Maxfield Parrish : Color Techniques

Maxfield Parrish (1870-1966) was an American artist and designer. He was well known for the illustrations of fairies, gnomes and goblins in many children's books. He designed covers for Harper's Weekly and other popular magazines early in the twentieth century and he was the most popular advertising design artist of his time. He created paintings specifically for the color print market and reproductions of romantic scenes with lush colors sold well.

Parrish believed that the artist benefited when he used technology. He used photography in his studio and constructed his own 4x5 inch glass plate camera and developed the image in a positive form on another glass plate in his darkroom. He created a projector so he could project the image from his camera on a sheet of tracing paper. He would trace what he wanted from the photograph and transfer the image to a painting surface. He usually combined several photographs for one painting and never painted from live models.

The dramatic and highly colored paintings were the result of a complex glazing technique. He was fascinated by iridescent qualities of color and unusual effects of light. Later in his career he used glazes almost exclusively. He worked to create the effect of stained glass like the Tiffany designs that were popular at the time. It was a process that involved putting one color over another in a series of layers. The process created an intensely luminous canvas that is mostly lost in reproductions.

The glazing technique itself is a painting method of the old masters. Over a smooth white ground, several thin layers of transparent paint are applied. Each layer, because it is transparent, is visible through the subsequent layers. The underlying color is seen through the reflective qualities of the white behind it. The layers of paint build up and create subtle blend of luminous color. The effect is like many layers of colored glass laid one over the other.

The drawing was outlined in pencil on the white ground. The underpainting was usually a strong monochrome of ultramarine blue and designed to dominate the following layers and provide the shadows. Then he would build the transparent layers and use opaque pigments only for trees.

Parrish squeezed some oil pigment from the tube on a glass palette without mixing it because in its pure state pigment is most transparent. Then he added linseed oil to the pigment to make it more transparent and checked his mixture on the glass palette which was placed over a white background. He placed a very thin layer of the paint in small areas and press the pigment against the surface of the panel with a rag to flatten out completely and remove any trace of brushstrokes.

Between each layer of paint he applied an equally thin layer of varnish. The varnish kept the underlying layer from mixing with the following layer and added the gloss that increased the transparency and the brilliance of the original oil color which dulls on drying. The varnishing process was as difficult as glazing because it can only be applied after the layer of oil paint is absolutely dry and took about 2 weeks. It had to be done in a warm room to a warmed painting so that no hint of moisture clouded the color. The varnish then had to dry completely before he could go on to the next layer. When the varnish was dry, Parrish would roughen the varnished surface by rubbing lightly with pumice so the next layer of glaze would adhere to it well. Since so much time was required for the drying, Parrish often worked on nearly a dozen paintings at one time. He hurried the drying time by placing the canvases in the sun during the summer or heat lamps in the winter.

He used a stipple brush, like that used for stenciling to apply the thin layers of paint. The paint was pounced on the surface in areas that were uneven like dots so that the underlying surface was still partially visible. The effect is similar to that of an airbrush which Parrish did not use. There are soft graduations from light to dark or one color to the next in his paintings. Sometimes Parrish textured the glazes with course paper, wipe them with cheesecloth or clean edges with a knife to achieve the effects he sought.

Throughout his long life Parrish painted with attention to craftsmanship and design. The techniques and innovations that he used to create his work were tools to enable him to explore the luminous qualities of color. The resulting paintings contain an elegant beauty that is a feast to the eye.

Information from "America's Great Illustrators" by Susan E. Meyer, published by Galahad Books. It has chapters on Remington, Leyendecker, Flagg, Gibson, Christy, Pyle, Held Jr, Rockwell and Wyeth.