Tuesday, October 20, 2020

My Taboret Top

Here's my taboret setup for oil painting.


1. The tube colors are squeezed out on the floating bar at left, but I don't use them straight from the tube.
2. Instead I pre-mix value "strings" of five colors and only draw from those colors . That way I stay inside the gamut (triangle in color wheel, above)
3. I use Liquin for a medium, which speed drying, plus mineral spirits, but I may do away with the latter for health reasons.
4. The brush wash tank is a peanut butter jar with a little plastic cup dropped in the lid, with holes drilled into the bottom of the cup.
5. The whole thing sets on a rolling cabinet. In the top drawer are pencils, lots of pencils.
6. A take-out container with a slot cut through the lid holds paint scrapings, discarded on hazardous material days.
7. Old cotton T-shirts make great paint rags. A wiggly wire holds the handles up a little.
8. Paint mixing area tips up on hinges. The polyethylene-coated mixing paper is hidden behind the left edge. I tear off old mixtures as I pull the paper through.
9. Brushes: Nylon flats, long bristle filberts, and watercolor rounds are my favorites.

7 comments:

Unknown said...

Nice, thanks! Would you mind at some point commenting on your set-up routine? I've never gotten into a good rhythm for laying out colors, and thus it always takes way too long.

--Jane

Csaba Tibor Palotas said...

Hi James, amazing setup, I have a few questions: Where do you mix the colours? Do you have a separate palette for that or you mix between your colour strings? If so then where do you mix those colour strings. I personally find that a glass surface more practical than a paper. Could you tell me what is the "BLAST" stand for, I have difficult to read it on the picture. Both of your book are fantastic, imformative and very helpful.

James Gurney said...

Csaba, the BLAST rule:
Big brushes.
Large to small.
Accents last.
Soften edges.
Take your time.

Salty Pumpkin Studio said...

Beautiful. A paint spotted easel and palette area creates for me the same emotion as seeing home come into view after a long day.

mcahogarth said...

Oh my! Have you talked about this mixing paper before? What made you choose it for your palette?

C.via.SEATTLE said...

I’ve never tried Liquin - what is the virtue of getting things to dry faster if you’re not building up glazes?

Meanwhile I’m over here desperately trying to make things dry slower. Exhaustive and circular reading at wetcanvas leads me to think poppy oil is the solution? Anyone use it? I normally don’t use any medium besides a bit of turp at the beginning so maybe that’s my problem.

tellegrafix said...

I absolutely LOVE your book Color and Light, I teach art to adults and your explanations are pure gold. I recommend your book to all my students.