Articles & Texticles

This is post #11 in this mini series of snow scenes.

In terms of technique, it’s the most demanding of all so far in this series. Although it’s only 10 by 13 inches ( or 25 by 33 cm ) it was made difficult by 2 factors. First, when the air temperature is close to freezing, it gets more and more difficult to lay a wash of colour, especially when painting wet - into - wet, as here. (I’ve had to substitute petrol for water in these circumstances, with success.) Secondly, according to Russell Flint’s own account (see below), he was slipping and sliding all over the place on his own pair of skis, so it was hard to stay upright and keep a steady hand on the brush.

The Skier, Switzerland About 1927. Watercolour.
(Please click the small picture to enlarge it)

Despite all these obstacles, Russell Flint has created a dynamic composition using a very limited palette. Hats off!
The (auction) catalogue notes continue after the fold >>

‘”Five feet of wondrous powder snow and myself, a very poor skier, with painting kit on back, going quite mad and swishing down vast white slopes and falling again and again. If the sun was shining and there was no wind painting in watercolour is quite feasible. I worked on skis but had to be careful to beat a level platform in the snow on which to stand. As I shuffled my skis the snow turned to ice and if it was not truly level I would find myself sliding backwards or forwards and plunging into deep snow out of which it was difficult to climb. But I always held on to my paint box and brushes!”‘ (Arnold Palmer, More Than Shadows; A Biography of W. Russell Flint R.A., P.R.W.S., 1943, p.40)

The model for this watercolour was almost certainly a friend named Margaret Brown, painted by Flint on practice slopes of Flims in the Engadine. She also posed for Winter Sport painted in 1927 in which Flint based all of the five figures upon her, much to the confusion of Brown’s brother who, after seeing the picture in her house, pointed to one of the figures: ”That’s you.’ ‘Yes,’ she replied, ‘that’s me. They’re all me.’ ‘Don’t be a fool,’ he retorted, ‘how could they be?’

- Via Sotheby’s