I'm in Kansas City for Spectrum Fantastic Art Live. The artists are all hanging out in the lounge eating tacos and sipping beer.
It's fun talking shop with some of the legends of the business, such as Mark English (born 1933), who helped define the world of contemporary illustration that I entered when I started out.
Mark is still painting, mainly for galleries now. He says he still has his gouache paints, but he's using house paint lately. And he's not the only one. If you're painting large and you want a very opaque paint that's not expensive, house paint has wonderful working properties. And you can get any colors you want.
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| Marriott Lounge, gouache, 5 x 8 inches |
What attracted me to this scene was the cool light coming from the lighted panels behind the bar, contrasted with the warm light bouncing up off the floor.
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Thank you for all this, James! Hope you enjoy our fair city...
ReplyDeleteHello, Just wanted to thank you for making your sketchbooks available on PDF for those of us who could not use the APP. They are a real motivator!
ReplyDeleteWow, look at that guest list! Terryl Whitlatch! Brom! James Gurney! Iain McCaig! James Gurney! Terry Dodson! James Gurney...!
ReplyDeleteThanks for the links to Mark English and David Haines' websites. The house paint medium reminds me of Kazuo Oga's Nicker poster colours, a while back. I have a book that recommends hardware-store acrylic primer as an inexpensive art primer, although I inferred (wrongly, it seems) that it was a beginner's tip before moving onto finer materials. That said, I have a tester pot of wall paint waiting for a canvas, so I'm glad to hear it wasn't such a daft choice!
I assume that as an illustrator used to working with gouache, the opacity of house paint was a draw to Mark? What are it's other working qualities - is it a vinyl or acrylic emulsion like most 'water-based' decorators' paint here in the UK? (In my search for casein paint here I found a company that sells it as a dry medium for eco-friendly house painting - might give it a second look now) Would it be too forward to ask for a future Gurney Journey post on the subject?
Have a good time at SFAL. Looks like you're off to a good start!
Hmmm...House paint lasts about 15-20 years when I use it on the walls of my house. Any reason to think it will be longer lasting on canvas or board? There might be reasons, I hope someone knows.
ReplyDeleteWarren JB and Don, It would be interesting to do a test where you paint a section of your house, (inside or out), with artist materials on one patch next to a patch painted with professional house painting materials. I wonder which would stand up longer to the elements.
ReplyDeleteI know that in the 1940s and '50s Rockwell often primed his canvases with Sanaflat, an oil based house painting primer, and those have held up really well for about 70 years so far.
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