Turpentine diaries 10/7/18
Small paintings (this painting is 30" x 40") always take longer than I expect. Starting, I intend to keep it simple, but I'm always discovering more things to explore or problems to solve. I'm only…
Category: materials
Turpentine diaries 9/16/18
Keep Talking is scudding along; still unfinished, obviously, but it's moving closer. In this photo, Keep Talking, which is 36" x 48", shares the easel with a canvas I recently prepared. You can see the…
Turpentine diaries 8/26/18
I am happy with my painting medium, as I've written before, but I also like to kick the tires of new offerings. I wrote about my use of Grove's Cole's medium several times, noting how…
Turpentine diaries 8/19/18
For today's session with Lunch Alone, in addition to my usual medium, I used 'flavored' turpentine for my solvent: turpentine with some homemade drying oil, plus drops of Courtrai siccative. Readers of my blog know…
Turpentine diaries 8/18/18
I am keeping everything simple and direct with The Woman in the Red Pants. Overworking can be death to a painting. On the other hand, I have a horror of the blast, fire, shoot, throw,…
Finished? Not finished? Finished? Not finished?
Many artists have trouble determining when a painting is finished. It can be excruciatingly painful to let a painting go, especially after you worked on it for a long time. If like me, you focus…
Turpentine diaries 7/22/18
I used my homemade drying oil in recent sessions with Down on Prospect Avenue. I substitute the oil for black oil in my medium recipe. Large paintings (Down on Prospect Avenue is 44" x 60")…
Homemade drying oil
The crude container that I made with a lead sheet contains 16 oz. of cold-pressed walnut oil. I'll leave the oil in the container for several months before straining it into a jar, like the…