by many artists at that time like anders zorn and joaquin saroya obviously sergeant skill was infinitely greater than mine so i doubt that i'll be able to paint exactly the same way he did but i'll be trying to follow a method that's based on eyewitness accounts of the way sergeant worked given by two of his former students these two accounts are taken from a biography of sergeant written in 1927 by the honorable evan charteris charteris book is no longer in print but fortunately these accounts have been made available online thanks to an excellent ebook called advice on painting from john singer sergeant written by the american painter thomas jefferson kitts kits has very generously made available an extremely valuable resource which i thoroughly recommend and i'll put a link to it in the description below my model for this demo will be tatiana who i've lit with a daylight lamp to create some fairly strong contrast which is something you'll see in many of sergeant's portraits though sergeant would have used a large north facing window there's nothing written in these accounts about the colours sergeant used so i've gone for a fairly limited palette that's loosely based on the colors reportedly used by the students at carolus duran's atelier who was sergeant's teacher the surface i'm working on is oil primed linen now in the first of these accounts by a certain miss heyman it states that sergeant used a piece of charcoal to place the head with no more than a few careful lines which he then wiped over with a rag so that the canvas became a clean grayish colour and the lines were only faintly visible this appears to be the only underdrawing that sergeant did instead of charcoal i'm placing my lines with paint i'm using a smaller size brush and some ultramarine to indicate the whole head the hair mass and the shoulders also notice that unlike most of my other demos i haven't toned my canvas once sergeant had placed these few lines he then began to paint miss hayneman says he started by rubbing a general tone mixed with a little turpentine over the background to indicate the head so here i'm mixing a dark red made with alizarin crimson and a little blue that i'm going to use to start massing in the background i'm using a dark red because even though the background is bright red when i compare it to the lights on my subject it appears quite a lot darker there's also a gradation in the background so i'm initially using the color for the darkest parts and i'll lighten the background in places later on in the painting after massing in the background according to miss haneman's account sergeant then masked in his sitter's hair and dress so next i'm massing in tatiana's hair with a dark mixture made with transparent oxide red ultramarine and alizarin crimson i'm painting the hair colour into the background fusing the edges together and finding the shape of the hair the brush that i'm using is a large fan brush because the long strands give me a texture that looks like hair but unlike me sergeant didn't have access to all the fancy rosemary and co brushes that we do today and all he would have used to achieve his amazing brushwork was a load of worn out hog brushes i'm now mixing a warm gray violet color made with ivory black titanium white and cadmium red light which i'm using to block in tatiana's blouse here i'm painting the hair into the blouse to soften the edges between them then after masking in the background hair and top sergeant would have started work on the face itself so here i'm mixing the first of my flesh colors made with yellow ochre titanium white cadmium red light and a touch of ivory black to gray it down a little and i'm not using any medium miss heyman says that from this point on sergeant used his color without a medium of any kind neither oil turpentine or any other mixture there is evidence from art conservators that sergeant did use mediums in at least some of his paintings my own opinion is that he would have used them for larger paintings that he was working on after they had dried but it would appear from these accounts that he didn't need to use any when working wet on wet so i haven't used any medium for this demo here you can see i've used my flesh color to mass in the whole light side of tatiana's face and with the lights masked in i'm now mixing a warmer darker flesh colour which i'm going to use for the shadow side of tatiana's face it would appear from these accounts that sergeant didn't do any underdrawing to place the features before going in with color instead he would have gone directly for the larger value masses that make up the face it's this approach where you simplify your subject into large masses in the early stages of a painting that's the real key to working directly or allo prima with oil paint here i'm placing some of the other large shadow shapes that make up the face the eye sockets and the side plane on the right side of the nose and here i'm placing a shadow mass for the whole of the mouth area from the top of the upper lip all the way down to the bottom of the shadow under the lower lip however in order to work this way placing your shadow shapes directly onto wet paint without any under drawing you do need to have had quite a lot of experience with drawing because if you make a mistake it can be difficult to correct it without making a complete mess if you're a beginner i recommend using a few straight lines to indicate the position of the features and the larger shadow shapes before going in with color and you may have seen in my previous demos how i always use vertical and horizontal center lines to help me map out the features right here i'm mixing a middle value that's in between the shadows and the color for the main areas of light then with a large hog filbert which is the type of brush sergeant would have used i'm going to place some of this middle value along the edges in between the shadow and the light the accounts say that sergeant concentrated his whole attention upon the middle tone that carried the light into the shadow do you see how this middle value rounds the form between the light and the shadow to make the head appear more 3d so essentially sergeant painted like a sculptor models he would establish the large planes first the light side and the shadow side of the head he would then use middle tones to refine the form in this way he would describe the shape of the brow the cheekbones and the muscles around the eyes and mouth and it was said he was able to achieve an amazing likeness long before he indicated the features themselves here i'm mixing a dark color made with cadmium red light ivory black and yellow ochre which i'm going to use to place some of the darks in tatiana's eyes the reason i'm doing this is because i want to make sure the eyes are placed accurately before measuring the distance out to the hairline this is definitely not what sergeant would have done he would have finished refining the whole head including the hairline and the other outer edges before placing the features onto this fully modelled head if when he placed the features there was anything wrong with their position he wouldn't attempt to correct them instead he would ruthlessly scrape back and begin the whole process again repainting the whole head he was known to sometimes repaint her head a dozen times forcing his clients to return day after day because this is a demo which i have to finish in a single session i don't have time to scrape back and start again if i get anything wrong with the position of the features so i'm just indicating the eyes before working on the rest of the head but before i continue i'm first going to use a palette knife to mix up more of my flesh colors using a palette knife to mix your colors is a great way to ensure you use enough paint and sergeant would have definitely used plenty of paint in miss haneman's account it says he put out enough paint so it seemed for a dozen pictures here you can see i'm putting out more titanium white and yellow ochre as i'm not much further than the blocking stage and i've already used both of them up mixing my flesh colours once i've established the eyes and made sure they're placed correctly i'm then moving outwards towards the hairline and modelling the forehead and cheekbone as i go i'm working this way because i want to complete this painting in a single session and this is what the term ala prima actually means it's italian for at first attempt now even though sergeant used an alaprima technique that didn't mean he always completed a head in a single session he is quoted as saying if only one had one self under perfect control one could always paint a thing finally in one sitting not that you are to attempt this if you work on a head for a week without indicating the features you will have learned something about the modelling of the head but even if sergeant didn't complete ahead in one session he did develop the head in one process modeling the whole head as a solid object before painting the features and other accents and as we have said he would often scrape back and repaint the head many times each time trying to preserve the freshness of the brushwork this is one of the reasons his brushwork always appears so effortless sergeant preached economy of effort always trying to use the fewest brush strokes possible to express a fact at one point he is described as drawing a full large brush down the whole contour of a cheek obliterating apparently all of the modelling underneath but it was always further to simplify that he took these dreadful risks keep the planes free and simple he said i'm next going to work on the mouth i begin by establishing the larger forms the upper and lower lip and the receding planes either side of the lower lip then i carefully refine their edges as most of the edges around the mouth are really soft tatiana's mouth has a really distinctive shape so i'm going to use this demo to make another separate video specifically on painting mouse if you haven't already done so set the notification button if you'd like to know when that comes out there'll also be a full length version of this demo available to watch on my patreon channel as part of my alaprima portrait painting course once i've finished modelling the whole of the mouth area i'll place a few small accents in the corners of the mouth and do you see how the mouth immediately takes shape this is because it's the small details that focus the viewers attention bringing together all the larger shapes underneath to quote miss heyman the accents were the nails upon which the whole structure depended for solidity but as you add these accents you have to be selective you need to identify the most prominent details in order to direct the viewer's attention if you add too many it'll distract the viewer and you'll lose the lifelike effect and you've got to be really careful not to overstate them making the details either too light or too dark in the account it says it annoyed sergeant very much if the accents were carelessly indicated without accurate consideration of their comparative importance to help him see if he'd overstated anything sergeant would continually stand back from his work it says he would press home the fact that the subtleties must be controlled by continually viewing the work from a distance he often moved his easel next to his sitter so that when he walked back from it he saw the canvas and the original in the same light at the same distance and at the same angle of vision he's quoted as saying stand back get well away and you will realize the great danger there is in overstating a tone keep the thing as a whole in your mind tones so subtle as not to be detected on close acquaintance can only be adjusted by this means now standing back and viewing your work from a distance is absolutely essential but because of this account many have claimed that sergeant used the site-size method while it would appear that sergeant definitely did place his canvas next to his sitter i think it's unlikely that he followed the method as it is taught in atelier schools today with all its painstaking measuring and i'm fairly certain that's not what was taught in carolus duran's atelier but that's really a subject for another video or possibly a discussion in the comments in my case because of filming i don't have the luxury of placing my canvas right next to my subject my easel is placed a few feet in front of tatiana but nonetheless i'm still able to paint this portrait close to life-size i'm now mixing a really dark color for the shadows in tatiana's hair made with ultramarine alizarin and transparent oxide red i'm going to use this dark to carve out the right side of tatiana's face where it's silhouetted against the hair this is something you often see in sergeant's portraits where he uses a dark background to define his sitter's outline to do this i'm using a soft head synthetic brush as the soft hairs enable me to paint the dark over the light without them mixing together but sergeant would have done this using just a hog filbert he also would have defined the outside edges of the face before working on the features but in my case i needed to establish the mouth so i could make sure the distance from the corner of the mouth out to the right side of the face was correct before working on it here i'm taking a warm mid-tone with one of my smaller brushes and i'm placing it along the edge of tatiana's right cheek to soften it just a little even though we can see the right side of tatiana's face clearly defined against the hair the edge doesn't appear completely cut out there's still a little variety with some places appearing firmer than others here i'm taking a cooler mid-tone which i'm placing lower down along the edge on the right side of tatiana's face nearer her chin when you look at sergeant's portraits it's this really subtle edge variety along the outlines of his sitters when they're silhouetted against the dark background that are some of the most exquisite passages in his paintings obviously we don't know exactly how he painted these edges but in these accounts it mentions him always painting one thing into another so i reckon he achieved the slightly softer edges by painting the dark into the light and under perfect control allowing the colors to mix a little then for the hard accents he would paint the light over the dark and in such a way he would move back and forward across the edge until he achieved the exact quality he was after but i'm not as skilled as sergeant so i'm unable to paint these edges with anywhere near the same degree of finesse or for that matter to paint ahead from life exactly the same way sergeant did i can only do the best that i can in the limited time i have available to film this demo but by trying to demonstrate some of the things being spoken about in these accounts it might hopefully give you a better understanding of them however this is only my interpretation of these accounts as i've understood them there is a lot more information contained within them and i have only chosen to cover certain things that really resonate with me and my own way of working when you read them you may interpret things differently or you may uncover something that hasn't been included here that causes you to have a light bulb moment either way there is most definitely a lot of very valuable information contained within these accounts so even if you disagree with everything i've said but i've managed to bring them to your attention then this video has served a purpose i'm now placing the last few details some small highlights on the bottom eyelids and some dark accents for the nostrils and a small shadow just behind the nose here you can see i'm using the back of my brush to scratch out the highlights on tatiana's earrings by using the back of my brush it means that if i get them in the wrong place i can correct them easily just by painting over them when the highlights on the earrings have been placed correctly i'm painting in the rest of the earring with a darker color and here i'm placing the small highlight in tatiana's right eye notice how the highlight in the eye isn't very light it's only a fraction lighter than the surrounding iris finally i'm mixing in some cadmium red light into my red background color and i'm painting in the lightest part of the background right behind the top of tatiana's head so there it is my attempt to paint a portrait from life using an alaprima technique similar to the way sergeant would have worked i'm absolutely certain that sergeant would have found plenty to criticize in this painting but i actually reckon this is one of the best demos i've done yet for this channel so i really hope you enjoyed it and found it helpful remember to check out the link in the description to thomas jefferson kitts's e-book so you can read these accounts for yourselves and that there's also a full length version of this demo available to watch over on patreon until next time thank you for watching and good luck with your painting

Channel: SIMPLIFY Drawing and Painting

Views: 181,634

Keywords: john singer sargent, portrait painting tutorial, john singer sargent painting technique, john singer sargent technique, alla prima oil painting, john singer sargent painting, classical oil painting techniques, oil painting tutorial, alla prima, portrait painting demonstration, john singer sargent oil painting techniques, alex tzavaras, alex tzavaras portrait demo, thomas jefferson kitts, thomas jefferson kitts artist, portrait painting, painting tutorial, oil painting

Id: O6XOcyiqN-I

Length: 24min 8sec (1448 seconds)

Published: Sun Jul 03 2022