As I indicated in my first post, to paint like Homer it’s a good idea to use the same pigments that he used. There are some serious problems with this approach because many of his pigments have been superseded because of technical reasons which can be that they are not lightfast or that they tend to lose a lot of character as they dry and so forth. Both Prussian Blue and Aureolin, for example, don’t have very good reputations. I’ll discuss this in later posts, but for the moment here’s something about his pigments.
The published analyses of the pigments in the palette shown in the previous post are somewhat technical. For example one of his pigments is described as “Prussian blue (Fe4[Fe(CN)6]3) extended with alunite [K,DNa]Al3[OH]6[SO4]2)” . I believe this is Antwerp Blue, “alunite” (PW24 –meaning Pigment White 24) being whitish. I think, however, that currently Antwerp Blue is made with Prussian Blue and Blanc Fixe PW21 (barium sulfate).
Therefore, I shall list the paints, most of them Winsor Newton in Homer’s case, that are mentioned in the article by Judith C. Walsh “Observations on Watercolor Techniques of Homer and Sargent” in Susan E. Strickler “American Traditions in Watercolor, The Worcester Art Museum Collection (Worcester: Worcester Art Museum, 1987 pages 45-65.
It’s noticeable to a modern painter that Homer didn’t have any cadmium paints in his palette. The deep orange, scarlet, and red cadmium paints didn’t become available to the artist until 1910, the year Homer died. There was a middle yellow and a light orange in 1842, but they probably were not as good as the pigments Homer was already using. In general cadmium pigments are not transparent which might be another reason to find alternatives even today not to mention that they are very expensive. (and by the way, although raw cadmium is poisonous, cadmium pigments are chemically combined with other chemicals and are not harmful at all.)
The fact that I am posting these pigments doesn’t mean you should use all of them when you start painting or that this list is all the pigments he used. We know in the Bahamas, for example, he started using Prussian Blue for water and added, sometimes, Ultramarine Blue.
Antwerp Blue Aureolin Bone Black Burnt Sienna
Burnt Umber Cadmium Yellow Chinese White
Chrome Orange crimson Lake Green Earth
Hooker’s Green (“1 & 2″?) Indian Purple Indian Red
Indian Yellow Prussian Green Payne’s Gray
Scarlet Lake Sepia Warm Sepia
Van Dyke Brown Vermillion Cobalt Blue (?)
For the record, Homer also used the forerunner of Frisket, a masking agent or “resist”, that was invented by the English watercolorist Francis Nicolson (1753-1844) called Chalk Resist. This was a thick paste of powdered chalk mixed with water. When it dried, it could be painted over with a wash. To remove it one could roll the sheet over the edge of a table, “counter-rolling” it was called, and this would break the chalk off. It could also be removed with a knife. In a pinch it could still be used today.
Finally Homer used a binder, gum arabic, to add body and translucence to the color. Watercolor pigment already has gum arabic in it, but he added more. The gum arabic is what sticks the pigment to the paper. One panting to which he added additional gum arabic is the “The Blue Boat” ( in the greens and browns in the middle and far distance). I’ve used this painting as the masthead of this blog.
Here is a picture of gum arabic on the acacia tree which has been cut like rubber trees to increase production of sap. It is mostly grown in Africa today.
The theory behind the use of gum arabic is that pigment as purchased has water and gum arabic in a particular ratio that is best for using. If you dip your brush constantly into water and then pick up pigment you are increasing the amount of water without increasing the amount of gum arabic. Therefore, some artists add a little bit of gum arabic to the clean water that they dip their brush. That way there is still adequate gum arabic to stick the pigment to the paper.
The best gum arabic comes from the Kordofam region of the Sahara and has been compared to wine in the sense that certain years are better than others (“vintages”) and how it is prepared (cleaned) is important. There is cheap gum arabic and dear gum arabic, but artists have little choice.
The major use of gum arabic is as a food additive, for example in some chocolate, and in many other substances. It’s use in watercolor from a business prospective is trivial. At one time it was the glue on postage stamps.
The opposite in terms of gum arabic use in watercolor is so-called ox gall (from cow gall bladders) which, instead of bulking up the watercolor, makes it runnier. It’s a wetting agent. I’ve seen no reference to Homer using ox gall, however. Using ox gall you can make the pigment so watery that it soaks right through the paper! I understand that Winsor Newton today still uses it in its paints.
Watercolors are sometimes combined with gouache a much more opaque and high intensity pigment. Homer in the beginning used them both. Gouache is a water-based pigment and is often said to have as a binder gum arabic, but I have also read that it uses a different binding, dextrin which is a binder derived from potatoes. White gouache is often used at the end of a watercolor to reassert the highlights that have somehow gotten lost because it can go over dark colors (it is a light over dark paint whereas watercolor is a dark of light paint.) Le Claire (see reference in earliest post) says that in his classes some of the students did work with watercolor and some did work with dilute gouache and no one could tell which was which.
