Why use mixed media?

A few questions came up in the comments of my recent YouTube video about painting techniques with watercolor and gouache:

William Trost Richards, Mackerel Cover,  courtesy Smithsonian
Pen and black ink, brush and watercolor, gouache, 
crayon, traces of graphite on heavy gray wove paper

Sujanith Tottempudi  says, "I can't understand why use mixed media....when each medium has specific principles..."

James Gurney says: Maybe it's semantics, but I don't see it as mixed media. Watercolor and gouache are both made of pigment, gum arabic, and water. They're really very similar. By using a variety of techniques (transparent, opaque, wet, drybrush, etc.), you get the same range of effects that you would get with oil paint or any other medium.

You can paint with pure transparent watercolor and save out your whites if you want. It's a very attractive technique, but that's just one way of working. The medium doesn't come with absolute principles about what techniques you can do with it.

Veaudor  says: "Did you say that there's black on your pallette?? Mon dieu! I never had a teacher that ever recommended black. I swoon! ;*) (PS I'm gonna try this...)"

Gurney: Yes, try it out. I don't always use black. I often mix my "blacks" out of a dark warm color and a dark cool color in order to maintain some color character in my blacks. But black as a pigment can be helpful, especially if you need those ultra dark accents. I also love it for doing black and white grisailles. Some teachers discourage it because if students always use black to darken colors, it can deaden the mixtures. But if Sargent, Zorn, and Velazquez used it, I think I will include it in my kit of options.

Oğulcan Yolcu  asks: "Which white color do you use?" 

Gurney: I'm using M. Graham titanium white. I've used zinc white, too, but not as much.

ROBERTO HILARIO LOPEZ GARAY  "How can you paint in such small surface?"
Gurney: I'm inspired by the gouaches of Adolph Menzel and William Trost Richards, which are tighter and often smaller than mine.

ryan de carte  asks:"How do use ultramarine in washes without getting so much sediment and separating from the mixture when it dries? I’m not sure how it is in oil but gouache, watercolor and acrylic have this with ultramarine."

Gurney "I haven't had that issue with sediment in ultramarine. More so with the heavy inorganic pigments like manganese blue or cobalt. That sediment texture can be very desirable. If you want flatness you can get a flat color out of any sedimenting watercolor by adding a little white or using smoother paper.
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Watch my newest YouTube video about painting realistically in gouache and watercolor.

Smithsonian releases almost 3 million images.

Thomas Moran's box of palettes and brushes

The Smithsonian has released to the public domain almost 3 million high-res images, both 2D and 3D. The images come are delivered in an open access online platform that lets you download high res files free of charge and use them however you want.

William Trost Richards, Rocky Cove, 9.25 x 14.5 inches, watercolor and gouache

"Featuring data and material from all 19 Smithsonian museums, nine research centers, libraries, archives and the National Zoo, the new digital depot encourages the public to not just view its contents, but use, reuse and transform them into just about anything they choose—be it a postcard, a beer koozie or a pair of bootie shorts."

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Smithsonian: Smithsonian Releases 2.8 Million Images Into Public Domain

Tips for Painting Realistically in Gouache and Watercolor

In this new Youtube video I sketch of a pile of snow along a country road using gouache and watercolor.

I start in watercolor, applying the paint wet with big brushes, and gradually shifting to a more opaque approach. I use drybrush effects to capture the texture of the gravel road. The gouache goes on thickly for the highlights and accents.

Gouache and watercolor squeezed out from the tube can be used in combination for any kind of plein-air painting or urban sketching.

WATERCOLORS
Ultramarine blue
Raw sienna
Cadmium yellow
Perylene maroon
GOUACHE
Titanium white
Ivory black
Set of gouache primary colors

Vertebral Drawbridge

The vertebral drawbridge is a one-way passage into the Rainy Basin, Dinotopia's dangerous realm of the carnosaurs. The weight of a sauropod caravan flexes the structure downward, allowing armored convoys to cross over, before the bridge springs back up again. 

The fun of biomorphic or zoomorphic engineering is that you arrive at natural forms not because they're beautiful in some detached aesthetic sense, but because they're purely efficient and functional, as are all forms in nature. 

My dad, grandfather, great-grandfather, and my great uncles were all mechanical engineers, and they always rhapsodized about how skeletons are fascinating structures from a design perspective, combining strength, flexibility, lightness, and adaptability.

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From Dinotopia: A Land Apart from Time

Monet Contemplates Eye Surgery

French impressionist Claude Monet (1840-1926) began to notice that something was changing in his vision. 

According to a British medical journal, he said that "‘colours no longer had the same intensity for me’, that ‘reds had begun to look muddy’ and that ‘my painting was getting more and more darkened.’ 

"To avoid choosing the wrong colors, Monet started to label his tubes of paint and keep a strict order on his palette. Glare from bright sunlight complicated things further forcing Monet to wear a big straw hat outside."

He traveled to London to consult with German ophthalmologist Richard Liebreich, who recommended cataract surgery, but Monet refused. But by 1914-15, he noticed that his color vision was worsening.”

Monet after eye surgery

"After Monet became increasingly despondent and less productive, Georges Clemenceau, former French prime minister and physician, urged his friend to consider cataract surgery. Frightened, however, by the fate of his fellow artists Honoré Daumier and Mary Cassatt, whose cataract operations had been unsuccessful, Monet was adamant to avoid surgery at all costs.”

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Read the rest by Anna Gruener at the British Journal of General Practice

Have you had cataract or LASIK surgery? How did it change your vision? Please share your story in the comments.

Early Plein-Air Painters featured in Washington DC

“Vue de Capri/ View of Capri” (1851) by Vilhelm Kyhn.
Oil on paper, mounted on canvas. (Private Collection, London)

A small exhibition at the National Gallery in Washington features artists in Europe who pioneered using oils outdoors in the late 1700s, nearly a century before the Impressionists.

“Trinità dei Monti in the Snow” (1825/1830) André Giroux Santa.
Oil on paper, mounted on canvas. National Gallery of Art

The show includes Achille-Etna Michallon, André Giroux, Francois-Marius Granet, Jules Coignet and Jean-Jospeh-Xavier Bidauld, together with their better known successors such as Camille Corot, Richard Parkes Bonington, and John Constable.

“View of Bozen with a Painter” (1837) by Jules Coignet.
Oil on paper, mounted on canvas. 

Art critic Sebastian Smee of the Washington Post describes the show as radical, and one of the most important things going on in Washington right now. He says the effect is "Gorgeous! Warm sun illuminating the buildings and bridges on the island of San Bartolomeo. Oh! Vesuvius in the distant haze, beyond the backlit buildings of Naples. . . . The effect of light rinsing the eyes, of freshness and immediacy, of truth — it shouldn’t be so striking, so unaccountably emotional."

The show "True to Nature: Open-air Painting in Europe 1780-1870," is on view at the National Gallery of Art through May 3, 2020. 

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Catalog: True to Nature True to Nature: Open-air Painting in Europe 1780–1870. 256 pages, 140 color reproductions.
National Gallery Website
Washington Post article
Thanks, Dennis Applebee

Greek Painter in Munich: Nikolaos Gyzis

In his witty painting Eros and the Painter, Nikolaos Gyzis shows an artist with her sketchpad propped up in her lap.

She directs a reluctant boy to pose for Eros, the Cupid-like god of love, who clutches an arrow, while a bird's wing is propped up behind him for reference.

In his painting Boy with Cherries, the boy has the curious expression of someone who has just eaten a cherry, and his cheek is sticking out a little. 

Portrait by Nikolaos Gyzis

Many of his paintings have the naturalistic form rendering and dark backgrounds reminiscent of other artists who had training at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich, such as Frank Duveneck (1848-1919) and William Merritt Chase (1849-1916).

Psyche by Nikolaos Gyzis

Gyzis was inspired by Gustave Courbet when he saw some of the French painter's works that were shown in a Munich exhibition in 1869. But Courbet didn't like to paint mythological figures, saying: "I have never seen an angel. Show me an angel, and I'll paint one."
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More about Nikolaos Gyzis, (Greek 1842-1901)

Florence Atelier on CBS Sunday Morning

Charles Cecil's atelier in Florence, which teaches a Bargue-based sight size approach to drawing and painting, received a respectful tribute on the CBS Sunday Morning TV program. (Link to YouTube).

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Link to Charles Cecil Studios
Book: Charles Bargue and Jean-Leon Gerome: Drawing Course

How Edward Cooke's Paintings Help Historians

Historians and archaeologists are using 19th century paintings to understand how coastal sites in Britain have changed over time, and how better to preserve them.

'The Fishing Cove of Beer’ (1858) by Edward William Cooke RA

One artist whose paintings have been a big help is Edward William Cooke RA (1811-1880). In addition to his interest in painting, he was a devoted student of geology, botany, zoology, and maritime history.

The eastern part of Cooke’s oil painting can be seen in this recent photograph.

"What these artworks show," says Maritime Archaeology Trust, "is the remarkable similarity in terms of the form of the cliff line, the jointing in the cliff face, and the form, profile and nature of the beach. These paintings were all produced by artists who were renowned for their topographical accuracy."

"Cooke was a remarkably accurate painter, a Fellow of the Royal Society with a fascination for coastal geology."

‘Porlock Weir’ by Edward William Cooke RA. 1862.

"Encouraged by the art critic John Ruskin, Cooke sought to capture nature exactly following the ethos of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood."

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(More at Cherish: Maritime Archaeology Trust)
Wikipedia: Edward William Cooke RA FRS FZS FSA FGS

Book: Sailing Vessels in Authentic Early Nineteenth-Century Illustrations by Edward William Cooke

Can You Varnish Casein?

Scottie Jensen in my YouTube channel asks:
"I love watching your videos and have purchased a few of your “In the Wild” series. I am greatly inspired by you and have built a sketchbook easel, started painting in casein and have went out into the wild to paint all thanks to you. I have one question about varnishing casein, I read on your blog you use spray on varnish - is this to avoid smudging once dry?

Also, how long should I wait before varnishing a casein painting? Will a couple days after it is dry to the touch be sufficient or is there a longer curing process to avoid cracking? Thanks so much for your knowledge and infectious passion!"

Incident on Kelly Street, casein on board, winner of the NSPCA Award 

James Gurney: Thanks for the support and feedback. The main reason I varnish some of my caseins is to deepen the darks in an overall dark painting or to protect a painting that I want to frame without glass. It shouldn't smudge without the varnish, and I almost never varnish sketchbook paintings, because I can always deepen the darks in photoshop.

Keep in mind that casein paintings are not usually varnished. The matte surface is an attractive quality, especially in high key paintings. The manufacturers suggest buffing the surface of a dry painting using an old T-shirt to add some semi-gloss luster to the surface.

You should wait a couple of days before varnishing and during that time, put the painting in a warm place to make sure the paint is fully dry. The glue-like protein binder gets stronger over time. The best defense against cracking is to make sure you paint on panel or illustration board. If you paint on watercolor paper, don't use thick impastos, because casein does not have a strong emulsion.

As with any unconventional technique, experiment first on a scrap and make sure it does what you want.
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Here are some links assorted casein paints: 

Titanium white  

Cadmium yellow light

Golden ochre

Cerulean blue 

Ultramarine blue 

Cadmium red scarlet 

Venetian red 

Casein emulsion 

Casein basic set of 6 colors  

Winsor and Newton gloss varnish 

Travel brush set 

Plein-air tripod

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The painting is documented on my feature tutorial Fantasy in the Wild
Free Facebook group: Sketch Easel Builders
Previously on GJ: Painting a Magical Light Effect