James McNeill Whistler was an influential artist of the nineteenth century and a famous and colorful personality of his times. He painted many unique and memorable works besides the familiar portrait of his mother.

Whistler developed his own painting techniques over the years and late in his life taught others his methods and philosophy.

Although an American by birth, Whistler lived much of his life in England and it was there that he had his studio. "I do not teach Art, with that I cannot interfere: but I teach the scientific application of paint and brushes." he told his students.

Learn More about Whistler :

The Princess and the Peacocks

Caprice in Purple and Gold

"As music is the poetry of sound, so is painting the poetry of sight and the subject-matter has nothing to do with harmony of sound or of color."

- Whistler

Whistler often used a Japanese inspired butterfly design as a personal signature

As a teacher, Whistler insisted that it was as important to train the eye as it was to train the hand.. The student should know exactly how an effect was produced. "Distrust everything you have done without understanding it." he said. "It is not sufficient to have achieved a fine piece of painting. You must know how you did it. Find out and remember which of the colors you most employed , how you managed the turning of the shadow into the light, and if you do not remember, scrape out your work and do it all over again."

Whistler had a large oblong board about two by three feet that he used as a palette. It had his signature butterfly design inlaid in one corner. Around the edges fitted sunken boxes fror brushes and tubes. The oversized palette was laid on a stand with tiny drawers on which it fitted, and could be tilted if necessary.

The palette was an important aspect of Whistler's painting method. He told one student that the "palette is the instrument on which the painter plays his harmony, it must be kept in condition worthy of his music." The colors had to be placed in a scientific and harmonious arrangement.

At the top of the palette the pure colors were placed, though more frequntly there were no pure colors at all. The artist mixed large quantities of the different tones that he intended to use in the painting and arranged them in a systematic way on the palette. A generous quantity of white was placed at the top center of the palette. Then, to the left came in succession: yellow ochre, raw Sienna, raw umber, cobalt and mineral blue (cobalt) while to the right: vermilion, Venetian red, Indian red and black.

If the tones of color on his palette were right, and he wished to keep them until the next day, he would store them in saucers under water to keep them from drying out. When teaching, he would often inspect the students' palette colors and arrangement and never glance at the canvas in progress.

The series of tone painting series that Whistler called 'Nocturns' were more experimental than the portraits. The Nocturns were painted on absorbent canvas, or sometimes on panels or bare brown Holland canvas, sized.

For blue Nocturnes, the canvas was covered with a red ground, or the panel was of mahogany, (which the assistants got from their own boat building yard). The dark red background forced the blues laid on it to come out. Others were done on practically a warm black or a a gray background but very rarely was the ground white.

The ground (background underpainting) for the Nocturns, like the paper for his pastels, was chosen of the prevailing tone of the picture he wanted to paint or a color which would give him that tone. This was not to save work, but to save disturbing, or "embarassing," his canvas as he expressed it.

Whistler mixed his paint with a medium composed of copal, mastic and turpentine. Often he used so much medium that he called it "sauce". He might begin a painting on the easel but frequently he used so much medium with his paint that the canvas had to be put plat on the floor to keep the painting from draining off. He washed the liquid colors on the canvas, lightening and darkening the tone as he worked. In many Nocturnes, the entire sky and water were painted with great sweeps of the brush of exactly the right tone. Many times he would wipe out what he painted and then paint again. When it was right, there it stayed.

Some of the Nocturnes were set out along the garden wall to bake in the sun while others were laid aside to dry slowly in the studio. Sometimes they dried leaving body color to come through in interesting ways.

Whistler never stopped experimenting with color tones, mediums and underpaintings. The subtle color harmony of his paintings developed from years of working purposefully with paint and medium.