Saturday, September 07, 2024

John Marin copies

Trying to copy a couple of Marins.
Difficult but engrossing.
Learned a couple of things:
He uses a lot of black-- or at least that's what I used to approximate the colors on my reproductions: both grayed and full strength. Or mixed with colors, esp. greens 
He uses shorthand marks: squiggles and upside down Vs for trees; small slashes for grasses.
He doesn't mind outlining.
My colors lack the subtlety of his (my copies are about half the size of his, and done quickly). And I'm not too good with the charcoal.
But I did feel like it helped me gain some insight into Marin's practice.


2 comments:

RH Carpenter said...

Copying someone’s work is always a learning experience and one never gets completely able to copy someone else’s work! Ha ha. We all have our own little quirks of painting and drawing. I like all of these - are they all copies or is one of each his work? I can’t tell.

laura said...

They are all copies of John Marin paintings. 🙂 So difficult but fun. Next one I want to try is Fairfield porter