It’s raw and cold for a May day in NE Ohio. It feels more like March than May–rainy, gray, and windy.
A woman asked me why I don’t spend more time teaching art on my website. Seeing my puzzlement, she added, “You write about technical subjects related to painting, but you don’t provide instruction on how to paint and draw.” Ah, OK.
I don’t provide drawing lessons or lessons about how to paint happy trees with my mighty brush. I won’t say never, but I’m not likely to start providing video instructions anytime soon. That stuff takes time. Teaching is difficult.
My father was a notoriously impatient man, and I resented it when I was growing up. The first time I drove was when he threw the keys to a dump truck to me and told me to go home and get supplies we needed. I was 15. I had never driven. I didn’t have a license. He showed me how to work the gears and told me to figure out the rest. I drove home and got the supplies then brought them back to the job site, the dump truck jerking and stalling each time I shifted gears. I’m more like him than I like to admit.
Anyway.
I had my first disappointment with Blue Ridge Oils. My last order included a tube of cadmium yellow medium. You can see it on the palette in the photograph–3rd yellow from the top. It’s lighter than the color above it, Naples yellow. I arrange my colors by color then value. Normally, Naples yellow is lighter than cad. medium, which, as you can see, is not the case with this tube. The paint is obviously mislabeled. The tube’s label says medium, but it’s cadmium yellow light.
I don’t mind too much. It’s good paint even if it’s not what I ordered. I have plenty of cadmium yellow light on hand but I am running low on cad. medium.