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 were issues, of course. I prefer lightweight devices these days but the XPS is on the beefy side, which means…
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 white, I decided to give it another chance. My preferred white, flake white, is orders of magnitude more expensive than…
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. location. The order contained two items that Kremer flagged with special handling requirements. One of the items is black oil…
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 Revolution. This current continued into the middle of the nineteenth century with Delacroix. Another important current used myth to launch…
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…
Sometimes I post my poetry here on my blog. I still have the painting mentioned in this poem, which is I am showing here. The Poet’s Wife The poet’s tiny wife suffered from the cold. I gave her my fiancé’s Chinese jacket, It fit her but could not obscure her homeliness— none of the owner’s…
In the past, I used enough Michael Harding paint to add it to my oil paint reference. My initial rating was “good.” Later, I tried their titanium white and was surprised to discover that it is the best titanium white I’ve ever used. I am not a fan of titanium white but the Harding unbleached…
I knew a writer who wanted to transition from the technical documents that he wrote to pay his bills to fiction. His vision inspired a whole universe; not one novel but a series. He spent what little free time he had as a single dad and technical writer working on his project. I admired his…