OK, so where are we now? The under-painting is done and the finishing work is started. To recap, my process is divided into several stages: Design/Drawing: I draw the deign with pencil then fix it with ink. The drawing is a plan: I work through every area and identify any issues. I can change the…
Category: Tips and Studies
Shop Talk, Tips and Studies, Uncategorized
Painting Mediums Revisited
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Someone asked why I fudged the proportion of varnish in my medium recipe. Varnishes differ widely from one another. Some are made with oil and some are made with thinner. Some start concentrated with the expectation that they will be thinned later, while others are already thinned to some desired consistency. Damar, which along with…
Shop Talk, Studio Corner, Tips and Studies, Uncategorized
Painting Mediums
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Painting mediums are a never-ending topic for discussion and debate among artists. Mediums profoundly affect how oil paint handles, and many preparations are complicated or dangerous, filled with ancient lore and alchemical processes. Oil by its nature is flowing and slow drying, qualities that during the early Renaissance led to the birth of large-format paintings…
Shop Talk, Tips and Studies, Uncategorized
Tip: Painting Flesh
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There is not a single best way to paint Caucasian flesh. Any orange-brown tone can serve as a base that can be made lighter and darker, and cooler and warmer as needed. As simple as this sounds, it’s maddeningly easy to misfire when painting portraits or figures. The eye scans portraits and notices false notes…
Shop Talk, Tips and Studies
Oil Paint Brands Update 6/30/2013
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This is my second update to the Oil Paint Brands post (a compendium of information about oil paint producers). Blue Ridge has proved to be a reliable producer and they have supplanted Windsor Newton as my day-to-day paint. Their paint is excellent and I had a bad experience with WN. Recently I bought two 200…
Shop Talk, Tips and Studies, Uncategorized
Lost Secrets of the Masters Part I
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We are in the midst of a surging revival of interest in historical painting methods. More is written on the topic each day. Many authors point to received experts (Eastlake and Doerner to name just two—my own threadbare copies are much-thumbed) and claim to have rediscovered or reinvented long-lost methods. The pursuit of the ‘lost…
Shop Talk, Tips and Studies
Tips for Using a Grid
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I frequently use a grid to enlarge designs for paintings. It’s my preferred method for transferring designs from one medium into another (except watercolors). What do I use to create a grid? Good question. The grid should be visible enough to see—doh!—and not easily rub away, but not so visible that it appears in the…
Shop Talk, Tips and Studies, Uncategorized
Transferring Designs to Canvas
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I routinely transfer designs as I rework subjects in various mediums. There are several standard methods for transferring designs to a target surface. One long-used method was to prepare a cartoon to the exact dimensions of the target wall or canvas. Once the design was fixed, it would be transferred by one of the following methods: Covering…