To some, my studio might look like a jumbled mess, but to me, it looks ordered and purposeful. I have three easels. I use the third one, the one not shown, for drawings. I expanded my palette from my habitual dozen colors to what you see now on my home-made palette. Just because I no longer count…
I worked on The Picnic and nothing else for the past few days. The Picnic has a painting surface that is difficult. This doesn’t happen often anymore but it’s annoying when it does happen. It slows everything down. Luckily, an intermediate varnish solved the problem and things are more to my liking and moving swiftly…
I use several products manufactured by James Groves. Jim specializes in historical painting mediums and ingredients. I’ve tried almost all of his products and they are unfailingly excellent–world class. I use his 19th Century Copal Oil varnish and Siccatif Courtrai every day. Both ingredients are staples in my practice. By itself, the copal varnish is too…
I made progress on Euclid Avenue I this morning. Progress on the 48″ x 60″ painting has been slow at times. This canvas is from a stock of ‘professional grade’ canvases I bought some time back. The surfaces on these ‘professional grade’ canvases are very poor–execrable. I’ve had to spend a lot of time correcting them and still the…
I have always liked Goya. During my printmaking period, Goya’s prints were constantly before my mind. The highlight of my visit to New York’s Metropolitan last year was a Goya painting. This fall I hoped to attend London’s National Gallery’s exhibit, Goya: The Portraits. Unfortunately, I was not able to join my daughter in England where she was studying, and, so, missed the exhibition…
Most of modern arts journalism is marketing. One infrequently encounters critical journalism these days. A recent article in Canadian journal The Walrus is pretty typical. The piece, A Portrait of the artist’s Studio, is about the photographer Joseph Hartman’s series of portraits of artists’–Canadian artists–studios. I was not familiar with any of the artists. The photos…
I had to laugh when I read this article in the Independent. The story is about the group calling themselves Renoir Sucks protesting in front of Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts. Renoir Sucks’ main tenant is, well, that Renoir sucks. The group maintains that they are tired of the ‘irredeemable treacle of Pierre-Auguste Renoir diluting the collection.’ They are…
My wife and I spent several hours in the Art Institute on Friday. We were in Chicago for an AFHU event at the Ritz-Carlton. It was our first visit to the museum and we didn’t attempt to see everything, which is impossible in one visit. Most of our time was spent with the European collections.…