Favorite Art Books Part 4

A few months back I discovered James Watrous' book The Craft of Old-Master Drawings. Over the years I'd searched for concise information on drawing techniques, particularly metalpoint, without a lot of success. But I found in this book not only a truly excellent introduction to metalpoint, but also to many of the other materials traditionally employed in drawing. The book, first published in 1957, is still in print, published by the University of Wisconsin Press.

These days, and for many decades, the preferred mediums for drawing are charcoal and graphite, while older methods are used considerably less often. This book is intended as a relatively comprehensive review of nearly all of the methods of drawing available over the ages. Watrous begins with a very valuable and detailed discussion of metalpoint, a truly ancient technique. He gives a thorough diescription of metalpoint both from a historical viewpoint and a practical one, and is the reason I purchased the book in the first place. It's one of the very few modern, detailed outlines of techniques of silverpoint, gold point, and others that I have found.

Gary Hoff: "Dutch Iris," 2015 (silverpoint)

In the following chapters, the book details pen and ink methods, even including information about how to cure and cut goose quills and reeds into pens as in past centuries. Watrous also details how and why steel pen nibs arose and how they are best used. In a separate chapter he also provides information on inks used in drawing, including recipes and methods to prepare one's own bistre, iron-gall, and carbon black inks.
 
In a second section labelled "Broad Drawing Media," the author details working methods for chalk, pastels, crayons, charcoal and graphite. In these chapters, as in the earlier ones, he also providess useful recipes for making one's own materials.

This is a short book containing information that seems unlikely to go out of date. It's brief (under 200 pages) but also contains many illustrations from over the centuries displaying masterworks made with each of the various materials discussed. Although there is no mention of supports--parchment, paper, vellum, etc--I think that's a minor criticism. If you're interested in detailed information and recipes dealing with nearly every aspect of drawing, this book is for you. At less than $30, it's a bargain. Highly recommended.

Favorite Art Books Part 1
Favorite Art Books Part 2
Favorite Art Books Part 3

New Drawings

Over the last few weeks, studio work has involved not only drawing folds and drapery but various paintings and other drawings. In particular I've explored preliminary thoughts and ideas of new subject matter. Most mornings I spend at least a few minutes drawing, either to warm up for the easel or to explore various techniques and so on.

Here are a few new drawings.

This is a small 5x5 graphite and chalk drawing of a gargoyle that lives atop Notre Dame cathedral in Paris. I drew the head from an old photo I found online. The gargoyle here almost seems to be smiling at the hapless city spread below its gaze.

This graphite line drawing was also done from an online reference showing a draped back. It was interesting to work on smooth lines in various weights, values, and widths as well as the obvious need for accuracy in drawing the figure. The folds were intricate enough to be challenging to bring off without much shading. This is about 10x10 on tan paper.

Finally, here's a drawing after Degas. This figurative work of drapery can be easily found online. The original is charcoal on paper, and is mostly lines. With this copy I was practicing the use of white on a tan background and a darker line drawing. This one is actually a digital image that I made using Sketchbook Pro and a Wacom Cintiq drawing tablet. It's remarkable how digital images can emulate "real world" drawings.

The Other Art Show

This week is Art Week in Des Moines, a new concept that began last year and continues this year. The idea is to promote broader local participation and increase support for the city art scene, an idea which is definitely welcome. The week includes a number of events ranging from a plein-air painting event with subsequent sale to a film festival, tours of the Art center, and even culinary art. The week culminates with two art festivals that run concurrently. The Des Moines Arts Festival is a three-day event that originated long ago as an art-the-park exhibition benefiting the Des Moines Art Center. In the subsequent years it has morphed into something much larger. There are about 150 booths in the art portion of the exhibition, but they sometimes seem overshadowed by the other features of the festival, including live music and food, street performers, beer and wine tents, and the like. Held in  the heart of downtown to great enthusiasm, it is nothing short of a three-day street party, and very enjoyable.

The second show that weekend, known unsurprisingly as "The Other Art Show," happens this year

Saturday and Sunday June 25 and 26. Officially called ArtfestMidwest it is an indoor show held in a very large exhibition hall at the Iowa State Fairgrounds. The beauty of this show is that it's in cool comfort indoors (summers in Iowa are hot), with excellent security. An outdoor show is at the mercy of the elements, but not so the Other Art Show. Furthermore, since this is only an art exhibition, people who attend are there for the art, not the party. It's been held there for about a decade now, and though it does favor locals to an extent, artists come from as far away as Colorado and Oklahoma as well as from closer states.

I've participated in Artfest Midwest a number to times over the past few years and always enjoy the show for it's informed patrons and cool, art-focused atmosphere. I'll be showing new cityscapes this year, some of which I posted a few weeks ago. Quite a few are Des Moines cityscapes, but there will be pictures of other places like Paris and New York as well. I posted an example of a Paris cityscape below. So if you're in Des Moines this weekend, stop by our booth and visit.

"Paris After the Snow" (homage to EC), 2016, 20x16

Art Week
Artfest Midwest
Des Moines Art Festival

Drawing Clothing and Folds

When drawing or painting figures, one of the most difficult things to master is clothing. Although drawing a nude figure is hardly simple, believable clothing is tougher to do realistically, at least it was for me. It's true that you can simply draw or paint the person or figure before you, including how their clothes drape and fold on the figure. You can use reference photos, too, provided they're of sufficient quality to delineate the drape of fabrics on flesh, although many snaps aren't good enough. But it's probably a lot easier to use those things if you understand clearly how cloth folds and drapes. That way, you can fill in details that aren't easily seen in reference pictures. There are only a few kinds of folds, so learning them is simple enough and the knowledge is something you can keep in your visual library.
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Kinds of Folds
Lately I've been doing studies of drapery and clothing for practice, having not done very many in years past. Although sketching draperies can be quick and simple, actual finished drawings require more time and considerably more intense concentration. Part of the issue with draperies and clothes is the seemingly overwhelming intricacy. In classical sculpture, particularly, draperies can be quite daunting.

daVinci, "Study of drapery"

Accurate and believable rendering of the various curved and smooth surfaces of fabrics means in particular close attention to rendering the form as it curves from dark to light, which necessarily translates into almost minute attention to detail when doing almost any other kind of realistic work. There is a drapery study by da Vinci (left) which illustrates the point. In that study, Leonardo doubtless devoted considerable time and study in seeing exactly how the cloth drapes over the knees of  an unseen figure and lavished even more care on rendering the smooth curves of the fabric. Moreover, this study incorporates many of the commonly understood types of folds discussed below.

There are seven structural folds: pipe, diaper, spiral, zigzag, half-lock, drop, and inert. Each has different, recognizable characteristics. I've listed these in increasing level of complexity--that is, pipe folds and diaper folds are fairly simple, while drop and inert folds are more complicated and may even include examples of the more simple types within their overall makeup. Others describe folds differently, citing tension versus slackness, twisting forms, and so on, but I prefer this system because it's immediately useful in drawing clothing.

I did the sketch copies that accompany the text by copying various online reference images using graphite on an approximately 5x8 sketchpad.

Pipe folds
These are, unsurprisingly, shaped like pipes or long cylinders. They typically drop straight down from a support, owing to gravity. A common kind of pipe fold is seen in window drapes bunched along a curtain rod, or (as at left) hanging from a single support. The folds are rounded or cylindrical in each case. This sort of drapery is seen quite commonly in realistic art. 

Diaper folds
These folds occur when a cloth is suspended at two points. Sometimes the two are at the same level, but more commonly one point is higher than another. These are often present in classical sculpture. In my childhood, before everyone owned an indoor dryer, clothes drying on a backyard line often took this shape. Notice the diaper folds in the daVinci study, above.

Spiral folds
Cloth may bunch or twist on a cylindrical support (an arm, say). These are quite common in sleeves and other tubular clothing. You might see spiral folds in a woman's skirt, or a man's bib overalls when the figure is stretching. 

Zigzag folds
This kind of fold occurs when material buckles in alternating opposite directions. An excellent example is the knees of trousers--jeans are especially prone to this, both in the back and front. Note the folds in this drawing of jeans.  When I look at reference materials about this kind of folding, it seems that there's some disagreement about their structure. Some sources say these folds also interlock, which sounds more like the half-lock folds, shown below, than zigzagging..

Half-lock folds
When material bunches at a turning point of the cloth or drapery, a half-lock fold or a series of half-locks are commonly present. These folds often have a deep, pocket-like recess at their center. Most often these are seen in clothing at elbows and knees, as sketched at left.

Drop folds
These folds are found when clothing or drapes fall downward from a support--a chair back and seat for example--sometimes even changing directions. The resulting folding of cloth is more complicated than the others above, sometimes incorporating half-locks as well as pipe folds, as in the line sketch, left.

 

Inert folds
Fabric forms this sort of folds when it's collapsed into a mass on a surface, like a discarded bath towel for example. Inert folds lack an innate structure and each instance will be different from the next. Inert folds often incorporate several types of simpler folding. This type of folds are common in classical sculpture and painting. I did this drawing using a dish cloth tossed onto the studio floor.


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After spending considerable time reviewing the subject I'm confident that the structure and kinds of draping seen in clothing will not only be easier to recognize and reproduce when using live models but also that it's possible to use the same principles to invent figurative drawings when necessary. I'd recommend a period of this kind of review to anyone who wants to improve their skills. It has definitely been useful for me.

Windowsill Works 4

These are three quick morning studies of a frilled bud vase that I keep around the studio. I did each of these on successive mornings around 7 to 8 a.m., although the blue vase does look as if it was done at twilight. As is the case with nearly all of these morning warm-up sketches, I was interested in a specific idea about composition with each, as well as working on technique. In each of these I tried very hard to make a single stroke and leave it alone, not making two when one would do and trying therefore to look closely before applying paint. Such careful consideration and observation is essential, at least for me.

It's interesting to use the same subject for a series, as anybody who enjoys Monet can attest. Using the same subject frees you from worrying too much about drawing and allows more time on light, color, reflections and refractions of light. I also limited my palette in each of these, so they don't necessarily represent the precise light or colors that were actually present, although they're

intended to show specific times of day and different lighting. Besides premier coup and limited palette, these sketches required believable rendering of clear glass, which I find challenging. So I particularly enjoyed painting how the light was bent in the solid glass bottom of the vase.

These are all about 6x8 on gessoed hardboard.

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Previous posts in the series:

Windowsill Works
Windowsill Works 2
Windowsill Works 3

Digital studies

Since I posted about computer art programs last fall, I've continued experimenting with digital painting and drawing, sometimes making original images and sometimes using the digital format as a supplement to real world painting. Digital images can be altered indefinitely, so you can scan a drawing or painted sketch and then use one or another computer program to change the digital copy indefinitely without worrying about the original. Then you can use the experience to complete the existing painting.

Digital persimmons (study), 2015

 These digital persimmons were  "painted" using Sketchbook Pro and an online image of an oil painting by another artist. The image was a striking one and I simply wanted to explore a similar, very warm palette. This quick study probably occupied less than an hour's time but could easily be used to construct an actual oil or acrylic painting.

Washington Square Arch, sunet (study), 2016

The study to the right is also based on an online image that I grabbed to use as my primary source, although it is much modified with figures, etc. In this case I used digital imaging as a way to decide whether or not to pursue an actual oil painting. Using an image of Washington Square Arch and the park beyond, I made this study to see how the proposed composition would look using a narrow gamut of two complementary colors. I drew the image using several values of violet for darks and yellow for the highest. This is another way I sometimes use digital programs.

Night Street, 2015

Sometimes I start and finish a work digitally. Here is an original digtal "painting" of the view from my studio window at 6 am, most winter mornings. This was created (as were all of these) using Sketchbook Pro, which I've found fits me best of the computer programs I've been trying out.

Digital images like this don't sell, of course, because in a very real way they are more ephemeral than handbills. You can print one of these onto a good support using top-quality archival inks (and there are machines that can convert it to oil paint, too) but digitally created images are a tough sell, I'm told. 











Computer Art Programs

Paint Basics

Whenever I think about something, it's important to begin with the essentials. So with this post I'm trying to begin at a very basic level. No discussion of paint brands or critiques of various ways of painting. This post is simply about paint--any kind--and what it's made of.

Paint is a preparation of pigment in liquid, intended for application to a surface or an object. Paint may be functional--barn paint--or decorative--fine art. Artist paint these days is sold in quite a few different forms including paint made with oil, acrylic, casein, gouache, egg tempera, or transparent watercolor. The last five types of paint are water-based or water-soluble, with certain additions. Some also call pastel pictures "paintings" and classify pastel as a genre of painting. Others classify pastel images as colored drawings. In this post I'm speaking only of liquid paint; in general paint is liquid and applied variously with brushes, knives, or other implements.

Besides pigment and liquid (vehicle, composed of binder and solvent), paint may contain any number of other materials, depending on the maker and the intended market. Although properly speaking, in oil paint linseed oil is the binder I'm going to call it the vehicle (which is the binder diluted with something) for the purposes of this post. Manufactured oil paint commonly has various additions--preservatives, stabilizers, filler, substances that improve the flow of the paint, and others. Generally speaking, the best paint is thought to be mostly (or only) pigment suspended in a vehicle, with the caveat that sometimes the "best" paint is a compromise. Certainly, to get the most from a color, the painter craves very pigment-rich paint, a heavy pigment load. But sometimes there's also a need to compromise between purity and additions that improve the paint's handling characteristics. Professional grades of oil paint may be labelled "pure pigment" but even then, certain pigments require help to be made into paint to avoid issues like stringiness or near-insolubility or other problems. Also, professional grade paint is often intentionally produced "short" of oil, which allows the painter to alter the consistency and handling of the paint to suit their personal preferences by addition of more oil or the use of mediums.

Gary Hoff: "Primaries," 2006

Paint may be "permanent," meaning that depending on exposure, the paint can last longer than most people do, and also that the pigment is stable and won't fade or shift in color. Impermanent paints may also go chalky or crackle into chips and pull away from the surface, especially those exposed to sun and weather on outside walls. Indoors, paint suffers considerably less, so that in traditional oil painting, layers of color can be put down and last hundreds of years. Casein paint dries and lasts well too, possibly as long as oils. Watercolor is another matter since watercolor paintings can be easily damaged by humidity or water. Gouache, an opaque watercolor that was once the preferred medium of illustrators, can also be damaged by exposure to humidity or water, but the colors available today are light-fast. Acrylic paint has only been around for about eight decades, a brief period in comparison to other kinds of paint, and so hasn't yet shown the longevity of other paint. Once it dries, acrylic paint seems nearly bulletproof, and is more flexible than oil paint layers, but whether that flexibility remains over many more decades remains to be determined. A neat advantage of acrylic is it's ability to be thinned dramatically and employed in transparent layers like watercolor, since after it dries it isn't bothered by water exposure.

The binder in oil paint is one of several natural oils termed "drying oils" that are derived from various vegetable sources. Oils that dry transform from a liquid into a solid, flexible, tough, durable film. If there is pigment (color) suspended in the oil, we call it paint. Drying oils take up oxygen from the air to form a natural polymer, hence the tough film. Drying oils include linseed, walnut and other nut oils, and certain treated safflower oils. Poppyseed oil is sometimes used as a paint vehicle and said to be a drying oil, but those I know and trust who have used it say it never really dries and remains gummy seemingly forever. It needs the assistance of a chemical dryer. I've no personal experience with it.

If you look at linseed oil in the bottle, it seems quite yellow to use in paintings, yet when mixed with pigment, the predominant effect is the color of the pigment, not the liquid. And when oil paint dries it seems to take on more brilliance, especially when the painting is exposed to sunlight. So the slight yellow color of linseed oil isn't a problem. Nut oils also have a trifle of coloration but again that slight tinge doesn't change the normal color of pigments or dull paint made with walnut oil. I've no experience with any other nut oils. Acrylic vehicles are generally clear, and of course the other kinds of paint mentioned above are all thinned with water, which serves as vehicle and thinner in one.

Gary Hoff: "Secondaries," 2006

With regard to buying, my experience has been that you should buy the very best quality paint (and other materials as well) that you can afford. Student grade paint (cheaper) contains less pigment than artist grade or professional grade tube paint and more inert (not pigmented) material, to make a less expensive paint. The problem is that fillers alter the mixing quality of various colors and sometimes the handling quality of the paint paste as well. It is better to paint with a limited palette of top-quality paint. And top quality paint can actually last longer since the pigment load allows better color mixing with less paint. When exploring new paint manufacturers, I've often bought only a few tubes at a time--say, a tube of raw umber, a white (I prefer lead white), and maybe yellow ochre. Earth colors can say a great deal about the paint maker. For example, ochres are brighter alone and in mixes if ground relatively coarse. That means the paint will feel a bit gritty if mulled properly. Some colors--alizarin crimson for example--are best when rather waxy. And all good paint should mix well. It doesn't cost much to try two or three tubes because if you're painting much at all, you'll use a small tube of these colors pretty fast.

Good paint comes from companies like Golden (acrylics and oils), Gamblin, Williamsburg, and Vasari, to name a few. The paint will cost more, and some of these companies only sell online or in limited locations. But the paint is worth the price, and the results have always pleased me.

What about those really poisonous paints that some people still use, like lead white or vermilion, or others? Well, most are still made because artist paint has an exception to the ban imposed on some pigments formerly in general use. Lead white is an example. You can't buy lead white in Europe, I'm told, but it's available here from a number of manufacturers. It's not a deadly poison, in the sense that you aren't killed by small doses. Further, lead carbonate, the main lead pigment, isn't absorbed well by the skin, at all. If you use lead, you should wash hands and maintain a clean studio, but beyond that, you're not in any danger. Vermilion is a bit different--it's a mercury sulfide compound and is more poisonous than lead. In the past, it was a great color for adding the flush of normal skin coloration to portraits, and so on. However, there's little reason these days to use natural vermilion--made by grinding a mineral called cinnabar--because contemporary substitutes are less toxic. Cadmium red is a good stand-in, but in any event is still toxic, just in much higher doses. Mercury causes nerve damage; cadmium causes cancer. The main solution in using paint (and other materials) that has toxic properties is simple cleanliness. Keep paint off skin, keep hands clean, don't put paint in one's mouth, ventilate the studio. Simple measures but important ones.

New Portrait, Part 2

Some time ago I posted an image of a portrait that I've had in progress for several months. I was trying to do it completely from life, without reference photos, rather in the way a portrait might have been done in the early 19th century. But as I wrote in that post, the model and I had difficulty connecting for sittings, which resulted in considerable delay. In the end I gave in and have been using a combination of digital photos with life sittings, although scheduling them has still been difficult.

Using photos--especially on a digital device--is a problem for me because photos tend to over-brighten the lights and lose the dark values in murk. That is, subtleties in skin tones and values are often completely lost for much of the image. For me, taking good quality reference shots is a considerable challenge. Some people use a computer to edit those things, but I'm not adept enough with photo-editing programs to do that.

In any event,  work has progressed sporadically on this one during the past couple of months but it's approaching the finish. The likeness is much improved, and the skin tones are too although the photograph still compresses values and flattens subtle color changes. The present state of the portrait is shown, left. 

Work remains to be done on the sweater and on the neck and chest, as well as final adjustments of skin color. Given the problems with photographs, all of these await a final life session.

A New Portrait

Pen and Ink

Time was when you read the term "pen and ink" it mostly meant drawings done with a dip pen and black ("India") ink. Today, the term is more commonly applied to drawings done using a technical pen with a fixed-diameter, cylindrical tip. Rapidograph is a common brand of tech pen that's widely available. These pens were originally made for drafting and technical drawing of other kinds, but because of convenience they've virtually replaced dip pens. The problem with tech pens is they lack the ability to vary line width. Each pen lays down a uniform line thickness, an advantage in technical drawings. In practice, technical pens are handy, fit in the pocket, contain an ink reservoir (no dipping into an open ink bottle), and are therefore simply easier to use.

In spite of a long-term trend toward technical pens, I still use an array of old metal nibs that I've collected here and there over the years. This sort of pen point can be enormously expressive and can yield delightful results. Most of the drawings I've done with these near-antiques have been studies.  Here are a few pen and ink drawings made for practice.

The first drawing is a view of the Iowa state capitol building. The capitol has two facing wings, each with two small copper-green domes. There is a much larger central dome over a big central rotunda, seen on the left of the drawing. The big dome is  completely gilded in 24kt gold. I could have continued the drawing to the bottom of the page, but chose to stop just below the evergreens to focus attention on the two domes above.

This is a local mansion, Salisbury House, built piecemeal nearly a century ago by a local business magnate. It was constructed by combining parts of several ancient English manor houses that he purchased, disassembled, and shipped to Iowa. Salisbury House was the residence of the builder and his family for a long while before eventually becoming a museum, as it is today. Inside it has wonderful beamed ceilings, a rather impressive library of old, rare books, and an air of real magnificence. This is an "ink and wash" drawing, first done with a dip pen and then toned with diluted ink washed on with a soft brush.

Here is a smaller drawing of an iris, employing more traditional ink methods. I had done this same subject in silverpoint awhile before this drawing and decided to see if I could translate the silverpoint image to one in ink. The problems with the two techniques are different in some ways but mostly similar. Pen and ink is at least as unforgiving as silverpoint so that you must be very certain of yourself as you put down lines. Both also rely more on crosshatched darks than other techniques. Notice the varying line weight (thickness) in various sections of the drawing. I thought this one turned out reasonably well.

Another bearded iris, this time done from a photo I saw online. This drawing is approximately the same size as the one above, but in this case I relied on crosshatching the background to emphasize the brighter, lighter color of the blossom and did very little shading of the petals. There are numerous passages of this one where pressure on the nib gave a darker, thicker line within the same stroke.

Although this kind of pen and ink drawing is now rare, it's a challenging way to hone your drawing skills.
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Posts about drawing:
Pen and Ink
Metalpoint
Drawing Practice

Studies

For a large part of my career in painting, I've done few preliminary paintings in preparation for larger works. Over the years I've done studies like notans, drawn compositional and layout preparations with charcoal or graphite, and sometimes I've done studies of individual items. But I haven't done many preliminary color studies in oil or any other medium. Lately though I've done a few, and it's interesting to compare them with the larger, finished work they helped me prepare for. So here are a couple of recent instances where I used studies before starting the final painting.

This is an 8x10 sketch in oil for the larger painting below. It took perhaps 90 minutes, start to finish, and was done from personal references and online images, with considerable invention. This was painted as a daylight scene, but in the larger-scale work, it becomes a night street.

As you can see, this painting, which is 24x18, is considerably different. It's darker and cooler in palette, butr the red over the windows still pops. The figures are smaller in relation to the much bigger windows, and there are more figures as well. The interior of the brewing operation is a bit more distinct. And the larger painting is considerably more "finished"--not so loosely executed.

To the left is another small, quickly-done sketch, this time from an online reference. The two establishments are on a street in the city that's full of clubs and bars where people often hang out Friday nights and weekends. The scene is considerably different from the study, though. For one thing the place on the right was quite a lot bigger, and is no longer there. This is another 8x10 study, probably an hour's work.

And here is the larger work, based on the study above. It's 12x16 on panel, and clearly is considerably different from the small study. The yellow, rolled up umbrellas are gone, and the sign on the restaurant to the left is much brighter. Also, the awnings on the place to the right were actually quite dark, which is absent in both the study and the final image.


Seems to me that you can do studies either as very controlled, very outcome-oriented images intended to be a kind of dress rehearsal for the final painting, or you can do them as ways to experiment with color and sometimes even composition without necessarily committing to an actual final picture until you have the bigger support on the easel. Either way is probably useful; the second way seems more so, or at least more spontaneous and less mechanical.

Windowsill Works 3

Here are a three of my small morning studies that I call Windowsill Works since a lot of them were set up on the sill of my western studio window. Most of the series were done around an hour after sunup, or perhaps a bit earlier. A few were done at different times of day, like the three paintings of a half-full bottle, below. Originally, these were separate works and not an intentional series but not long ago I exhibited them as a triptych in a very unusual venue.

This triptych is actually three views of the same bottle, done at three different times of day. Each

Morning, Noon & Evening, 2011

panel is 6x8, and all three are mounted on a support measuring 11.5x26. Titled "Morning, Noon, Evening," this piece toured for a month in a group show that was installed on a Des Moines city bus. I know it sounds odd, but a couple of summers ago two local artists pitched a grant idea for a traveling exhibition to be installed on public transportation as a way to reach people who might not ever look at original art. They got their grant and invited other local artists to participate with them. The show included small sculptures, my paintings, and another artist's drawings and toured during the same period as the local arts festival, in June. The curators, working with the local transit authority, installed all of the work on a single bus that traveled various routes during the month or so that the exhibition lasted. This photograph is a bit light in the center, where warm reflected light alters both the background red and the central panel, so this small snapshot is only a fair representation of the actual work.

The idea of doing a painting of the same motif at varying times of day--under varied natural lighting--still appeals and makes me want to do more of this sort of study. Also, the varied light meant different reflection and refraction of the bottle's contents and surface, which is an interesting study as well. (I think Monet was onto something, obviously.) So perhaps another ongoing series might be in order.

And here's a snap of the paintings in their exhibition box, on board the city bus, taken by one of the curators. The curators themselves designed and built the boxes for both paintings and sculptures, and paid each artist a small stipend.








Previously in this series:
Windowsill Works
Windowsill Works 2

Pigment

Pigment is basically a colored particulate material of various origins most commonly employed to add to or change the color of a substrate. Pigment colors occur because the particles reflect certain wavelengths of light while absorbing others. Unlike dyes, which can be dissolved in a liquid, pigment particles are insoluble, or nearly so. Pigment is suspended in a liquid to make paint by a process called "mulling." Dyes may be soluble in water and attach to underlying substrates, such as cloth, with variable strength. Many dyes are obtained from plant material but may also come from animals, minerals, or be chemically synthesized. On the other hand, pigment can come from the ground--earth pigments like umbers--from plant, vegetable or animal sources, or from chemical synthesis or extraction.

These particles reflect blue and absorb red & green

Pigments have variable physical properties. Some pigments comprise relatively large sized  particles or even widely variable particle sizes while others are divided almost infinitesimally so that the pigment is like very fine dust. On the other hand, ochres are often "gritty" because of their relatively large and hard particle size. Some pigments may have such tiny particles they act almost like a stain. Some pigments are very opaque while others are semi- or completely transparent and allow underlying colors to show through. Titanium white is extremely opaque, for example, and will cover and hide almost any other color while lead white allows colors underneath to glow through when thinly painted over them.  Transparent colors can be painted over other colors, allowing optical mixing. Or transparent color can be mixed with opaque color with less reduction in color intensity (also called chroma).

Speed of drying is another property of pigments that an artist ought to understand. Some pigments dry rapidly and some dry so slowly they need help. Umbers dry quite quickly--a few hours to a day or so--owing to the presence of manganese in the pigment. On the other hand, colors like the cadmiums are slower to dry. The speed with which oil paint dries also depends significantly on the vehicle (the oil) used to compound it, which can slow or speed drying, as can specific mediums and dryers. Linseed oil dries by oxidation, by taking up oxygen from the atmosphere in a slowly-proceeding chemical reaction that can take months to complete and turn the oil into a solid polymer. Most artist-grade linseed oil will dry to touch in a day or two at most. Walnut oil, another commonly used vehicle for paint, may take more than a week to dry. The nut oils take up oxygen more slowly.

Another very important property of pigment (and dyes) is light-fastness, or permanence. If one is to make a picture that will last, the pigments ought to resist fading as much as possible. Some pigments are prone to rapid and severe fading and are termed fugitive. Today, artist-grade paint is made with light-fast pigment, for the most part, and resists being faded by sunshine. Manufacturers label their paint tubes with grades of light-fastness. The only pigment I know that's in common use and rated as less than permanent is original alizarin crimson, which can fade over a long period of light exposure. There are synthetic substitutes for that color today that are impervious to light exposure, though.

Ground lapis lazuli

Of course one of the most important properties of pigment is it's color. Painters of long ago, like Rembrandt, Velazquez, and their peers, used a severely limited selection of colors in their paintings, owing to a limited number of pigments available in those times. For many of the "old masters" of the 17th into 19th centuries a full palette of colors might have consisted of lead white, a bone black (ivory black today), with an earth red plus an earth yellow--generally ochres. Blues were available, but were either weak in color or could only be obtained in small quantities at enormous cost. Lapis lazuli was a well-known natural pigment was more expensive than gold in the 17th and 18th centuries. Lapis was so expensive that the amount to be used was often specified separately in contracts for paintings. It was and is also called ultramarine blue, meaning beyond the sea, because it came from such enormous distance. Today ultramarine blue is chemically manufactured for considerably less money and is one of the best known colors in use. Smalt was another blue but weaker than lapis that was made from cobalt-containing glass, coarsely ground. Smalt tended to be muddy and faded, often only in a few years.

There is considerably more to think about when it comes to artist-quality pigments, and today's range of synthetic and natural colors is truly astounding. As I've been working through these paragraphs, it occurred to me that synthetics are a whole topic in themselves and I need to look at more of that information before I write much about them. Suffice it to say that many of the most valued pigments these days are synthetic--Prussian blue, alizarin crimson, the cadmium colors, and a host of others have come to dominate the palettes of most artists.


Pigment Library

Cityscapes Redux

As I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, cityscapes have occupied a lot of my studio time lately. The life of cities presents lots of opportunities for interesting compositions and situations, often with implied narrative or color inventions. While I've done many images of cities like New York and Paris, a lot of my newer works are based here in Des Moines. While the largest city in Iowa, Des Moines is dwarfed by many metropolitan areas but with two rivers, many bridges, and dozens of picturesque streets and area, the city simply begs to be painted. A handful of current works:

"The Red Umbrella," 2016

This picture is quite small at 8x6 but the subject, colors, and composition interested me. It may evolve into a larger work, but for now this stands alone as a completed oil painting. It was great fun putting these colors into a nocturnal view of a European city.

"Near Dawn," 2016

"Near Dawn" is what I've titled this nocturne of Des Moines. It's 16x20 on hardboard panel. I was interested in how the night is lighted from different sources--streetlamps, stores, apartments, and the like.

"Dos Rios (study)," 2016

This final painting is an 8x10 study for a larger work. The street is lined on both sides with restaurants and watering holes frequented by the young up-and-coming crowd in Des Moines. "Dos Rios" is the name of the painting and the name of the restaurant.

Cityscapes (4/1/2016)

Solvents

Solvents and their hazards is a subject that I've seen discussed almost endlessly online, in workshops, and in my own studio. At first it seems to be a boring discussion of an obvious topic. When you read these conversations, you can become convinced that everyone knows that odorless mineral spirits is a good, non-toxic solvent for oil paint, for example. Turpentine, by contrast, is commonly considered "toxic" and as a result is often banned from public studios. Received wisdom is that mineral spirits is a safe solvent and turpentine is not. In the face of a majority who seem to believe that, I've asked myself  "is that really true?" Further, is there a difference among solvents, especially with regard to making special mediums? And also,what about some of the other solvents out there? There are unusual ones like citrus-based "Turpenoid Natural" (a brand name), oil of spike lavender, and others. Some are touted as natural, implying safety. Of course, crude oil extracted from the ground is natural, too. 

I decided to try and figure out the truth about solvents, mostly using online research, even into special collections such as the National Library of Medicine. This is what I found.

Mineral Spirits

A commonly-used brand of odorless mineral spirits

Mineral spirits is a mix of hydrocarbon molecules--molecules made up only of hydrogen and carbon--generically called alkanes (molecules in straight-chains). A familiar alkane to most of us is "octane," an straight molecule comprising eight carbon atoms that is found in gasoline. The "octane rating" of gasoline is one way of stating its power. Mineral spirits in various forms is a mix of hydrocarbon molecules, some straight chains and some in exotic rings of carbon and hydrogen. Mineral spirits that smell generally include multiple ring structures while odorless ones are almost exclusively the straight chain kind. Mineral spirits is usually clear as water.

Odorless mineral spirits have had the ring molecules extracted, leaving behind straight-chain carbon molecules. A simple ringed molecule has six carbon atoms (a "benzene ring") arranged in a circle. In various combinations of rings and chains, these "aromatic" molecules can be toxic and/or carcinogenic to humans. Odorless mineral spirits (OMS) have had most or all of these extracted, resulting in a clear, odorless liquid comprising straight-chain hydrocarbon molecules of seven to twelve carbons that is commonly used by oil painters and in other situations. The liquid has a low toxicity, mainly as an irritant to skin and mucous membranes in small quantities, but in larger exposures whether inhalation or ingestion can be significantly toxic or fatal.

Other names for mineral spirits include "paint thinner," or "white spirit" (in Britain), and there are various brand names of OMS on the market. Further, a slightly different form of mineral spirits is widely employed in dry cleaning. And jet fuel that's commonly used today is very similar too--kerosene is one name for it--and comprises similarly-sized carbon chains to those of mineral spirits. All of these are products of crude oil. To be clear, mineral spirits are a product derived from petroleum. The molecules come from fractional distillation of crude oil, extracted from the ground.

Many times I've seen comments online that odorless mineral spirits is safer than turpentine, perhaps in part because OMS is indeed odorless. But the safety of mineral spirits implied by many, including manufacturers and re-sellers, is false. In online materials, and in other advertising, some sellers flatly state that their brand of mineral spirits is "less toxic" than other brands of odorless mineral spirits, mineral spirits (the smelly kind), or turpentine since any "harmful aromatic solvent component" is removed. It's true that the aromatics (ring molecules) are well-known to be harmful to humans and animals, but equating no smell to no toxicity is wrong. Hydrocarbons in straight chains can be harmful to humans as well, particularly in high concentrations. The truth is that mineral spirits is not "non-toxic." Mineral spirits are well-known to cause both an acute and a chronic toxicity.  Particularly troubling is a condition called chronic toxic encephalopathy, in other words chronic brain poisoning, that can occur.

Mineral spirits, in my experience, is a reliable solvent. I've used either kind--odorless or not--to dissolve and remove oil paint from brushes; to thin linseed oil; even to make painting mediums. In my hands odorless mineral spirits is fine for cleaning brushes but simply not as good as turpentine for altering paint or making mediums. It's tempting to say that this is because one is a petroleum product and the others come from trees.

In general, I now use odorless mineral spirits to clean my brushes of paint residue when the painting session is over. Sometimes I only use soap. I don't use mineral spirits in mediums or to thin my paint unless forced to do so by location. Quite a number of public studios, including my own local art center, have restrictions on the use of turpentine in unventilated spaces. (Yet none on mineral spirits.)
  
Turpentine

A brand of artist-grade gum spirits of turpentine

The proper name for this solvent is "spirit of turpentine." You will also see it marketed as "gum spirits" of turpentine, meaning that the source is tree sap, or gum, and the traditional term artists use is "turps." Specifically though, the sticky gum from trees is turpentine. Sometimes the thick, resinous gum is used without alteration (eg Venice turpentine) but artist-grade turpentine is distilled from the sap. Spirits of turpentine is therefore a plant product of course. Many other materials used in oil painting are plant-based too. Linseed oil is extracted from flax, for example. And we sometimes use other resins--Canada balsam, dammar, etc. in making specific mediums for painting. When plant products are used together, the resulting mediums seem smoother and work better with oil paints, in my experience.

When I began oil painting, I was taught that turpentine ("turps") is just a paint thinner. My first teachers had me put out some linseed oil in a cup and some spirit of  turpentine in another. The idea was that you started painting by thinning the colors with turpentine to a kind of washiness, gradually moving into thinning the colors bit by bit with the oil in subsequent layers, thus obeying the "fat over lean" principle." As a way of constructing an oil painting, it's not a bad sequence.

Tuprentine pines, tapped for their sap

It took a number of years before I found out that turpentine is actually tree sap, primarily pine sap--and that the solvent is distilled from the sap or from ground stumps and other tree refuse. A variety of pines has been used for many years as the source of  turpentine. The trees are tapped and the sap that is extruded is collected. The collected sap is then distilled, resulting in the clear spirit of turpentine and a resinous residue that is further treated to obtain more of the distilled spirits. You sometimes see "rectified" turpentine in artist grade material, which is another word for distilled.

Spirit of turpentine has many industrial uses including everything from paint thinner to cosmetics. You can easily find turps in home improvement centers and hardware stores, though now it's used less often by builders and paint contractors, who prefer mineral spirits. Cheaper spirits of turpentine can be easily found in home centers and building supply stores, but should be avoided by oil painters for a number of reasons. In particular, this sort of spirit of turpentine made by pressure-steam distillation of wood pulp from stumps and all manner of wood refuse rather than pure tree sap. The quality of the resulting turps varies widely and the mixture of chemicals it contains is considerably different that artist-grade turps. Using this sort of spirit of turpentine in oil painting could be a problem because of the contaminating, compounds. And it usually smells terrible too. Good quality gum spirits of turpentine has a pleasant, piney smell. If you've used pine oil cleansers at home, you probably remember that similar pine scent. Artist quality turps is nearly water-clear with a slight yellow tinge. It feels slightly oily to touch, but in general dries with very little residue. You can check that property by dropping a bit on a piece of clean glass and waiting for it to dry.

As to toxicity, artist-grade spirits of turpentine isn't particularly harmful. Turpentine can be an irritant to skin and mucous membranes, so folks with sensitive skin should either wear gloves or if necessary avoid turps. It is a known respiratory irritant as well, and like all such should be avoided by people with asthma and other respiratory ailments. Some, including me, have gotten a temporary headache when exposed to the vapors in a poorly ventilated space. The headache clears with removal of the exposure. Of course, you can poison yourself by drinking turps in large quantities, but it can even be taken orally (not that I would!) in small doses and used to be employed a century or more ago as a "spring tonic" intended to route out intestinal parasites.

In summary, my experience with turps is very positive. In artist grades, gum spirits of turpentine is superior for making mediums, in my hands, and preferred. Good turps smells good and is best obtained via artist supply companies. Finally, turps is generally safe, especially if your studio is well-ventilated, as it should be.

Oil of Spike Lavender
Oil of spike lavender or "oil of spike" is also a plant-based product, and has a relatively long history of use. According to at least some histories, oil of spike predates the use of turpentine but was supplanted by it long ago owing to expense. This is an exceptionally pleasant-smelling and useful solvent. The source is the spike lavender plant Lavandula latifolia. The oil is a distillate only of that plant but there are other lavender oils, extracted from other Lavandula species. While it's still on the market, oil of spike is significantly expensive even in small quantities, making it impractical for high volume use like brush cleaning. Nevertheless, oil of spike is worth the expense for me, in making certain special painting mediums. I still use oil of spike occasionally, but much less frequently than turpentine.

A favorite painting medium I've used is made of stand oil and oil of spike, mixed about one-to-one by volume. Of course you can vary those proportions, using more or less solvent. Using too little oil of spike means a thicker, stickier and (in my hands anyway) less useful medium. This medium, used sparingly with oil paint, provides a relatively glossy, leveled paint surface. These days most of my work is intended to be more matte, so I've used this medium less and less over the past several years. (I do sometimes sketch using a bit of it to thin my tube paints, just for the wonderful smell!)

Miscellaneous
Citrus oil solvents.
These are sometimes used to clean brushes, as a substitute for turps or OMS. The idea some promote is that these pleasant-smelling liquids are safer because they are "organic" or "natural." These products often contain orange oil, an extract of orange peel, containing a high concentration of a molecule named d-limonene.  Although it's a fair solvent with a pleasant odor, d-limonene is more commonly used in "green insecticide" and in particular to kill ants. Research into human effects is scanty, so far as I know, but the chemical is a known carcinogen in rats. So far as I can determine, citrus oil solvents have no place in oil painting mediums and are less effective in dissolving oils than OMS or turps. In short, these compounds and mixtures may be useful if you need to avoid mineral spirits, but provide no advantages in working with oil paint and making mediums.

Kerosene
Mentioned above, kerosene is still used by some--particularly commercial sign painters and house painters--though probably less and less. For one thing, kerosene is really just a kind of mineral spirits. It may be a bit "hotter" in the sense of cutting through grease, but otherwise the chemical mixture is similar to mineral spirits. Kerosene is also sold as "lamp oil." In my grandmother's day it was called "coal oil." Although it's an excellent solvent, it's also inflammable and full of nasty aromatics. Today there are better substitutes for oil painters.

Denatured alcohol
Not a paint solvent strictly speaking, denatured alcohol is quite useful in the studio. It's chemical name is ethanol, basically the same kind of alcohol found in beer, wine, and spirits, but made poisonous by adding other chemicals. It's clearly labelled a poison and can't be made non-poisonous. In other words, you can't drink it safely. But it's a wonderful way to dissolve oils. In my studio, I use a piece of tempered glass as a palette and clean it with denatured alcohol. The alcohol will strip even dried paint from glass, leaving virtually no residue. Alcohol dries by evaporation. I keep a squeeze bottle of denatured alcohol near the palette, and as paint become used up or dry, I squirt a bit onto the glass, wait a bit and wipe it off. I also sometimes use a bit in a rag or paper towel to clean palette knives and the like. And of course, ethanol is also plant-based.

Using Solvents 
Solvents should be used sparingly.

Over the years, I've seen people use enormous volumes of various solvents when a small amount would have sufficed. In some studios, brush washing cans set out with OMS often are left uncovered. That's a bad idea since OMS evaporates quickly--quicker than turps--and so can contaminate the air in an unventilated space. Granted, the exposure you get even in an unventilated studio is probably not enough to cause injury, but long-term exposure in high concentrations could be harmful, so why tempt fate?
Another way I've seen solvent overused is constant rinsing of brushes. Some painters rinse brushes thoroughly between each stroke, or between color changes, so the brushes are exposed to considerably more mineral spirits or turps. The result, I suspect, is of such exposure is damage to the hairs or fibers and shortened brush life. In my experience, using a separate brush for each color, wiping off excess between strokes rather than rinsing, and cleaning only with small amounts of solvent before washing with soap is a better sequence of use.

Summary
For me, the best all-around solvent for oil painting is gum spirit of turpentine. My reasons are first that turps melds with oils and resins to make wonderful mediums while mineral spirits don't seem to make the same lovely mixes. Second, turps is a renewable, plant-based resource unlike OMS and other petroleum-based materials. Oil of spike and denatured alcohol have the same positive advantage.

As to "toxicity," solvents can all have certain negative effects. Mineral spirits can cause chronic brain poisoning besides being a respiratory and skin irritant and poisonous when taken internally. Turps can also be a skin and respiratory irritant and can be poisonous taken internally in anything more than tiny quantities. Turps also can cause significant headache in unventilated spaces.

Finally, consider that studios should be well-ventilated, which will significantly reduce exposure to vapors of any of the solvents mentioned. Overusing solvents will very likely produce more trouble, both to brushes and materials and to one's health.

Cityscapes

Landscape is an enormously appealing and poplar genre of painting. Who doesn't love western mountain vistas or waves breaking on a beach, or perhaps even pastures and cattle? But painters, like writers, do better work when the subject is a familiar one. My own favorite kind of landscape is cityscapes--rooftops, crowded streets, cafes brimming with life--which among many other reasons attract me with their regularity of shapes, the play of light and shade, signs, figures in action, night streets, and other features. There is always an implied narrative in cityscapes, seems to me, even if the artist doesn't try to tell a story. Why are the streets empty? Or why are they so crowded?

Streets and people of places as diverse as Manhattan, Chicago, Omaha, and Des Moines interest me. I particularly enjoy the challenge of late Victorian architecture, with its towers and turrets and gingerbread. .

Here's a small selection of New York cityscapes.
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"Paint Palace," 2015. 14x11 on panel sold

The first one is "Paint Palace," a view of the Pearl Paint store in Manhattan that closed not long ago. I love the red and white colors and the mismatching facade. For a long time, Pearl Paint was one of my "go to" dealers for all kinds of  art materials, as it was for many. In particular, this composition was also about the antique-looking lamp post superimposed on the facade.

"Novelties," 2014, 20x24, oil on canvas, sold

The next is a view of the old Gordon's Novelties, a shop that was in business in New York for many years. This particular shop was not far from the Flatiron Building in lower Manhattan. Some years back the novelty shop closed and eventually the structures were sand-blasted back to their original bricks and remodeled. But the store was an electric blue color for a long long while.

"False Dawn, Union Square," 2014, 10x16, oil on panel, available

Sometimes it's not the structure but the light, or the time of day or year that attracts me to a particular
subject. This is a picture of the subway station in Union Square, just before the sun broke through in the morning--the false dawn. If you don't know New York the thing looks like a flying saucer, or maybe a food stand. Certainly doesn't look like a subway entrance, but below Union Square (as in much of the city) there is an enormous subway station that connects several parts of the city.

"Invictus," 2013, 10x8, oil on panel sold

The Chrysler Building in winter twilight. Even though the spire has become an Art Deco icon and though it's been painted literally tens of thousands of times, this particular view struck me as a strong representative image of New York, especially after the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center at the turn of the century--unconquered and continuing as the intellectual and business center of the world. For that reason I called it "Invictus," or unconquered, in Latin.

"Eat," 2009, 24x18, oil on panel   available

Finally, here is a view into Times Square from a side street. "Eat" was difficult because I wanted to indicate the brightness of artificial light--the sort of glow in the air--in that place at night. This is partly based on photo references but also on considerable personal observation.