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 ‘body’ colors, hide everything beneath them. Transparent colors modify what is beneath them while leaving them visible. In watercolors, transparent…
Bio, Uncategorized, writing
Poem: The Poet’s Wife
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•materials, Reviews, Uncategorized
Review: Michael Harding oil paint
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•Grumpy review, materials, Reviews
Review: Van Gogh oil paints
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•When I started my oil paint brand reference, I excluded ‘student grade’ brands. The distinction between student grade and other brands was based on price. Everyone understands that you get what you pay for but art supplies is one product area where the old adage is not reliable. Art supply manufacturers include some of the…
aesthetics, anecdotes, Bio, Uncategorized
Castles in the air
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•current affairs, Politics, Uncategorized, war
They lost Jeffrey Sachs
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•Six months ago I would have described Jeffrey Sachs, the Director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University, as the consummate insider. For the past 30 years Sachs has taken leadership roles in economic and public health issues with Africa as a special focus. After the adoption of his Millennium Village goals in 2000, he…
Amusement Park series, materials, Shop Talk, Uncategorized
Winner!
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•The first painting in my Amusement Park Series, Winner!, is moving along. I finished the underpainting and moved onto the overpainting, as you can see in this photo of the canvas. Yesterday, I strecthed a 40″ x 54″ canvas for another painting intended for the series. I also prepared the stretchers and cut canvas for…
materials, Shop Talk, Uncategorized
The problem with blended commercial oil paint
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•The ideal palette consists entirely of single-pigment colors. Such an ideal palette provides artists with total control over values and tones. This is especially important for artists, like me, who use lead white. These days, even high-end brands use titanium white in their multi-pigment colors. Old Holland, for example, uses a blend of titanium white,…
Amusement Park series, Art history, Drawings, materials, Paintings, Photography, Shop Talk
Amusement park series
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•I visited Lake Erie’s preeminent amusement park, Cedar Point, five times this summer. I am using the thousands of photos that I took from these visits as reference material for my new series–Amusement Parks. I have 10 finished designs and I’ve started the drawings on several canvases. Yesterday, I finished the drawing for the first…
Bio, current affairs, Politics, Uncategorized, war
So, war it is
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•Books, Fiction, Grumpy review, Reviews, Uncategorized
Book review: Ink Black Heart
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•I recently listened to the audio version of the detective novel The Ink Black Heart by Robert Galbraith. Galbraith is the pen name used by J.K. Rowling of Harry Potter fame. This novel is the 6th and latest in this series for adults. In these novels, Galbraith chronicles the adventures of Cormoran Strike’s London-based detective…
Books, Cleveland, Grumpy review, Reviews, Uncategorized
Book review: Ill Will
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•Art history, Art Museums, Artists, Cleveland, Paintings, video
Next YouTube video, Jacob van Ruisdael
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•I enjoyed preparing my last video so much, I am charged-up to do another. In my last video about Jan van Goyen, I mentioned his fellow Dutch Golden Ager, van Ruisdael. I’ve got a lot of material about this artist so I’ve already started the next video. One benefit of visiting art museums regularity is…
Art history, Artists, Cleveland, YouTube
New YouTube video about Jan van Goyen and the Dutch Golden Age
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•anecdotes, Art history, Bio, materials, Uncategorized
Reader gift
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•For me, visiting the Utrecht store on 3rd Ave. in Manhattan was like going to Disneyland. An entire store dedicated to art supplies! Utrecht along with Pearl and other independent icons like David Davis made New York City a mecca for working artists. Those days are gone. Pearl closed and when Utrecht’s founders, Harold and…