Copying Sargent

Sargent is one of my favorite painters. I love how he does most everything he did, including bold, luscious lights. I feel that he was able to model form perfectly with a minimum of fuss. I don't know how much of what he did was alla prima, but it FEELS alla prima, juicy, bravura. There seem to be a lot of books about his life and whatnot, but not about his technique. Anyone know of a resource out there, or know more about his technique(s)?

I should definitely have been doing some of this all along in my painting-learning journey; I really enjoyed it and feel I learned some things too--for example, fascinatingly for me, I noticed similarities to one of my favorite contemporary artists, Richard Schmid. I will do more of these quick studies, including in color (which will, of course, be much harder!).

I currently have a Sargent book out from the library and these were two of the paintings that in the book were reproduced in black and white, so I decided that since I'm going back to basics anyway, I'd copy them in black and white too. My copies are about 8" x 5" each, each done in one hour on canvas pad. I liked the results so much I now wish I'd used something nicer to paint them on! But that's part of it, I want to see them as just a learning tool, not a finished artwork. (Though I really do love how they turned out! That's what you get when you copy a master...)

These are copies after Sargent's Head of Aesop (which is his copy of Velazquez, and I like Sargent's version better), and Head of a Female Model.  My copies are smaller than his paintings.

If interested in purchasing these ($115 each), please let me know.

More art on my website: jalapfaff.com