How to save your brushes
Many oil painters keep their brushes upside down in turpentine or thinner. This practice is horrible; it's the worst thing you can do to your brushes. In defense of painters who do this, I used…
Category: Uncategorized
Rublev Sun-thickened oil
Rublev's new version of sun-thickened oil is much improved from its earlier offering and is good oil. This is far different from my conclusion of their first attempt at this product. Sun-thickened oil's consistency should…
Palettes everywhere
The hand clamps I use for carpentry are versatile. Here, I've used one to attach a palette to my easel. My big palette, the one that spills over my paint cabinet, is movable but when…
RIP faithful laptop
My 10-year-old Dell XPS laptop finally died. With its core i7, it was pretty hot back in 2013. I replaced its Windows OS with Linux some years ago and it was still performing acceptably. There…
Titanium white sucks
I take back all the nice things I said about titanium white. I was never a fan of titanium white but after trying some of Michael Hading's versions of the color, warm white and unbleached…
What happened to Kremer pigments?
The Germany-based art supplier Kremer was the best source for hard-to-find items not long ago. Now? It's impossible to complete orders online, not difficult--impossible. I recently attempted to place an online order with Kremer's U.S.…
Death of history painting
At the end of the eighteenth century, art flowed along several currents. History painting, the primary current, was in its heyday and remained the undisputed champion until 'history' intruded into contemporary events with the French…
Transparent earth colors
Oil paint can be profitably judged for either its covering strength or transparency. This comports with some well known bits of studio wisdom: "fat over lean," and "thick lights, thin darks." Covering colors, often called…