RGH’s atelier series of refined painting oils is good stuff. I’ve used most of the pictured 4-oz jar and I’m very happy with the results. I just placed an order for a full pint. Good oil is critical for painting. RGH refines their oil by “historical methods.” I put that in scare quotes because one…
Sable brushes are the best. There’s no debate about this. Sure, there are some use cases where the benefits of sable are irrelevant. The fine control provided by sables is lost on large-format oil paintings, for example. So on large paintings, why go to the expense? And–oh boy!–sable brushes are expensive. I paid $60+ over…
I put the final toned ground on the linen-cotton blend canvas that I recently wrote about. The canvas is dry, indeed, it was dry the same day I applied the ground, but it still needs to cure for a few days. Dry to touch doesn’t mean really dry. When it’s done curing, I’ll sand it…
I spend a lot of time preparing canvases–stretching, priming, and grounding. The process works well for me but it’s time-consuming. I would gladly buy commercially-prepared canvas but my experience with it has been bad. In the past, I’ve paid premium prices for inferior products. The art supply market is filled with hucksters and amateurs. Knowing…
Rereading what I wrote about preparing a canvas, I realized that I didn’t emphasize the main goal enough. Yes, it’s important to protect the canvas, but the real goal is to make a great surface. The best surface is smooth. How smooth? If you’ve done lithography, then you know how wonderful litho stones are for…
Like the title says, I bought some manganese violet. Some artists maintain that they can reproduce every color by using a small collection of paints. While it’s true that you can create a tremendous variety of colors with a limited palette, it’s not true that you can reproduce every color that way. There are a…
My Utrecht easel has served me well. True, it’s held together with glue and clamps, but it still handles the large-size paintings that I make. One thing the easel lacks is a place to rest a palette, even a small one. I keep my normal palette on a mobile cabinet that I wheel around as…
Hobby Lobby, for those like me who hadn’t shopped there before, is a craft supermarket that also does a brisk business in frames and framing. They carry art supplies too–stretchers, acrylics, brushes, and oil paints. In Hobby Lobby’s case, they sell Winsor Newton paints along with their own brand, Master’s Touch. I have 2 tubes…