The Painter in Oil / A complete treatise on the principles and technique necessary to the painting of pictures in oil colors

by Daniel Burleigh Parkhurst

See that your sitter is in as comfortable a position as you can get him into, so that the pose can be held easily. Don't attempt difficult and unusual attitudes. Such things require much skill and knowledge to take advantage of, and to use successfully. Make your effect more in the study of composition and color than in fanciful poses. Later, when you have gained experience, you may do this sort of thing.

If you are painting a face, see that the eyes are in at a restful angle with the head, and that they are not facing a too strong light, nor are obliged to look at a blank space. Give them room to have a restful focus, and perhaps something pleasant or interesting to look at.

Length of Pose.—No sitter can hold a pose in perfect motionlessness. Do not expect it. You must learn to make allowance for certain slight changes which are always occurring. You must give your model plenty of rest, too, especially if he be not a professional model. A half-hour pose to ten minutes' rest is as much as a regular model expects to do as a rule. If you have a friend posing for you, particularly if it be a woman, twenty minutes' pose and ten minutes' rest, for a couple of hours, is all you should expect; and if the pose is a standing one, this will probably be more than she can hold—make the rests longer.

An inexperienced model—and sometimes even a trained one—is likely to faint while posing, particularly if the room be close. Look out for this; watch your sitter, and see that she is not looking tired. The minute that you see the least sign of fatigue, if she shows pallor—rest. Do not get so absorbed in your canvas that you do not notice your model's condition. If you are observing and studying your model as closely as you should, you can hardly fail to notice any change that may occur, and you should at once give her relief.

Distance.—Don't work too near your model, nor too near your canvas. As regards the first, be far enough away to see the whole of the figure you are painting, or of that part which you are doing, entirely at one focus of the eye, and yet near enough to see the detail clearly. If you are too near, you see parts at a time, and do not see it as a whole. If you are too far, you see too generally for good study. You might make it a rule to be away from your subject a distance of about three or four times the extreme measurement of it. If it is a full length, say fifteen to twenty feet, if you can get so large a room. If it is a head and shoulders, about six or eight feet. Never get closer than six feet.

As to your canvas, work at arm's length. Don't bend over—again you see parts, and you must treat your canvas as a whole. Never rest your hand or arm on the canvas. Train your arm to be steady. Sit up straight, hold your brush well out at the end of the handle, and your arm extended; now and then, if you need closer work, lean forward, and if necessary use a rest-stick; but as a rule your work will be stronger and hang together better if you work as I have suggested. Of course you will often get up, and walk away from your work. Set your easel alongside the model, and go away to a distance, and compare them. Too intense application to the canvas forgets that relations, effect, and wholeness of impression are of the greatest importance, and are only to be judged of when seen at some distance.

Background.—Under the general title of background you may place everything which will come in as accessory to the figure, and against or alongside of which it stands. The picture must "hang together"; must have envelopment; must be a whole, not an aggregation of parts. Everything that goes to the making up of this whole must have a natural and logical connection with it. From the first conception of the picture you must consider the background as an essential part of it, and as something which will have a vital effect upon the figure. The color of the background must be thought of as a part of, because affecting, the figure itself. The simplicity or variety in the background, the number of objects in it, must be considered as to the effect on the figure also. You cannot make the background a patchwork of objects and colors without interfering with the effect of the main thing in the picture.

If your figure is simple and quiet, keep the background the same. Make it a principle to treat the background simply always. If the character of the case demands some detail, and a variety of objects, then treat them so that their effect is as simple as possible; and the figure must be made stronger, in order that the variety in the background shall not overpower it. Control it by the way the light or the color masses, or simplify the painting of them. Keep the background in value as regards prominence and relief of objects as well as in the matter of color.

Composition of Backgrounds.—You can make the background help the figure, not merely by the painting of objects which help to explain,—that is of course,—but in the placing and arranging of them you may emphasize the composition. Whether the background be a curtain with its folds, or an interior with its furniture, you can and must make every object, every fold of the drapery, every mass of wall or object, distinctly help out in the composition as line and mass. Your composition must balance; the line and movement of the figure must have its true relation. The way you use whatever goes into the picture, the objects which make up the background, the way they group, and the spaces between them, must have a helpful reference to that movement, and to the balance of the whole.

Simplicity.—Lean always towards simplicity in composition as against complexity. In backgrounds particularly, avoid detail and over-variety. Don't have the whole surface of the canvas spotted with things. If it is necessary, put it in; if it is not necessary, leave it out; and if there is the slightest doubt which it is, leave it out.