Glowing lights
I have several themes in mind for today’s post. One theme is about varnish–intermediate varnish. An intermediate varnish is used to seal the surface and prevent subsequent paint layers from…
Maulsticks
When my daughter was very young, with a very serious face she asked, “Daddy, why do you hold a big stick in your studio?” To a child, the most question-provoking…
Good flake white
Utrecht flak white continues to surprise me with its good performance. Considering its modest price, it’s a good value. I am using it throughout this painting titled The Fair. It…
Paint bigly
I am painting three new canvases that fit the bigly category. Big for me, is 4′ x 5′ or thereabouts. In the preceding weeks, I was drawing bigly too–working on…
Reusing a drawing
I started a small oil yesterday. I transferred the drawing, or cartoon, to the canvas as I had earlier to a sheet of watercolor paper. You can see from the…
Scale again
Yesterday, I wrote about how scale affects paint handling. A figure on a 6-inch canvas is painted differently than the same figure on a 6-foot canvas. Pretty straightforward but a…
Proper scale
Scale plays a big part in how I handle a painting. By scale I mean the size of the canvas. A single figure on a 6-foot canvas requires a different…
Why stop?
Sometimes when I draw, like in the oil sketch in the middle of this photo, I grab hold of things quickly and stop before the moment passes. Other times, I…