Balancing Art With Family

Balancing art with family can be a challenge. We artists owe a lot to those around us for their long-suffering patience. 

Jeanette Reading, oil, 8 x 12"

I understand how some artists need a separate studio, but I've always had my studio in the house, and I feel lucky that I could have my family around when I was working. Before we had kids, Jeanette would often read to me while I was painting.

 Full discussion on Substack (no paywall)

Premixing Color Gamuts in Oil Paint

 Here’s what it looks like when I’m premixing oil colors on a palette made from a roll of freezer paper.

🎨 The goal is to premix a “string” of four or five values of each of the subjective primaries that appear at the corners of the gamut.

🎨 The “gamut” is a sector of the full range of possible colors. If you paint just from that string of premixed colors, you can paint any color from inside that gamut but you can’t paint any “extra-gamut notes.”

🎨 The reason to narrow your gamut is to create a subjective envelope of colors and explore the possibilities they offer.

🎨 In sequential art, each sequence can have its own gamut, which is especially helpful in color scripting for animation or concept art, or for illustrated books or graphic novels.

More in my book Color and Light

Repin's Conflicted Feelings About Impressionism

Ilya Repin (1844-1930) had mixed feelings about impressionism when he visited Paris. He knew it was the future of painting, but he was turned off by “the incredible number of awful, sloppy paintings” that he saw in the exhibitions. More on Substack

Readings from Harold Speed

When I was just starting out on my journey to learn about painting, I recorded some readings from books that inspired me. I'm just starting to post these readings in my Substack archive.

Painting by Harold Speed

The readings are from Harold Speed’s 1924 book Oil Painting Techniques and Materials, originally titled 

The Science and Practice of Painting. 

 You can hear the readings at this Substack post.

A Method for Painting Botanical Subjects on Location

 

Link to YouTube Here's a practical method for isolating a living plant so that you can paint an accurate portrait of it on location.

Roadside Weeds, casein, 14 x 18"

Most landscape compositions are designed to lead the viewer deep into the scene. If there’s a foreground, it serves as a framing device or a departure point. By contrast, botanical studies typically focus up close on a flower or a plant that’s taken out of context and put against a white backdrop.

But what if we could merge these two ways of seeing? My goal in this painting is to bring attention to the foreground without losing the story of the wider scene. To achieve that goal I’ll need to develop a way to render a living plant with loving detail while observing it in its natural setting.

Eliot Hodgkin's Switch to Tempera

Eliot Hodgkin (1905-1987) was an English botanical artist who switched from oil to tempera in 1937. He said he liked opaque, water-based paints because: "It is the only way in which I can express the character of the objects that fascinate me." 

"With oil paint I could not get the detail without getting also a disagreeable surface: moreover I should have to wait while the paint dried before continuing."

Reflection of Dark Objects on Water

The appearance of dark objects reflected in water depends on three factors:

1. The amount of silt or sediment in the water
2. The amount of light shining into the water
3. The shallowness of the water.

In this plein sketch, the trees might have reflected more darkly had it not been for the sunlight passing through the clear water and bouncing off the shallow, sandy bottom.


There's more information on today's Substack post. You can visit with no commitment via the link in my bio, or subscribe for free to regular emails.

BoingBoing Mentions Substack

 Wow, what a nice surprise from the wonderful blog BoingBoing.

Thanks to Bob Knetzger for mentioning my new Substack page. 

Construction of Roman Capital Letters

Edward Catich demonstrated that the Roman letters on Trajan's Column were created with a brush, not a chisel. His research challenged the long-held assumption that the inscriptions were solely the work of stonemasons. 

Catich was a Roman Catholic priest, calligrapher, and expert on the Roman alphabet. His work, especially his book "The Origin of the Serif," published in 1968, has shaped our understanding of Roman lettering and calligraphy.

In the following Instagram video, Tom Kemp revives Catich's brush technique:

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Tom Kemp (@tom_kemp_)

Miyazaki's Watercolor Wisdom

Japanese animation director Hayao Miyazaki says: 

• Do not paint stickily and paint after wiping the extra paint and water off. 

• Don't paint with too much pigment and water on your brush, to the point that it's dripping with paint.

• Paint thinly the bright part.

Read the rest at the post Miyazaki's Watercolor Wisdom