Capitol Cider is a Public House on Capitol Hill in Seattle, WA, featuring hard cider, beer, wine, mead, classic cocktails and local spirits. It has two levels: a lower level and the main floor. The main floor is a small dining room for about 50,; where Aristides Atelier master copy work will be displayed. Upstairs, a 7 seat bar upstairs, facing the brick back bar(original wall on the building) and 15+ foot ceilings. The lower level has an 8 seat bar, fireplace, game room with shuffleboards, and a giant mural painted by Aristides Atelier graduate, Tenold Sundberg, featuring his interpretation of a work by Anton Otto Fischer.
Aristides Atelier students thoughtfully chose their master copy work, then researched their subject(s). We are pleased to share the writing of second year student, Clara Bui, here:
About the Artist and the Image
Eastman Johnson (1824-1906), whose father was Maine Secretary of State and later an appointee of US President James Polk, studied painting in Germany, Holland, and France. He painted prominent figures, such as Lincoln, Hawthorne, and Longfellow, but is most well known for scenes of everyday people, in particular scenes from the lives of African Americans in the years leading up to the Civil War.
The Girl I Left Behind Me depicts an imagined soldier’s wife, right after he has left to fight in the Civil War. The title comes from the lyrics of an Irish song that was popular with the troops at the time.
What I love about this painting is the violent sky, the untamed hair and cape, the vibrant red of the lining of the cape, and the way they come together to produce a passionate and turbulent image.
Notes on Process
I tried toning the canvas and doing the entire underpainting with Williamsburg Brown Pink, because I was interested in seeing if I could keep some of the underpainting in the final picture, and I decided to try to match the underpainting to the warm cape and the warm tones in the ground plane.
Drawing Transferred to Toned Canvas
Oil Sketch Underpainting
Once I got to the color layer, I had to figure out a limited palette that could get me the general effect of the painting. Because I am still in my grisaille year, this meant doing some trial and error, until I finally settled on seven colors (Williamsburg Brown Pink, Williamsburg Naples Yellow Italian, Williamsburg Italian Yellow Ochre, Winsor and Newton Cadmium Red, Winsor and Newton Raw Umber, Blue Ridge Ultramarine Blue, and Winsor and Newton Cremnitz White). The only place I used the cadmium red was on the cape lining, where it is used straight out of the tube.
Mastercopy after Eastman Johnson
The Girl I Left Behind Me
1872
The trickiest thing for me was finding a good base for a flesh tone that I could then make lighter or darker, warmer or cooler, to model the face and hands. After several tries mixing flesh using yellow ochre and various other colors, I had to add the Naples yellow to my palette, so I wouldn’t keep getting a weird, green skin tone. My final base mix was Naples yellow and brown pink.
As this was my first real painting, I probably can’t list all the other things I learned, but some of the challenges I faced included balancing transparency and opacity, making background elements recede, emphasizing specific edges, and adding staffage to the foreground.
About the Artist and the Image
Winslow Homer (1836-1910) .
The Fog Warning, one of a series Homer painted in Prout’s Neck, Maine, depicts a fisherman who, having succeeded at catching his halibut, must still make it back to the main ship on the horizon before the fog cuts off his view.
The two things I love about this painting are the feeling of the dory tipping into the trough of a wave and the interplay between the dark, threatening clouds and sea and the clear, light sky beyond.
Notes on Process
I toned the canvas with Williamsburg Brown Pink and then did the oil sketch using the brown pink plus Old Holland Burnt Umber. I was trying to establish some warmth that would come through both in the dark parts of the waves and in the sky.
Drawing Transferred to Toned Canvas
Oil Sketch Underpainting
Mastercopy after Winslow Homer
The Fog Warning
1885
One challenge of this piece was getting in details without sacrificing the elegance of the overall value pattern. Having just begun my grisaille year, it was also hard for me to figure out how to modulate color while sticking to the right value in the sea.