Good flake white
Utrecht flak white continues to surprise me with its good performance. Considering its modest price, it’s a good value. I am using it throughout this painting titled The Fair. It covers well and handles crisply. When thinned it retains strong covering strength. An excellent flake white. I ordered another tube this morning. I’ve just started
Paint bigly
I am painting three new canvases that fit the bigly category. Big for me, is 4′ x 5′ or thereabouts. In the preceding weeks, I was drawing bigly too–working on the drawings for the new work. Here is a studio shot of the three biglies. Two of them are 4′ x 5′ and the other
Grove’s heat-polymerized oil
It’s true that I’ve used the same medium for several years. That doesn’t stop me from trying new materials–far from it! My invariable practice provides a baseline to which I can compare the new materials as they come into my hands. I can quickly determine if a new varnish or whatnot makes it into my
RGH Atelier Series oil
I bought a small 4 oz-bottle of RGH’s Atelier Series of refined linseed to oil to test. According to RGH’s website, the Atelier Series is “…clarified, hand-washed, cold pressed linseed and walnut oils. No heat, chemicals, or bleaches have been used. We have used historical methods for washing these oils. … The end result are
Reusing a drawing
I started a small oil yesterday. I transferred the drawing, or cartoon, to the canvas as I had earlier to a sheet of watercolor paper. You can see from the photo that both formats are of the same size. The watercolor paper is pretty good. I might finish it with watercolors, gauche, or a mixture
Recent paint buy
I refreshed my paint stock last week. Instead of buying from Blue Ridge or RGH as I have been, I bought these oils from Blick. I like RGH but their tubes–the physical tubes–are the worst I’ve ever tried to use. As for Blue Ridge, I noticed that their flake white is less covering that Utrecht’s.
Proper scale
Scale plays a big part in how I handle a painting. By scale I mean the size of the canvas. A single figure on a 6-foot canvas requires a different treatment than the same figure would on a 6-inch canvas. I didn’t understand that early in my career, but as I worked on paintings up
Alchemist’s alchemy
WHAT WAS THE SECRET OF THE OLD MASTERS? THE ALCHEMISTS KNEW…AND SO SHALL YOU! That bold claim was printed on the (hilarious) instruction sheet tied to the products sold by the Alchemist. The Alchemist no longer uses that hokey marketing gimmick directly, but that message still pervades their website. Claims to possess the secrets of