The first day painting on a new design is always exiting. True, paintings almost never live up to the vision in my mind’s eye, but I start every new painting with the same anticipation. I can’t wait to get started! This photo shows The Green Umbrella after a four-hour painting session. There’s a long way…
In recent days I’ve spent time preparing new paintings, that is, drawing and finishing designs. However, I did spend some time actually painting. I had several sessions with my most recent painting, Lens. Most objects come alive under the brush by using the complement of its primary color in the half-tones–the areas between the higher…
I talk about the history of the French Academy of Fine Art and defend it from charges of kitsch. Artists mentioned: David, Manet, Courbet, Watteau, and Fragonard among others.
After several days of drawing, I spent the last 5-6 days working on The Lens (unfinished painting on the easel). I started with the over-painting today before running out of gas. My main palette, the rectangular one on the white cart, contains my colors and mixtures: cool and warm grays, and values of burnt sienna.…
Today I had several more sessions on Directions. I posted a video of me working on some of the small, background figures.
In this oil painting session video, I work on a large painting (40″ x 50″) titled ‘Directions.’ The painting has a lot of variable-sized figures.
I can’t imagine why anyone would want to watch me paint but–believe it or not–I get asked to do session videos with some frequency. So I taped some of my session with Directions. Directions is my newest painting and it’s still raw but, hopefully, viewers will find the video useful. I’ll post the video as…
I pick up last episode’s discussion about Clement Greenberg and the avant-garde and kitsch, and talk about academic art. Artists mentioned: Gerome, David, Bouguereau, Ingres, and Thomas Couture.
As much as I whine and moan about this or that, I’m not the hot-house plant that I may appear. And sometimes my paintings go well! (Although, I won’t say that too loudly or I’ll jinx it, amirite?) Troopers, after 8-9 sessions is basically painting itself. I could close my eyes and just pitch in…
In this podcast, I look at Clement Greenberg’s influential article from 1939, ‘Avant-Garde and Kitsch.’
Link to the review on Turpentine diaries YouTube page. Last week I finally got off my behind and started podcasting, and this week I’ve produced my first video. In this video I look at two oils from Rublev: Sun-thickened Linseed Oil, and Sun-bleached Linseed Oil. Rublev produces a lot of art materials, some good, and…
I had 2 more sessions with Troopers. That’s 7 sessions. Am I half-way through (12 sessions is par for me for paintings of this size)? I think so, yeah. I used some of my homemade drying oil in today’s session. I recorded a video review of Rublev’s sun-thickened oil in which I compared it to…