Sable brushes
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,…
Category: materials
Almost ready
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…
Commercial canvas
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…
Smooth is best
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.…
I bought manganese violet
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…
Ragged easel
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…
Review: Master’s Touch
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.…
New palette
Christmas was wonderful again this year. One of my gifts was a new palette. My homemade one is decrepit, as you can see in this photo. I prepared the new palette--a glass-covered reproduction--by removing the…