King for a day
I was in Venice, alone. In the convent, a young woman from Spain was working as a cleaner; a beautiful redheaded art student, who did some modeling for me. We found a chapel, a ruin, really, secret, where we could work.
I worked on a second painting of her relaxing in what I took to be a deserted gondola, rich and regal, lying in the shadow of a footbridge.
After a week, Rosa invited me to dinner with her fiancé, a short walk away. Matteo was a fascinating young man, a student of boatbuilding, academic and practical, and proud owner of the oldest gondola in Venice. Dinner was a heady blend of Spanish, Italian and Venetian, and as we sat back, Matteo suggested a little promenade around Venice. Would I like it? Sure, I agreed, sad, though, to lose their easy company...
Outside I was surprised when Matteo unmoored the gondola, and, with Rosa holding on to the rope, they invited me to step inside. I reeled. It was deep night, and from the comfortable seat, I watched the soft reflections of the narrow fondamenta on the water. Behind me Matteo engaged his oar as Rosa stepped onto the prow and, balancing lightly, fixed a second post to the ink-black fuselage. She placed her oar into its crook and, poised on the smooth and moving platform, leaned into the stroke.
No sound. I felt myself to be in a holy place, and kept silent. We threaded our way though the small canals of the Dorsaduro, and only when we reached the Grand Canal, Matteo spoke. "Which way shall we go?" "Left," Rosa said, and we turned into the broad waterway, dark, except for the odd reflection from the upper floors of a palazzo.
A voice called us over to the side. It was a policeman. "Where is your light", he demanded. Well, at my feet Rosa had placed a paper bag with a small candle inside, which I was using to sketch by. We were in trouble, and the dream was about to end. The policeman was sympathetic, though, and when Rosa moved our candle to the prow of the gondola, he motioned us on, looking very doubtful of our long-term survival. Massive boats work on the canal, Vaporetti, taxis and emergency vehicles, and our paperbag light would have given them no warning.
On we went, out of time, and hardly in physical space, slowly sliding under the Rialto and out.
"I feel as if I am the king of the world", I said at last, "As if my whole life, and its meaning, was built around this one moment; that my wandering soul has found its home."
"It may be."
We went for miles up the Grand Canal, and found our way back home by way of small, occult canals which haunt my dreams to this day. I thanked them for the lovely evening, no words, no words. Rowing a gondola like this, standing, Matteo said, can be done for hour after hour, "Easy as breathing."
Painting long
Ah, those long lithe strokes of John Singer Sargent, wet paint slurring into wet..!
How is it possible, how is it done?
The paint we use on the brush is always wet. The trick is to be painting into wetness. This means either working fast, or keeping our paint wet on the canvas as long as we can.
Working fast is fine as far as it goes, but no good and thoughtful work can be one fast. The best way to learn he skill of working into a wet field even as it is drying, is to master watercolour. The great skills that Turner brought to oil painting are the result of his magnificent mastery of watercolour.
So oil paint was developed, the intention being to keep that matrix wet and receptive for the longest time.This is the point of oil painting, that is dries slowly, and the point of a good oil painting medium is to make it dry slower still. Poppy oil, wax, sunflower oil, even lead has been used to achieve this.
Still, a large painting cannot be kept wet for any long time, so that another method is required. This method is oiling out, laying a thin film of painting medium over the part of the picture to be worked on, and then working into it while wet. This process can be very sensual, both to the artist and to the viewer, and is particularly useful in smaller paintings. For larger paintings, a good method may be to bring the picture to a near finish, and then to work smaller sections in the wet.
Pastel painting
Half the skill in working in pastel is in the choice of paper. The technique is very direct and cannot be corrected too many times. In this, pastel is useful not only as the most expressive technique, but also to refine the skills of painters who work in oil.
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