This is the first time I’ve shown this painting, titled Three Girls. Today’s painting session was the fourth. The underpainting is finished and this morning I started the over-painting. The stretcher is 40″ x 50″ and old; it’s not heavy duty, it’s like the thinner ones you see on smaller paintings. But waste not, want…
I use burnt sienna as the basis of my flesh tones, so I use a lot of burnt sienna. My favorite brand for this color is Natural Pigments’ French Burnt Sienna. Some burnt siennas are too red, like Winsor Newton’s. Old Holland’s is excellent–both light and dark. But Natural Pigments’ is just right: not too red, not too dark–just right.
I didn’t get much painting done today but I did work on Heated Museum Discussion. I wiped the entire surface with denatured alcohol before stating and the paint went on like butter. I spent most of the day getting my boat, the Betty Jane, ready for winter. This is an annual event I don’t relish.…
I worked on this small painting this morning. I am still working on the underpainting but it’s far enough along to show. I used to be phobic about people commenting on unfinished work. I used to hate–I mean hate–it when people visited my studio unannounced. They would inevitably comment about the unfinished work piled everywhere. Even…
Crap, somehow I managed to do it again. Without noticing, I dragged by shirt sleeve through the cadmium red on the palette. The red oil paint got all over my shirt and arms before I noticed. Luckily, I didn’t get any in my mouth. No matter how hard I try, this happens with distressing regularity. Whenever it happens, my wife scolds me like I’m eight-years old. Sigh, another piece of clothing relegated–like half of the clothes in my closet–to the ‘cannot wear outside the studio’ category.
I will remind her of the time she sat too close to the palette and dragged her long auburn hair through every color, and painted several pieces of furniture with her hair-brush before we realized it.
I had a good drawing session on the painting titled The Photographer this morning. This painting of a single figure is 32″ x 48.” I think one more session will be enough. When I mentioned this painting the other day, I didn’t show it, and I won’t show it here. I don’t think you can get much from a drawing on a toned canvas (warm gray). I showed the drawing stage for the series I did about making The Call, but that was a special case.
I had several sessions with this painting, Dinner in Trenton, over the past few days. It was the first opportunity to use my new Terkell flats; first-rate brushes–and affordability priced. How many more sessions? Hard to say. Working on a large painting (Dinner in Trenton is 42″ x 56″) is a series of calculations. It’s easy to make…
Poussin is something of an acquired taste–an artist’s artist. Cezanne adored him, characterizing his own art as ‘making Impressionism something solid, like Poussin.’ Poussin has a very great artistic imagination and easily holds his own with other gifted designers, such as Rubens and David. In addition, and almost unique in the history of art, he…