I wrote glowingly about the Utrecht easel that I purchased. I said that it was a great bargain–an under-$300 medium-duty easel. But soon a support broke and the mechanism to lower and raise the tray support was frustratingly difficult to use. My praise transformed to scorn. I repaired the broken support with glue and a…
I was in the studio at 6:00 AM to prepare my palette. I had to scrape-down the entire surface. Most mornings I take a pause to gather my thoughts before starting to paint, but yesterday I plunged right in. I couldn’t wait to pick up the brush. Things were going great when I put down…
Doak sells a linen-cotton blended canvas. A 10-yard roll is $440. It’s a good deal if it’s any good. Has anyone used Doak’s blended canvas? If so, can you share your evaluation? Doak sent me the sample that you see in this photo. The ground on it seems OK, but when I talked to him…
I was marveling about how good the sun-thickened oil is that I got from Robert Doak. Like everything I’ve ever purchased from him, the quality is excellent. I’m not out of the sun-thickened oil yet but I only have a half-bottle left. I hate to run out of supplies and I tend to stockpile them,…
…but it’s all wrong… So the song goes. This is a painting that I turned to the wall for a long time as I tried to work out what was bothering me about it. I do this frequently when I hit a wall. I put the painting aside and think about it. Sometimes solutions come…
I planned on starting a podcast for a long time and today I finally got around to doing it. In the initial Turpentine diaries podcast, I talk about recovering a painting that failed, materially failed, as well as other art-related things. The podcast is about 14 minutes long. I understand that a successful podcast requires…
Regardless of where you are in your career, you will do well to establish a baseline for your oil-painting toolkit. The baseline provides a powerful framework that you can use to analyze materials and techniques. At some point in your journey, you begin to question the received wisdom that guided you at the outset. This…
I finished these three paintings today. Yeah, that’s a lot for me. But all of them have been ‘almost’ done for some time. Paintings can represent problems to solve and after I solve them, if that doesn’t finish the painting, I set the painting aside. Either the solution didn’t solve the painting, or other paintings…