tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-308641432011-04-21T19:35:42.345-04:00Making and thinking about visual artDavidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04559059862394708950noreply@blogger.comBlogger1261100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30864143.post-1165173464140039892006-12-03T14:12:00.000-05:002006-12-07T23:17:24.083-05:00

I've moved this weblog to a new site. All of the old posts and comments have been imported to the new version of the weblog, so there is no need for you to come back here. The new site is fully indexed, so it will be a lot easier to find what you are looking for. This will be my last post on the Blogger version of All the Strange Hours.Click here to go to the new site.Please take a moment to

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04559059862394708950noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30864143.post-1164856307286586722006-11-29T22:10:00.000-05:002006-11-29T22:11:47.296-05:00

When I'm painting, I wear a painting shirt that's got lots of paint on it. I often just wipe my brush on the shirt rather than using a rag—after all, the shirt is very conveniently located for wiping while painting. That works great, except when I start painting without remembering to change into my painting shirt...

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04559059862394708950noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30864143.post-1164546914469870292006-11-26T08:10:00.000-05:002006-12-01T11:42:30.336-05:00

Another quote from Ted Seth Jacobs.Geometric and Organic Shapes. There is a radical difference between shapes of things made by nature and those manufactured by man. Although nature is capable of producing some startlingly geometric forms, most living creatures, and especially we humans, are irregularly shaped. Our shapes are adapted to carry out specific functions. Unfortunately, many books

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04559059862394708950noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30864143.post-1164481232207437112006-11-25T13:56:00.000-05:002006-11-25T14:00:32.216-05:00

Here's a great page of studies by the great American illustrator J. C. Leyendecker (you know, the guy who invented the modern image of Santa Claus), showing how he developed his compositions.H/T: Charley Parker.

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04559059862394708950noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30864143.post-1164478889783814892006-11-25T13:05:00.000-05:002006-11-25T14:28:40.660-05:00

"Light for the Artist," by Ted Seth Jacobs, is out of print. I strongly recommend that any artist who wants to work in a realist mode, rather than one that is symbolic or abstract, attempt to find a copy. There is no other book like it. I can find something worth quoting on almost every page, so I will do so from time to time.A Word About Half-Tones. If we consider that light travels in beams, it

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04559059862394708950noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30864143.post-1164241545094695542006-11-22T19:24:00.000-05:002006-11-22T19:26:00.230-05:00

has a lot to say about oil painting. He has a basic guide to painting, a lot of info on working with traditional oil painting materials, and a gallery of his own work.Check out his site.

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04559059862394708950noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30864143.post-1164239780748801762006-11-22T18:47:00.000-05:002006-11-25T10:10:19.136-05:00

I've been working on this one for a couple of weeks. I don't think it's quite successful, for two reasons. First, in the leaves I kind of got too stuck on fiddly details before I established the large masses, and that affects their dimensionality, especially on the left one. Second, the composition deviates from the still life convention of basically depicting some objects in a box, looking at

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04559059862394708950noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30864143.post-1164230137327452252006-11-22T16:05:00.000-05:002006-11-22T16:17:02.176-05:00

The zone is the place where you just draw, just paint, and all of your conscious thoughts are focused on making the art happen. The zone can be a hard place to get to, because thoughts continuously intrude. I worry about how other people will perceive the work instead of how to make it right. That's especially the case when I'm in an art class or figure drawing session, where it's easy to start

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04559059862394708950noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30864143.post-1163782393048675562006-11-22T15:34:00.000-05:002006-11-22T15:56:41.900-05:00

I'm just beginning to understand the use of edge control in painting. Edges are important in part because they are such an important part of the brain's visual processing system. You have cells in your optic nerve that do nothing but respond when they detect a sharp transition from one tone to another. Without sophisticated edge processing algorithms built into your visual cortex, the world would

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04559059862394708950noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30864143.post-1163706926241985222006-11-16T14:53:00.000-05:002006-11-16T14:55:26.243-05:00

This is a photo of a hilltop in County Connemara, Ireland.

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04559059862394708950noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30864143.post-1163703293563405402006-11-16T13:44:00.000-05:002006-11-16T14:52:27.623-05:00

is usually a convenience mixture of a black and one or two other colors that creates a cool dark grey. I don't find paints like that useful, because I can so easily mix them myself. On one or two occasions, I've encountered someone in an online art forum who avoids black because it is a "dead color," but uses Payne's grey. How is that different from having black on your palette?Another good one

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04559059862394708950noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30864143.post-1163528700518618622006-11-14T13:06:00.000-05:002006-11-14T23:04:43.003-05:00

"Tempera isn't hard. It's just slow."—George TookerI've been playing a bit more with egg tempera lately, and remembering why I like it so much. I can understand why tempera went largely out of fashion in the 16th century: oil paint has a greater value range (because oil darks are darker than tempera darks), so much can be done with blending in oil, and oil paint is perhaps more resistant to

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04559059862394708950noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30864143.post-1163047708320284312006-11-08T23:45:00.000-05:002006-11-09T09:20:14.546-05:00

In the excellent Giotto to Dürer: Early Renaissance Painting in the National Gallery, there is a description of the painting technique Leonardo used for most of his later work, including the Mona Lisa. This technique, which he called sfumato ("smoke-like"), creates a sense of three-dimensional light and shade that is different from that of his contemporaries.I have seen references that said that

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04559059862394708950noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30864143.post-1163044621086508402006-11-08T22:50:00.000-05:002006-11-08T22:59:36.846-05:00

Once piece of oil painting conventional wisdom goes along the lines of "find a brush size you are comfortable with, then get a larger brush and use that." The idea is that larger brushes help you to paint in large abstract masses rather than getting stuck on fiddly little details.For my part, I tried using larger brushes than I felt comfortable with for some time. I felt like I was trying to

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04559059862394708950noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30864143.post-1162922567921589802006-11-07T12:54:00.000-05:002006-11-14T22:45:55.796-05:00

is a type of paint made by mixing pigment with egg yolk.* This week I've been working on an egg tempera study (several figures copied from paintings by Fra Angelico), to use as a demo piece for the Renaissance painting workshop I'm doing at Wetcanvas and for an egg tempera class my wife and I will be teaching at a Society for Creative Anachronism event this Saturday.I hadn't done much tempera in

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04559059862394708950noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30864143.post-1162405785786799932006-11-01T13:15:00.000-05:002006-11-01T13:30:40.546-05:00

in my last post. I was grousing about artists who use high chroma colors indiscriminately. So I thought I'd provide an example of a good painting with lots of intense color.This is the Doni Tondo by Michelangelo. Notice the bright colors in the drapery, which dominate the painting. Yet Michelangelo has carefully provided rests of dark dull colors and lighter tints. He uses chroma brilliantly.So I

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04559059862394708950noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30864143.post-1161638112351508442006-10-31T10:46:00.000-05:002006-11-26T08:07:26.820-05:00

This is the third post on mixing color. The first was about value and the second was about hue. Now it's time to talk about chroma.Identifying chromaAs with value and hue, the best way to identify chroma is in terms of relationships. How intense is the color you're looking at compared with the intensity of other colors around it? Chroma can be hard to separate out from value; light colors

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04559059862394708950noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30864143.post-1161725535583660152006-10-24T13:32:00.000-04:002006-10-25T16:38:36.103-04:00

was credited by the 16th century artist and biographer Vassari as the inventor of oil painting. That's not the case, but in the early 15th century he was one of the pioneers of the modern use of oil painting as a primary painting medium.Apparently, he had a sense of humor. This painting, which may be a self-portrait, was made with a frame carved as part of the panel. At the bottom, it's inscribed

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04559059862394708950noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30864143.post-1161702895965154492006-10-24T11:02:00.000-04:002006-10-25T16:31:54.936-04:00

Since the Summer, Kiri and I haven't been able to attend figure drawing and painting classes at the New England Realist Art Center. She got too pregnant, then she had Brendan, who does make things more difficult.We have been attending sessions on Monday nights of the Worcester figure drawing group at Worcester State College (actually, we've been alternating weeks while the other one watches the

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04559059862394708950noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30864143.post-1154789382480617852006-10-20T13:30:00.000-04:002006-10-23T17:13:03.436-04:00

Over time, all paintings deteriorate. Badly made paintings deteriorate quickly, sometimes within a year or two of completion. A painting made with a high level of craftsmanship can last for many years before noticeable changes occur.For most of us, it isn't worth going to extreme lengths to make our paintings as permanent as they can possibly be. You could, for example, choose to paint on

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04559059862394708950noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30864143.post-1160953705911058652006-10-15T19:04:00.000-04:002006-10-15T19:09:09.210-04:00

One of the restaurants at the Louvre.

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04559059862394708950noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30864143.post-1160679819136653022006-10-14T21:55:00.000-04:002006-11-18T16:57:06.250-05:00

In the previous post in this series on color mixing, I talked about how to mix the right value. Here I’ll talk about hue.Identifying hueBefore you can mix the right hue, you need to figure out what hue you want to mix. That’s often kind of hard, especially with the dull, low-chroma colors that predominate in most of the visual world. Look around you. What color is the wall? A yellow-green? Or is

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04559059862394708950noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30864143.post-1160668193574571392006-10-12T11:37:00.000-04:002006-10-13T18:50:00.816-04:00

Traditional European heraldry (coats of arms) has a lot of rules regarding how designs can be constructed. One of the fundamental rules is this: no metal on metal or color on color. There are two metals: gold (represented as yellow) and silver (represented as white). All the other hues that can be used are "colors." The rule is that colors can't be placed next to other colors, only metals. Metals

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04559059862394708950noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30864143.post-1160331702067424352006-10-08T14:15:00.000-04:002006-10-08T14:21:42.393-04:00

are uncommon in Renaissance panel painting. Here is one exception, part of a series of three huge panels, done mostly in egg tempera, commemorating a minor Italian battle (the Battle of San Romano) by Paolo Uccelo. This one is in the National Gallery in London. I've seen it's sister painting in the Louvre. One impressive aspect is the gilding. All of the armor is done in silver leaf, punched and

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04559059862394708950noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30864143.post-1160094208112618662006-10-05T20:22:00.000-04:002006-10-30T23:27:58.946-05:00

is seven weeks old.

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04559059862394708950noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30864143.post-1159984064145143522006-10-04T13:43:00.000-04:002006-10-11T10:28:00.943-04:00

OK, let's recap. In my first post on color, I concluded that the standard three-primary color wheel is not useful for learning about using and mixing color. In the second post, I briefly reviewed the Munsell color system as a means for describing color and for identifying visual compliments. In the third post, I talked about the difficulty of developing a simple system that could adequately

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04559059862394708950noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30864143.post-1159913579858840052006-10-03T18:05:00.000-04:002006-10-03T23:12:08.140-04:00

by Fra Fillipo Lippi, tempera on panel, 95 x 62 cm (37 x 24" ). This gorgeous and delicate painting was done in 1465. Lippi was an interesting character, a Friar who had an affair with a nun. They were both allowed to resign from their respective orders. She bore him a son (Fillipino, who also became a painter) and a daughter (who was not artistically inclined, so far as I am aware).For all that,

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04559059862394708950noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30864143.post-1152498706568308172006-10-01T20:10:00.000-04:002006-10-02T11:43:14.866-04:00

This painting of a lovely lady is attributed to Raffaello Sanzio (Raphael). La Fornarina, oil on panel, 1518-19.The style of this painting is not as delicate as much of Raphael's other work. For that reason, there is speculation that this painting might have been done by a follower of Raphael, or perhaps it is a copy by a skilled assistant in his workshop of a lost original.She's a babe

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04559059862394708950noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30864143.post-1159713680614424332006-10-01T10:57:00.000-04:002006-10-02T00:40:57.000-04:00

Among oil painters, there seems to be a common misconception that glazing is some kind of mystical technique that only a few can master. The basic process is, however, very simple. Glazing is putting one layer of paint over another so that you can see the underlayer through the upper layer of paint. Glazing is a form of indirect painting, which just means that you are painting with more than one

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04559059862394708950noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30864143.post-1159674142633308292006-09-30T23:39:00.000-04:002006-10-05T15:55:13.270-04:00

I've been busy helping to take care of my six week old son, and I've had a hard drive crash. I also try to paint from time to time. I am still working on the series on color mixing, and I'm trying to recover a long post I had almost ready on the subject.I'd like to note that I've had more than 2,000 visits since I started the blog at the end of June. That's not much for sites like boing boing,

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04559059862394708950noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30864143.post-1159542264899804492006-09-29T10:58:00.000-04:002006-09-30T14:57:37.093-04:00

Awhile ago I posted on a little sheet of copper I had prepared for painting on. Here's what's on it now. Oil on copper, 5 x 7". It's not done yet—I need to correct a couple of elipses and clarify some of the details. But so far I like it.The copper takes oil paint like nothing else I've worked on. Normally, any surface is either absorbent or slick. Either way, the initial application of oil paint

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04559059862394708950noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30864143.post-1159117515671057482006-09-24T12:34:00.000-04:002006-09-30T23:33:40.823-04:00

When you walk down a museum hall full of Renaissance paintings, you can easily pick out the Italian paintings from the Netherlandish paintings at a glance. While the subject matter is similar (mostly scenes from the New Testament), and the pigments are basically the same, they used color in completely different ways. I've come to realize that the difference largely comes down to how layering was

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04559059862394708950noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30864143.post-1159019498205250842006-09-23T09:49:00.000-04:002006-09-23T09:52:08.170-04:00

Another Ireland photo.

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04559059862394708950noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30864143.post-1158777490459304502006-09-20T20:35:00.000-04:002006-09-21T10:17:14.976-04:00

The joy and the curse of oil paint is how long it takes to dry. It's great to have lots of time to work with the paint, re-do mistakes, and get those gradients and edges just right. But then, in multi-layered painting, there are times where you just need to stop and let the paint dry. For days. It can be very disruptive to artistic momentum.Some painters are fine with letting paintings dry for

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04559059862394708950noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30864143.post-1158421295809592862006-09-16T11:40:00.000-04:002006-09-30T14:54:54.090-04:00

I'm doing an online workshop over at the Wetcanvas forum on Renaissance Italian painting materials and methods. You can follow along here.

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04559059862394708950noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30864143.post-1158260463198716302006-09-14T14:52:00.000-04:002006-09-18T00:06:16.086-04:00

is one of the great modern realist painters. He's a student of Ted Seth Jacobs, who also taught Dennis Cheaney, who I've studied with. What I particularly like about Jacob is his facility in finding exactly the right combinations of light and color to create a mood. The work is finely-rendered without being fussy. It is informed by the work of the past, but is still clearly from the early 21st

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04559059862394708950noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30864143.post-1158165317634740642006-09-14T13:32:00.000-04:002006-09-17T13:12:27.530-04:00

This is the third in a series of posts about color for painters. In the first, I established (to my satisfaction, anyway) that the usual advice on color that you see in most books on painting, based on a three primary color wheel, is not very useful. In the second, I described the Munsell color system, which provides a useful approach to describing color, although it doesn't say a lot about how

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04559059862394708950noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30864143.post-1158168088721274112006-09-13T13:19:00.000-04:002006-09-17T00:52:20.020-04:00

This is "Wrapping Paper," 16 x 12", oil on panel.

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04559059862394708950noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30864143.post-1152651208300151832006-09-11T18:12:00.000-04:002006-09-11T19:08:29.226-04:00

On the fifth anniversary of the terrible 9/11 attacks, I'd like to simply remember those innocents who died on that awful day.Since this is a web log, I'd also like to note that I have strong opinions about politics, international relations, history, economics, the nature of freedom, the proper role of government, and other such matters. And I'm not going to say anything about those topics on

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04559059862394708950noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30864143.post-1157732438995068152006-09-08T12:19:00.000-04:002006-09-09T01:44:32.623-04:00

A photo take in Waltham, Massachusetts on the Charles River.

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04559059862394708950noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30864143.post-1157727885183177592006-09-08T11:04:00.000-04:002006-09-17T13:02:10.626-04:00

Technorati ProfileI'm having trouble getting Technorati to register that I still post to this blog. According to them, I haven't posted here in weeks. The link above is my attempt to correct this by deleting this web log from their list, then re-register it. The process includes posting the link above. It doesn't seem to have worked. I've followed the instructions on how to do this, and they used

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04559059862394708950noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30864143.post-1157683630877958372006-09-07T22:47:00.000-04:002006-09-24T01:24:45.610-04:00

In my last post about color, I discussed the inadequacies of the standard color wheel and explained why we're going to have to replace it with two things: (1) a more accurate way to describe color; and (2) a system for approximating real-world paint mixing. In this post, I'll talk about describing color. As I do so, I'll refer you to certain sections of the Handprint web site (from which I have

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04559059862394708950noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30864143.post-1157486604155198412006-09-05T16:03:00.000-04:002006-09-07T10:00:01.736-04:00

I wrote about Robert Doak's oil paints back in July, when I first started this web log. Today, he called me. He had noticed my post here, looked up my phone number on his customer list, and wanted to thank me for recommending his products. He also asked about my statement that some of his paints separate, so that a oil oozes out of the tube when you remove the cap (I've only had this happen with

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04559059862394708950noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30864143.post-1157478127194398292006-09-05T13:35:00.000-04:002006-12-06T11:01:50.490-05:00

is a curmudgeon, and I mean that in a good way. He’s a modern realist painter who does mostly paintings of women and girls, some nude, some not. I like some of his stuff and find some of it rather saccharine, but then he’s a selling artist and I’m currently just a wannabe.At his web site, he has a number of essays that express strong, independent opinions about art and culture. He writes well and

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04559059862394708950noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30864143.post-1157234412374781872006-09-04T18:43:00.000-04:002006-09-06T10:11:04.443-04:00

Many artists seem to spend some time learning about color, then kind of get lost. It's a tough subject to get your brain around. You see some version of a color wheel, learn a bit about how colors on opposite sides of the wheel (complimentary colors) are supposed to behave, and so on. Then you start to try to mix paints, and you realize that there is a lot of important stuff that conventional

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04559059862394708950noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30864143.post-1157381306319218322006-09-04T10:37:00.000-04:002006-09-13T19:15:52.640-04:00

It is certainly possible to work with nothing but plain, unadulterated oil paint, but certain effects are easier to achieve with judicious application of other materials. These can include various mixtures of varnishes, balsams, solvents, and thickened oils; such mixtures are called mediums. Because all mediums weaken the final paint film somewhat, they should be used in very small amounts.Here

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04559059862394708950noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30864143.post-1156970056012344272006-08-30T16:33:00.000-04:002006-09-05T19:18:37.716-04:00

Another photo from Ireland. In many places, walls like this are all over the place. I live in New England, so I'm used to countryside that has a lot of stone walls. But the number of walls in Ireland is simply amazing. Tags: photos, digital photography, Ireland

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04559059862394708950noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30864143.post-1156968949207974292006-08-30T16:14:00.000-04:002006-08-30T19:50:20.666-04:00

that I haven't been able to do any painting in the last couple of weeks. I can find bits of time to write, but with a two week old baby in the house and a wife recovering from abdominal surgery it's been virtually impossible to carve out a big enough block of time to paint. Obviously, my priorities are in the right place, but it's like having an itch you can't scratch.Kirsten is feeling better,

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04559059862394708950noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30864143.post-1156695586594435102006-08-28T00:25:00.000-04:002006-09-13T19:20:59.856-04:00

If you are just starting out with oil paint, I have some advice.First, be realistic. Don't think you're going to make any masterpieces any time soon, and never think that there are any shortcuts. If you just want to play around and don't care about developing real skill, then just do that and have a good time. But if you are serious about learning to paint well, realize this: while it's not that

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04559059862394708950noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30864143.post-1156391101042580202006-08-23T23:42:00.000-04:002006-09-05T19:20:15.630-04:00

The remains of a small medieval church on Inishmore, an island off the Western cost of Ireland. Tags: photos, digital photos, Ireland

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04559059862394708950noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30864143.post-1156300841143531262006-08-23T15:52:00.000-04:002006-09-05T19:20:47.710-04:00

may be Giovanni Bellini. He lived a very long and productive life, from about 1426 to 1516, during a time of enormous changes in Italian Renaissance painting. Many of his family were excellent painters themselves, including his father Jacopo, his brother Gentile, and his brother in law Andrea de Mantegna. In his early career he painted with the traditional medium of egg tempera, in the early

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04559059862394708950noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30864143.post-1156091492040561652006-08-20T11:47:00.000-04:002006-11-22T11:40:06.193-05:00

There are several types of paint that are designed to be like oil paint, only less bother. All of them handle approximately like oil paint, and paintings made with them look pretty much like oil paintings. They include:Alkyds: These are paints made with a synthetic resin instead of a natural drying oil. The chief advantage to alkyds is that they dry overnight, and all colors dry at the same rate.

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04559059862394708950noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30864143.post-1155736290152404832006-08-16T09:50:00.000-04:002006-09-17T12:32:18.640-04:00

This is my son, Brendan. He was born on Monday, August 14th.Lots of photos here.

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04559059862394708950noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30864143.post-1155419054670575262006-08-12T17:40:00.000-04:002006-08-15T21:59:41.996-04:00

My wife is now eight days overdue with our first kid (a boy). He's a stubborn little guy. So don't be surprised if there is a gap in posts at some point in the near future.In the meantime, I'd like to open comments to suggestions about any painting questions you feel confused about and would love to see a post (or series of posts) about. I may or may not be able to accomodate you (there's a heck

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04559059862394708950noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30864143.post-1155417549598173752006-08-12T17:17:00.000-04:002006-08-12T17:19:10.343-04:00

A photo taken near my mom's house in Lincoln, Rhode Island.

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04559059862394708950noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30864143.post-1155255921676496072006-08-10T20:17:00.000-04:002006-08-23T23:40:48.656-04:00

The word turpentine orignally meant sap from certain conniferous trees (nowadays we refer to these saps as balsams). So Venice turpentine, for example, is a thick, sticky sap from larch trees. If you distill a turpentine, you get a thin substance that makes an excellent solvent: spirits of turpentine. Over time, as real turpentines fell into disuse and spirits of turpentine became a common

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04559059862394708950noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30864143.post-1154904298711008362006-08-10T08:44:00.000-04:002006-08-23T17:17:38.416-04:00

Oil painting is about as dangerous as cleaning your bathtub. Both involve using a few chemicals that, with reasonable precautions, any intelligent adult can handle without hazard. Artists, however, get a little excitable sometimes and either way overstate the dangers involved or ignore them.First, the oil in oil paint is natural and non-toxic. I've seen people on internet forums say that they are

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04559059862394708950noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30864143.post-1155137649781929992006-08-09T11:28:00.000-04:002006-08-10T08:58:25.586-04:00

This is the Eiffel Tower, seen at night from the first of three stages in the journey to the top. Every fifteen minutes (I think) there is a small light show across tower, and I managed to catch this shot with the lights going.This photo had a lot of digital noise. To correct this in Photoshop, I copied the image to a new layer, set the blending mode to Color, and applied a gaussian blur. This

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04559059862394708950noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30864143.post-1154911120853218862006-08-08T12:11:00.000-04:002006-08-08T12:18:15.046-04:00

First part of article is here.Making gessoMeasure the volume of the remaining glue and pour it back into the double boiler. You will be adding 1.5 times this volume of chalk or gypsum to make gesso. Do this gradually, gently dropping each spoonful into the liquid to avoid making any bubbles. Distribute the chalk/gypsum around the pan so that it the glue soaks into it. Once all of the chalk/gypsum

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04559059862394708950noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30864143.post-1155000549885723732006-08-07T21:24:00.000-04:002006-09-02T22:45:54.350-04:00

I've never painted on copper, but I've wanted to for a long time. Copper is, historically, one of the most stable supports to paint on with oil. I recently purchased some small 5 x 7" sheets of copper from the hardware store. I mounted this one on hardboard with Gorilla Glue. I then cleaned it with denatured alcohol and scuffed it with sandpaper. While painters back in the day primed with lead

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04559059862394708950noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30864143.post-1154963872620839962006-08-07T11:15:00.000-04:002006-08-07T11:17:52.650-04:00

Another photo taken in Waltham, Massachusetts, near the Charles river.

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04559059862394708950noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30864143.post-1154920617820305822006-08-06T23:15:00.000-04:002006-08-06T23:17:22.276-04:00

A photo taken in Waltham, Massachusetts, on the Charles river.

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04559059862394708950noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30864143.post-1154789294821342702006-08-06T20:40:00.000-04:002006-08-06T20:49:26.293-04:00

As I've noted before, the acrylic primer on prepared canvases or available in stores is usually labelled "gesso." It's not actually gesso and shouldn't be labeled as such. For oil painting, I find real gesso to be a much better surface than acrylic primer. Egg tempera and tempera grassa should be used only with real gesso panels. Gesso should only be used on inflexible supports (i.e., panels),

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04559059862394708950noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30864143.post-1154799235327399802006-08-05T17:43:00.000-04:002006-08-05T23:09:08.116-04:00

is a small art materials company that makes a variety of high quality art supplies. They don't try to be a one-stop shop, but instead concentrate on the niche of the best, most difficult to find stuff. They make a variety of oil painting mediums, such as Maroger's, Roberson's, copal, wax medium, a glazing medium, and underpainting medium. They also provide materials for making mediums, such as

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04559059862394708950noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30864143.post-1154791025718054822006-08-05T11:02:00.000-04:002006-11-04T12:16:56.910-05:00

When you paint with oils, the surface doesn't naturally come out flat. There are normally little bumps and streaks formed by application and manipulation of the paint. Some artists deliberately use this tendency to create a textural or sculptural effect; this is called impasto. However, in multilayered painting, surface texture is often not desired. If you are going to add further layers, you

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04559059862394708950noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30864143.post-1154789462601741842006-08-05T10:49:00.000-04:002006-08-05T10:51:02.610-04:00

A photo from county Connemara, Ireland.

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04559059862394708950noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30864143.post-1154734113516838532006-08-04T19:27:00.000-04:002006-08-04T19:28:33.526-04:00

And on day three.

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04559059862394708950noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30864143.post-1154722759669763852006-08-04T16:45:00.000-04:002006-08-05T23:10:02.263-04:00

A number of the larger paint companies have a line of "student grade" oil paint. Student grade paints are made with cheaper substitute pigments and inexpensive extenders. This allows them to be sold for significantly less than "artist-quality" paint.If you are just starting to learn oil painting, don't buy the student grade paint. It's hard enough to learn how to work with good oil paint, let

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04559059862394708950noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30864143.post-1154664340522974082006-08-03T23:58:00.000-04:002006-08-07T13:13:38.356-04:00

Some !#^%&% jerk, or rather a computer program run by some !#^%&% jerk, has been posting comment spam here. Comment spam is when comments with links to other sites are placed on a web log as a means of increasing the search engine ranking of those sites. Normally, that's done by an automated computer program so that hundreds or thousands of blogs can be easily spammed many times per day.I'd

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04559059862394708950noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30864143.post-1154659718814179882006-08-03T22:43:00.000-04:002006-08-03T23:00:29.423-04:00

Here's where it's at a day later. Because I used flake white for the background yesterday, it is touch dry and can be painted upon without any tackiness (oil painting with flake white is a noticeably different experience than using any other white).I'm now working up the foreground, developing the boot on the left. For the most part, I'm attempting to finish each section completely and move on

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04559059862394708950noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30864143.post-1154574256498851642006-08-02T23:00:00.000-04:002006-08-05T10:33:05.520-04:00

I started this today while waiting for a couple of other pieces to dry (slow drying is the joy and the curse of oil painting). It's similar to my earlier painting of blue jeans, in that it's stuff hung on my wall in strong raking light. If I keep this up, I'll have a series.This is 12 x 16", oil on 1/4" lead primed hardboard panel. I sketched in the basic forms with burnt umber mixed with

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04559059862394708950noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30864143.post-1154546012175483492006-08-02T15:17:00.000-04:002006-08-02T18:56:44.816-04:00

If you go into an art or craft store, you can buy pre-stretched canvases and (sometimes) primed panels. You can also buy the stuff they use to prime them, which is usually labelled "gesso." It's not actually gesso in the technical sense; it's really acrylic primer. Acrylic primer is excellent as a ground for acrylic painting. As a ground for oil painting, some people like it, but many find that

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04559059862394708950noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30864143.post-1154470076965733732006-08-02T15:00:00.000-04:002006-08-02T15:06:31.116-04:00

Another image from Inishmore, in the Aran Islands, off the West coast of Ireland.

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04559059862394708950noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30864143.post-1154446727472087752006-08-01T18:00:00.000-04:002006-08-01T18:05:42.106-04:00

The family of pthalocyanine pigments, commonly called pthalos or thalos, come in a number of blue and green shades. They are beautiful, lightfast, transparent, and high in chroma. But I don't use them.The reason is that they are too bloody strong. Pthalo blue is something like 40 times as strong a tinter as ultramarine blue. That means, for example, that in order to change the color of titanium

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04559059862394708950noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30864143.post-1153187728930499962006-07-31T21:41:00.000-04:002006-07-31T21:49:59.113-04:00

Another photo of Carrowmore in County Sligo, Ireland. The rock is a 5,000 year old gravestone.

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04559059862394708950noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30864143.post-1154280892154152192006-07-30T22:10:00.000-04:002006-11-12T18:04:02.683-05:00

There are several current painting methods whose practitioners claim that they are working just like early Flemish painters did. In the early 1400's, Flemish and Netherlandish painters (Jan van Eyck, Robert Campin, Rogier van der Weyden, and so on) invented oil painting as it is practiced today. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, art historians spent a lot of time speculating about how the

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04559059862394708950noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30864143.post-1153870124299236552006-07-30T13:13:00.000-04:002006-07-30T13:21:45.476-04:00

Another view of the Burren, in County Clare, Ireland

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04559059862394708950noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30864143.post-1153672412400792452006-07-29T08:53:00.000-04:002006-07-29T08:59:25.203-04:00

Is a lovely photography blog by MIke Johnston. He has great taste in photography, unencumbered by rules that say what a good photo or a good composition is supposed to be. He's incredibly knowledgeable about photography without being a pedantic techie. And he has strong, cranky opinions that are always worth reading and considering.The Online Photographer

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04559059862394708950noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30864143.post-1153782785243654222006-07-27T22:25:00.000-04:002006-11-28T17:49:46.763-05:00

For practical painting purposes, there are three white pigments. It's useful to know their properties, because they each have their uses.Lead white (aka flake white, cremnitz white, ceruse) is the traditional white that's been in use since ancient times. It is basic lead carbonate (older versions of the pigment had some other lead compounds mixed in).For the most part, lead white is available

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04559059862394708950noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30864143.post-1153870043771378502006-07-27T08:27:00.000-04:002006-08-11T15:07:23.020-04:00

This is my wife Kirsten in Gallway, Ireland (on our honeymoon). Anyone care to translate the text from Irish?

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04559059862394708950noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30864143.post-1153870530232817182006-07-26T08:12:00.000-04:002006-08-11T13:59:43.360-04:00

My brother and a family friend, in Newport, Rhode Island.

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04559059862394708950noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30864143.post-1153508534997952032006-07-25T07:29:00.000-04:002006-08-11T01:57:06.630-04:00

I mean, who wouldn't be? Pigments, of course, are the colored powders that give paints their, ur, their color. Without pigments, paintings wouldn't look like much. Cars, houses, and billboards would be pretty boring to look at as well.One good, easy to digest reference on the web is the Pigments Through the Ages site. It is simple and easy to navigate. While not exhaustive, it reviews a range of

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04559059862394708950noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30864143.post-1153187921099342212006-07-23T10:13:00.000-04:002006-08-12T00:32:09.680-04:00

is that big layered hill in the background. It is an enormous rock formation, with an ecosystem that includes plants found nowhere else. The photo is from County Clare, Ireland.

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04559059862394708950noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30864143.post-1153519949327176572006-07-23T10:08:00.000-04:002006-07-23T10:15:13.160-04:00

These two colors neutralize to make a series of useful gray-browns. Cadmium green is not, of course, a pigment. Instead, paint tubes labeled cad green are usually a convenience mixture of cadmium yellow and pthalo blue. I like the version made by Williamsburg. It's a useful yellow green that's strongly chromatic, but not overpowering the way pthalo green is, for example. You can mix it yourself,

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04559059862394708950noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30864143.post-1153519773755950722006-07-22T21:37:00.000-04:002006-08-11T05:40:56.703-04:00

This is the first in a series of posts, each of which will discuss one useful pair of complimentary colors. If you're not familiar with art terms, "complimentary" in this case doesn't refer to saying nice things about each other, but colors on opposite sides of the color wheel. Complimentary pairs of colors are useful because they typically mix to create neutral and near neutral colors. Since

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04559059862394708950noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30864143.post-1153509125156905012006-07-22T07:42:00.000-04:002006-08-11T06:58:16.860-04:00

What Painting Is, by James Elkins, is kind of odd. The book is all about one metaphor, explored in great detail. Elkins wants us to understand that painting and alchemy are the same. I must admit that he gets off to a great start. He's an art history academic who was once a practicing artist, and he is inspiring in his ability to describe the obsessive, seductive, overwhelming fascination of

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04559059862394708950noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30864143.post-1153188233335936672006-07-21T17:52:00.000-04:002006-08-11T17:33:47.956-04:00

is from County Connemara, Ireland. Without editing, the photo is kind of boring (trust me). But I was playing with the Curves adjustment in Photoshop, and something happened with the foliage: parts of the forest emerged as bright and saturated, while the rest fell dramatically into darkness. It was a very striking effect. It took took some tweaking to make that effect work without distorting the

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04559059862394708950noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30864143.post-1153508119758149752006-07-21T17:48:00.000-04:002006-08-12T12:39:47.576-04:00

Giotto to Durer: Early Renaissance Painting in the National Gallery, by Jill Dunkerton, et al. If you get only one book about Renaissance painting, this is the one. The reproductions are excellent and numerous. The text reviews not just trends in the evolution of subject matter and symbolism, but also how paintings were commissioned, what workshops were like, and how artists were trained. Best of

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04559059862394708950noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30864143.post-1152731721858772242006-07-20T20:48:00.000-04:002006-07-20T20:53:18.726-04:00

A photo taken in Shrewsbury, Massachusetts. Morning fog in a corn field.

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04559059862394708950noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30864143.post-1152712017556302582006-07-20T20:46:00.000-04:002006-08-12T00:03:48.536-04:00

(First post on tempera grassa here). For some examples of great modern (20th century) paintings done in tempera grassa, check out the web page on Pietro Annigoni (1910-1988) at the Art Renewal Center.Tempera grassa paint is a little like egg tempera (if you've tried that) and a little like oil paint, but mostly it is its own beast. It is much easier to control tempera grassa if you paint in thin

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04559059862394708950noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30864143.post-1152962743424157622006-07-18T20:53:00.000-04:002006-08-31T11:08:30.423-04:00

There are any number of ways to mix useful colors to represent flesh tones. A set of flesh mixtures needs to be able to harmonize across light and shadow zones and represent different local flesh colors within a single person. It also needs to work well for people of different races and complexions.Lately, I've been working with a flesh palette composed entirely of earth pigments (plus white).

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04559059862394708950noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30864143.post-1153187567024977852006-07-18T07:52:00.000-04:002006-08-11T14:10:00.190-04:00

Raffaello Sanzio (Raphael) had been dead for six years.I'd better get busy.

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04559059862394708950noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30864143.post-1153188368194134262006-07-18T07:48:00.000-04:002006-08-12T09:38:44.580-04:00

This is a few years old, from back when I was painting in acrylics. It's my best painting from that period.Acrylic on panel, 28 x 20".

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04559059862394708950noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30864143.post-1153164895697617142006-07-17T19:25:00.000-04:002006-07-17T19:32:04.196-04:00

a booklet on "Techniques of Medieval and Renaissance Painting" for the Compleat Anachronist, which is published quarterly by the Society for Creative Anachronism. If you're interested, you can get a copy for $4.50 plus shipping here (scroll down to the bottom).

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04559059862394708950noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30864143.post-1152712003489666402006-07-17T08:10:00.000-04:002006-08-11T20:32:38.853-04:00

Tempera grassa was a common painting medium in the 15th century. Since then, not so much (though with a few notable exceptions). It's an interesting medium to work with.Tempera grassa is an emulsion of egg and oil (an emulsion is a liquid in which tiny drops of another liquid are suspended). Egg yolk is a natural emulsion that incorporates oil into its makeup fairly easily. You are already

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04559059862394708950noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30864143.post-1152717722474545882006-07-16T16:21:00.000-04:002006-08-11T06:49:41.676-04:00

This photo is a view across the island if Inishmore, in the Aran Islands off the Western coast of Ireland. The island once had a population far greater than it does now, and it's been inhabited for more than 5,000 years. There are remains of stone walls everywhere (that's what those horizontal lines across the hills are), so the place seems incredibly empty and full of ghosts.

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04559059862394708950noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30864143.post-1153057571562757662006-07-16T09:43:00.000-04:002006-08-10T17:04:39.960-04:00

This is a photo from a 5,000 year old grave site in County Sligo, Ireland. The place is big and I remember that I only had a few minutes there, since I had to go meet my wife. It was raining intermittently, and I raced through the grass looking for good shots.

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04559059862394708950noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30864143.post-1152717198885965482006-07-16T09:38:00.000-04:002006-08-12T11:52:21.370-04:00

The main challenge in working with the picture in Photoshop was handling the sky. Some of the highlights are blown out, so I needed to use the Curves function to determine how to make that look deliberate, so that the sky looks powerful but not overwhelming.Earlier Dun Aongas photo here.

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04559059862394708950noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30864143.post-1153057174194714822006-07-16T09:34:00.000-04:002006-08-15T18:12:27.790-04:00

This is graphite on paper, from life. This kind of drawing is time-consuming; this drawing took five three-hour sessions. It's the first time I've brought a drawing to this level of finish.

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04559059862394708950noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30864143.post-1153017063586150462006-07-15T22:16:00.000-04:002006-08-11T13:54:00.526-04:00

Paint is mixed according to the rules of subtractive color. When light hits paint, some wavelengths are absorbed, while others bounce off. A pigment that absorbs all visible wavelengths except red will be perceivewd as red, for example. If you mix two pigments together, they will both absorb their characteristic wavelengths. What you see is whatever light is not absorbed by either of the two

Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04559059862394708950noreply@blogger.com0