Along with Winsor Newton, Blue Ridge and RGH oils get a lot of use on my palette. The categories I use to rate manufacturers in my oil paint brand reference–low-end, mid-range, and high-end–are based on price and quality. While there is a lot of churn in the low-end category, most brands are student-grade and…
Have you read many turpentine reviews lately? How about ever? I use turpentine every day in my oil painting. Winsor Newton is a pretty reliable manufacturer. Their oil paint, while not the best, is very good and it’s reasonably priced. Their English Distilled turpentine is my usual choice. It handles well in my medium and performs…
I am a voracious reader. Since I got acclimated to my Kindle (actually the Kindle app on my iPad mini), I think I am reading more than ever, which I didn’t think possible. Add my Audible app to the mix and my day is spent reading (or listening) to books from can’t see to can’t…
I listened to the two books in the Heorot series, The Legacy of Heorot, and Beowulf’s Children on my Audible app. The books were written by the team of Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle, and Steve Barnes. The first book was written in 1987, the second in 1995. Although I go through periods when I read…
I bought some cerulean blue from Charvin. Actually, Charvin doesn’t produce a true cerulean blue but something they call ‘cerulean blue hue.’ Charvin produces two lines of paints: Fine, and Extra Fine. This review is about the ‘Fine’ line. I don’t know what Charvin thinks cerulean blue is, but their cerulean blue hue is nothing like…
For an artist, Nightcrawler is a fascinating movie. Nightcrawler, released in 2014 and starring Jake Gyllenhaal, is about a bottom feeder, Lou Bloom (Gyllenhaal), who discovers the world of crime scene photo-journalism. Bloom, armed with an internet account and google, is an autodidact who envisions himself an entrepreneur. As the movie opens, Bloom uses his…
Steven Pressfield’s the War of Art: Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles offers pop psychology advice to struggling writers and artists. Pressfield is most known for his novel and film The Legend of Bagger Vance. Before reading this book on my Kindle, I’d read nothing by the author. Mimicking Sun Tzu’s classic The…
Excellent article about the sate of the modern art museum.
The author, Jerry Saltz, hits many of the points I’ve written about. Of course, it doesn’t take special insight to notice the immense changes taking place in the modern museum. Museums are becoming fun-house extravaganzas filled with events designed to attract the young. Whatever is taking place, vast changes are underway. Read the article yourself.