Month: December 2018

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 over thinly-applied paint. Why this distinction? Well, if you paint in layers, that is, if you paint over previously painted areas, you ignore this practice…

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 leisurely morning around the stout Christmas tree. The tree, besides being too wide, was too tall for the living room but we managed. That’s our…

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 found this morning is. At least 20 years old. At one time, Peal Paint and David Davis were art supplier royalty in NYC. I spent…

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 drying. Because it is slow drying, paint stays open longer. This means that thin layers remain workable longer than other solvent-thinned layers. This feature is…

Sunny December studio

Sunshine has been rare in NE Ohio. The sunlight lighting the studio is cheery and warming–and winter has barely started. Yes, I have five computers on my desk. I am using three of them to investigate Linux distributions–CentOS, Manjaro, and Ubantu. I spent the morning drawing, then applied an oil ground to a new canvas,…