Fat over lean
So you’ve embraced the two related studio aphorisms I discussed in this recent post: fat over lean, and make the lights thick but keep the darks thin. In practical terms…
Those who live in glass houses…
…or use glass palettes. I get a lot of questions about my homemade palette. I’ve been using this palette for several years and by now it’s pretty beat-up. In fact,…
Mixing paint on the palette
I never use a palette knife on my palette. To mix a tone, I plunge my brush into the paints and use the brush to mix what I need. For…
Turpentine diaries 2/4/26 drawing
What have I been up to lately? Drawing. I’ve spent the last three days drawing. The shift from painting started when I began preparing drawings for a large (5′ x…
Bad Blockx
Here’s a tube of Blockx that’s gone bad. Phtalo green is so strong it overpowers other colors so I don’t use it often, but even so this tube should still be…
Turpentine diaries 7/23/17
Break is finally done. I struggled with the surface from the beginning which resulted in more sessions than usual. I won’t bore you with the details; the surface isn’t awful–it’s…
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…
Purge
Winter time; bitter, bitter cold. More snow this morning. I’ve written before about the benefits of working on a lot of paintings simultaneously. Working this way allows paint layers to dry…