White lake
Yesterday, Lake Erie exhibited the sluggishness that precedes freezing, and this morning we see the frozen tundra. The winds calmed but the wind chill is below zero. I am a…
Turpentine diaries 1/13/19
Booth at the Fair ( or At the Fair or The Fair) is 44″ x 60,” which makes it one of the larger canvases I’ve worked on recently. I am…
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…
Turpentine diaries 12/31/2018
Art is filled with aphorisms. Fat over lean, for instance, is a famous adage. The meaning for this old saw that is the most straightforward is to paint thickly-applied paint…
Christmas 2018
This was the first Christmas when our children didn’t wake at dawn. My youngest, home from his Freshman year at college, didn’t get up until lunchtime! So we had a…
Venice turpentine
David Davis was an art supply dealer in New York. He closed before the turn of the century–well before, so I have no idea how old this Venice turpentine I…
Spike
Oil of spike lavender fills the studio with its strong and fragrant aroma. Oil of spike is more powerful than the other common solvents–turpentine, and mineral spirits–but it’s also slower…
Turpentine diaries 12/16/2018
I finished Bench by the Lake in a short session yesterday. I hadn’t looked at the painting for months before yesterday’s session. It’s not unusual for a painting to be…