Studio makeover progress

Well, thing are getting close to done. My stacked storage unit is built. Dismantling the two old ones shocked me when I saw how dirty everything was.

 It's made of 28" hollow core doors with 1x6 legs screwed on to the sides. I removed the old 32" legs and put on 72" legs instead. The drawers are 1x4 with a 1/4" Masonite bottom and attached to slides. The bottom section houses my large Schminke pastel boxes with a tool drawer over one. Small items like watercolor tubes and drawing supplies go in an old card file I got at a library auction. Portable easels go on top. Mat board, fomecor and assorted papers next. Below that are frames and larger pieces of glass (smaller pieces go in the leftover space at bottom right) and canvases and stuff stored in tubes.

A 36" door slides out from between two shelves as a work table for priming panels, cutting mats or stretching canvas. With one room it's necessary to have convertible work stations.

 The laundry wall cabinet that used to be above the old table got casters and is now a taboret thingie for gesso, solvents, paint and related items.

That freed up my drawing table to be used as...wait for it...a drawing table! I actually got that on the curb during spring pickup in Fairfield years ago. I check that house every year now!

 The big easel is in its corner. The ceiling lights will have to be rearranged to fit but as is, it's fine during daylight hours.

 There's lots more room now but the issue has become parting with bits of this and that that clutter up the room. Junk I thought could be used for some project...and has been waiting years for said project to materialize. It's all going to go. Next will be some painting racks on the wall for plein air studies.      Meanwhile, I'm getting ideas from what my painting friends are posting in their blogs so I'll probably work in it for a while before making any other changes.

Rezzo loo shunz...bye 2015

Resolution...What does that mean anyway? You already had a solution but didn't use it and now you're reapplying it? That's why I don't understand making them. Setting yourself up to not do something you're already not doing seems vaguely metaphysical.
 However I AM going to attempt that other new year tradition of "getting organized". My studio is what my Dad used to call a "s**t house mess". Now that the really cold weather is coming I'll be spending more time working in it...or trying to. I can't just use it as a place to dump painting gear and store frames before heading to the spacious outdoors. This 13x13 ex-bedroom needs a makeover (which is another big tradition, I think...but this project will need more than press-on nails and a pair of spanks).
 Here are some before photos. As 13x13 is a small footprint, my only option is the urban architecture approach of going vertical - these shelf/table combos are going to get stacked and a 36"x80" work table will slide out from between the two.

 The big easel is going to go to a corner where the windows always light it indirectly. Right now it starts the day with bright, direct light and gets darker and indirect as time passes.

The portable easels will go on the top shelf of the new stacked version (would that lifting constitute a workout program?).
 Still, there are a few things I don't know how to rearrange just yet. If you have any great ideas, please pass them on and I will share pictures as things develop.
Happy 2016!

Drag it - don't nag it

 Oh, phooey...I wanted to imbed video in this post but time and incompetence have gotten the best of me...so here's the info in verbal form and perhaps someday I'll manage a video redux.
 Previously, I've written how paint looks and behaves on the palette and what value to expect once it's put to paper. To recap: Runny paint (paint that moves freely on a tipped palette) makes light to medium value marks. Paint that moves slowly on a tipped palette makes medium to dark value marks. Paint that stays put makes the darkest mark available from that pigment.
 So, with the right color in brush, the next challenge is to get it on paper with the desired appearance.
Watercolor doesn't like to be dabbed, stroked or brushed...it's mostly water and water likes to flow.
Think like so: The water carries the color and you move the water.  You lead it where you want and after it evaporates, beautiful color remains....or not.
If you dab, stroke or otherwise nag it, watercolor leaves a mess. Lead it about nicely and it will gift you with colorful presents.
 Runny paint and slow moving paint require different application procedures - but neither involves rubbing, scrubbing or dabbing.

 Runny paint flows across the paper easily. If  your paper is at a 45-60 degree angle it forms a juicy bead at the brushstroke's lower edge (the flatter you work, the faster the water soaks into the paper - it has to be on the surface to lead about). If you touch a loaded brush to the bottom edge of your bead you can continue to lay a smooth wash wherever you lead that bead. When you OVERLAP the bead with your brush, you risk streaks. Bringing your brush into an area you've just painted does a couple things: it can "wipe" a bit of the previous stroke away, leaving a lighter patch. Or, the additional liquid may wash the area lighter. I like to say "bring the brush TO IT but not THROUGH IT". The bead waits for you while you apply color to other areas, so don't run your brush out and leave a dry edge. Leave a bead so you can pick up where you left off. Just reload your brush, pick up the bead from underneath and lead on. When you get where you're going, "drink up" any remaining bead by touching a squeezed out brush tip to it.
WASH TIP: Keeping the brush handle pointing up lets gravity aid the release of paint. Pointing the handle down slows that release as gravity pulls it back into the tuft. If your bead starts to starve out, go "handle up" to keep it juicy. If you're coming up to a complex shape and need to paint around it with care, go "handle down" to slow the flow.
Slow moving paint is trickier to lead about because it's thicker. It won't form a bead you can coax along. So how do you get a relatively smooth application over large areas? Again, "bring the brush TO IT but not THROUGH IT".
Put some slow moving color on the paper - as far as it will go and still look wet. It should glisten. Then, reload your brush and bring the brush to the WET EDGE of the previous mark and let hydraulics do the joining. DON'T STIR BACK INTO PREVIOUSLY PAINTED AREAS to blend the new paint unless you want streaks, texture or blossoms.

Common mistakes
1. HARD PAINT: Make sure the paint in the palette is fresh or re-moistened enough to get the desired consistency.
2. MIX PLENTY: Have color ready so the bead or wet edge isn't drying up while you mix more. Often painters try to cover too big an area and then starve their bead, or let their wet edge get too dry. While they're  mixing more color - which is difficult when there's little of the original to go by - a hard edge forms where they left off. Then, they torture and scrub that distinct line trying to get the new paint look like a seamless extension of the old. The result is usually blotches and bands.
3. DON'T DILUTE: Another no-no is trying to extend the paint by bringing more water to it. That only lightens the mix you worked so hard to get right.
Remember: The trick to getting a smooth transition is to keep the bead - or the edge - wet!

Who's your favorite Impressionist?

I was going to call this post "Great shapes" and realized it had all pictures of women...didn't want to attract the wrong kind of cyber traffic, so I'm making it a kind of survey: Which Impressionist sends YOU...and WHY?
Lots of good choices (remember, there were Impressionist painters in nearly every developed country at that time - even Japan!) For variety's sake, include the Post Impressionists because frankly they were all contemporaries.
 Over time, I've settled on Toulouse-Lautrec. I may have finally become my father...he hung Lautrec reproductions in his bedroom. Perhaps seeing them so often was subliminal? In any case, Lautrec had an eye for great shapes...and always divided up his picture plane interestingly. Even better than Degas and Manet, though doubtless there was mutual influence. His color is pretty amazing too, whether his palette was low chroma, high chroma or flat out garish. And he may have been the best draftsman in the bunch. But of course we're all going to say that about "our guy" (or girl...don't forget Celia Beaux, Mary Cassat or Berthe Morisot).
 I don't know who this girl is but when you find one like her you don't paint just one picture!

The shapes of her nose, jaw line, hair, blouse are just simple geometrics but with a bit of unusual contour somewhere. It pays to find that odd bit and get it just so. The background is simplified to feature her features. The limited palette (black, white, yellow ochre and some red? The Zorn palette!) doesn't compete with the shape-fest.
 Look how he's "joined" the blouse to a window to create an interesting COMPOSITE shape. And that wisp of hair!! Klimt HAD to have seen this.

In both pictures he avoided splattering his lights around willy-nilly - the big light shape is the draw and other light shapes are either smaller and/or different in character (geometric versus organic for example - a hat tip to the Japanese).
 This woman, her hair, and her blouse unite as almost one engaging shape.

Lautrec has avoided the temptation to paint each separately and has instead seen them in the light that falls on all three - probably because of its unusual color. We also see his gift for making both the positive and negative shapes interesting.
Check out this amazing bedsheet shape with two disembodied heads floating in it like eggs in a bird nest. Yet you feel the bodies under the covers - barely. 

Take out the heads and the color nuance in the sheet shape reminds me of Cezanne's watercolor's of Mont St. Victoire in Provence. Again, minimizing the details of the headboard and wall confirms what he saw and he wants us to look at. We've all seen furniture but perhaps missed the fracture of a particular light on a particular surface.
 I think this is Lautrec's mother (quite attractive...whoever she is).

Anyway the color in this rivals anything Monet or Pissarro did outdoors. Lautrec handled indoor light whether dim, bright or sickly artificial. There's a rainbow in his whites. Edges lost in strong light tie expected shapes to other surfaces and draw the eye all over. This is a masterpiece of drawing in paint with a brush too.
Last is this remarkable puzzle piece collection of weird yet recognizable shapes. It would take C4 to separate them - they interlock so beautifully.

 This picture straddles Lautrec's painting and poster work. The drawing on the face of the girl at right wavers between realism and cartoon. Turn of the century European Anime, almost. The central figure has such an odd expression...either she's drunk or a bit confused because someone appears to have inserted a carrot with its green top intact into her décolletage...or both. I'm told that sort of thing can happen on girl's night out. Anyway, great pictures...share about your favorite painter?

Heresies and Pharisees

At some point, it was decided "opaque" paint had no place in "transparent" watercolor. White is considered especially heretical...As though you're not an honest watercolorist if you don't paint around every little white.
 It puts me in mind of the Pharisees - a first century religious sect that were fussier than a car wash bill changer.

They felt the 10 Commandments weren't comprehensive enough, so they invented extra rules. Like not eating eggs laid on Saturday because the chicken was performing work on the sabbath...don't want to be an accessory to a sin that egregious do you?
 I've already explained watercolor AIN'T transparent and never was. Pigment is pigment.
There are legitimate uses for white or opaque accents. Sure, paper whites look great. They're part of watercolor's unique look. Get 'em if you can. But some stuff is too tiny or complicated to paint around without creating clunky edges or areas nearby.
 Using opaque accents as positive, constructive marks - not as correction fluid - should be considered good painting if it produces the desired results.
 Sargent used paint opaquely and thickly enough that it cracked over time. Check this one: He used opaque accents for the yellow leaves in the shrubs.

That's what I mean by positive, constructive marks: He meant those, he wasn't fixing boo-boos. The laundry is classic paint-around. What do you bet his picture was the first of this oft-seen watercolor subject?
 These Bedouins have thick white highlights on the folds of their garments. Is it so bad? Are those great faces diminished by his methods?

 Or how about these gondoliers from his picture of the Bridge of Sighs in Venice? A watercolor Pharisee might think there's enough white paint there to have him stoned. I say it's a great gesture drawing.

Or how about Trevor Chamberlain here: Little  deliberate accents like the ship name, cables, gunwhales and such sit just fine with what's otherwise a classic application of watercolor. That mast on the bridge for example: Trying to paint the background around it would have sacrificed the lovely granulation of the color and the area would become a distraction.

Let's just paint good pictures...In painting, God may have spotted us  the only area in life where the ends can justify the means and nobody gets hurt physically, morally or spiritually. Why complicate it...?

Jello salad, mud and transparency

By way of answering a question on the last post's comments, I thought we'd get into "transparency" in watercolor and the problem of "mud".
 First, WATERCOLORS AREN'T TRANSPARENT..!! Really...The very same pigments are used in watercolors, oils, pastels, acrylics, even house paint and lipstick. They aren't little bits of colored glass that light can pass through. Check the pigment numbers on your tubes - same PB 29 ultramarine blue in oil or watercolor.
 So why do they look transparent? Because we're viewing what might be called micro-pointillism. When the paint is applied, the water is initially on the surface of the paper before soaking in. The tiny pigment particles are kept suspended by something called Brownian Motion before settling to the paper's surface. When they do, they distribute themselves fairly evenly, owing to the aforementioned Brownian action.

 Like these scattered bearings, light can bounce off the white paper AND the pigment particles so it appears transparent. 

Yes, people talk about "sedimentary" and "transparent" colors but what that really means is some pigments are just bigger than others if seen under a microscope. The more recent pigments tend to be smaller (having been manufactured for use in spray equipment) revealing more white paper and giving the appearance of transparency. All pigments are sedimentary - none of them can hover.

Why do oils look opaque then? Because in watercolor we're looking at a THIN layer with pigment particles side by side. In oil we're looking at a THICK viscous layer with particles stacked over one another like this...forgive me... jello "salad". Try not to hurl.

  I'll avoid launching into a diatribe about the far too liberal Midwestern view of what constitutes "salad". And their version of biscuits and gravy? Don't get me started...
  Let's talk about "MUD". 
In watercolor, what gets called mud is just TOO MANY SUBSEQUENT APPLICATIONS OF PAINT TO THE SAME SPOT. All those white spaces between the particles just get covered up - so it looks opaque...because it is. Look at this sample below: I went around my palette and mixed ALL 14 COLORS TOGETHER. That's the top color. It's an interesting grey that could even be used...for rocks, maybe. Point is: All 14 pigments are distributed NEXT to each other.
 Below it I applied one color, let it dry and then applied the next as a glaze and so on. I never made it to all 14 colors. Sample 2 is only 9 colors but look how murky, because they're ON TOP of each other. Tap or pinch it up larger to see.

 So the trick is learning to mix your colors pretty close the first time. Glazing is to get a specific  effect...one color over another. It's ability to correct has limits.
 Next post we'll address proper use of opaque paint in watercolor.

Limited palettes

 Limited palettes are useful but which colors do you pick? You really can use just 3 colors with watercolor and tackle a lot of subjects (in fact you can paint some subjects with 2 colors...really!). In oils it's a LOT harder (in fact you need at least a 4th color, white). For this post we'll address watercolor and maybe hit oils another time.
Advantages: 
Ease of mixing and reproducing those mixes.
Harmonious color

Limitations :
The darkest color in the triad is the darkest value you can mix - in fact adding one of the other colors will  lighten it to some degree. It's necessary to match your triad to your subject for it's value range. Usually the blue is the darkest component, so a triad with cerulean wouldn't be ideal for a subject with strong darks.

With any triad you need the primaries or their rough equivalents to mix secondaries. Regardless which 3 colors you choose, at least one secondary will be dull; that is, not a true orange, green or purple. Often 2 will be dull and all 3 will be dull if you select a low chroma triad, like ultramarine, burnt sienna and yellow ochre. It's also necessary to match your triad to your subject for color chroma. The bias of your components will affect your mixes: A violet bias red like alizarin makes clear purples but dull oranges. Cad red makes better oranges but earthy purples. Prussian or pthalo blue bias toward green so that's their strong suit in mixes. Ultramarine has the edge with purples.

Some triad palettes with their strengths and limitations:

Ultramarine, burnt sienna and yellow ochre: Good natural earth tones and greys. Very dull orange, no real purple and your greens will be medium to low chroma. Darkest color is ultramarine  + burnt sienna which can go nearly black. A very traditional palette and surprisingly versatile despite its limitations. All 3 colors lift easily if that's a requirement.

Ultramarine, alizarin or equivalent and cadmium or hansa yellow: Vibrant purples. Vibrant greens except in the blue green range. A slightly dull orange which can almost mimic burnt sienna. Strongest dark is purple-ish. Good earth tones can definitely be mixed from all 3 components but requires care.

Prussian blue, alizarin and hansa yellow: Very vibrant greens including the bluish greens. Good purples, same orange as above and similar purplish dark. Substitute pthalo blue and quinacridone rose for a highly transparent looking palette. Again great earth tones are possible but tricky to mix.