Waltzing With Sargent

Now most of us will never be compared to the great painter John Singer Sargent. However, a lovely lesson we all can learn from his work is how much can be inferred by a dash or a dab or a squiggle. We can practice our dots and dashes, symbolic flicks and bits, to help the viewer along with the seeing while actually forcing him or her to do a tad of imagining. Examine Sargent's work and note the abstract shapes and lines and dobs he uses to depict a head or hand. A fashionable dress is actually a series of thickly laid slashes.



This is a work in progress.... Major gestures have been decided and the "Sargent-squiggles" are starting to appear. I tend to either ignore detail or put too much in. A Sargent-style of painting allows the artist to hint rather than clobber. To lead rather than lecture. One can play in a number of areas with a wide variety of colored ticks that add up only when seen as a whole. I like to create jazzy bits of interplay - some bold, others subtle. Improve is the name of the game once the basic composition is drawn. This does not always work out for the best; it's simply how I prefer to create. As a reformed pen-and-ink girl, my using pastels spontaneously doesn't come easily! And messes do occur. But the forgiving nature of pastels lets us "try, try again." As Martha would say, That's a good thing."



Producing images that conform to one's ideas and plans takes study, practice, and persistence. Serious stuff. We have to do our home-work now so later we can communicate with ease. So keep at it. And have fun. Play with dabs, and globs, and smears, but have them lean toward meaning something. Maybe some day, like John Sargent Singer, we'll get the hang of using those dots and dashes to get our message just right. On to the painting dance.

Waltzing in my mind -
Sue