Customizing my easel
I was forced to customize–that is, fix–my easel when its wheels broke. A heavy-duty easel without wheels is next to useless. Now I am glad the easel broke because my…
Winsor Newton supplants RGH as my preferred mid-range paint
Winsor Newton has become my choice for mid-range oil paint, supplanting RGH. While not Old Holland, W & N’s quality is consistently high, and I prefer some of their colors over…
What is mineral spirits
What is mineral spirits and how is it used in oil painting? Mineral spirits, or white spirits, is a petroleum-derived solvent. It is distilled from crude oil, and is related to kerosene. Mineral…
In the studio 3/13/16
I’ve been working on paintings that take a lot of time recently, such as the lower one in this photo. The drawing in the bottom painting was done with pencil…
Pastels on canvas
These two recent pastel drawings are on canvas. Primed canvas is an unusual support for pastels or charcoal because it’s not absorbent enough. Pastel chalk falls off too easily. I…
Turpentine diaries 12/31/17
One day in the park at Playhouse Square, I saw a young lady sitting alone and eating her lunch. As usual, I was taking photos and I wanted to take…
Turpentine diaries 1/6/2019
This morning I finished the first painting of 2019, Along 4th Street. Today’s session was the 14th with this painting, which is par for a painting of this size, 40″x…
Retouch varnish
When you work on an oil painting over an extended period, colors sometimes become dull. The upper paint layers merge with an earlier layers. This process is called sinking in.…