Figure Study

The past week, I had the opportunity to attend a "sketch class" for a bit longer than the usual few hours. I usually don't sketch with anything more ambitious than charcoal, but with extra time at my disposal, I decided to work in oil.

Just for fun I also thought I would try using my traditional palette, usually reserved for more "serious" work. Up until that point I had confined the use of my hand-made paints to landscapes, and had never applied them for figurative work.

I really like the way I can express the model's fleshtones using these colors. The cinnabar in particular is a deep warm red that stands out in the mixture. I would like to see how I could develop this kind of picture, given more time.

Woodcut tips

Recently, while I was getting prepared to make some new prints, I discovered a new guide to making woodcuts. Written by the printmaker JJ Lankes, it contains a wealth of information I hadn't encountered elsewhere. It is even available to read online, at http://woodblock.com/encyclopedia/entries/011_04/011_04.html.

While going through this book trying to digest the new information, I became aware of the contrast between guides to printmaking and painting. Books such as this one on printmaking were written by practicing artists in the twentieth century. They are easy to relate to, being relatively contemporary. In contrast reviving the craft of traditional painting, necessitates perusing sometimes ancient documents. While some things, such as the plight of the artist, never seem to change, we share little else. This leads to a lot of uncertainty. Language, materials and working methods have changed immensely. One often encounters a broken trail of technique, formulas and advice. The need arises to fill in the gaps somehow.

Eager to try out some of the tips in the book, I began preparing a new set of poplar boards for carving. Before carving, Lankes recommends coating each piece with linseed oil. This has the effect of sealing the wood he says, so it is more stable. It is also supposed to tighten the surface grain, reducing its tendency to split under the carving knife.



Here I am preparing some linseed oil on my stone block. I mixed the oil with some turpentine to thin it, as instructed in the book. This will accelerate its drying time.



Here is a shot of one of the poplar blocks, partly coated with linseed oil.

The oil quickly soaked in. I allowed it to cure about a week. The early results are a panel with a nice smooth, tight grain. I will make my final conclusions once I have finished the print.

Forests

I like forests. There is something about them, that makes them interesting to me. A sense of nobility and mystery.

I have always wanted to take these feelings, and express them in a good forest painting. This has proven to be very challenging. There is an abundance of detail, all of which must be absorbed and filtered. Forests also involve painting more up-close and intimate detail. I tend to prefer painting the far-away.

This season, I have focused on painting the forest. This picture was done on location at Blandy Farm, up in northern Virginia. It is of a special grove of ginkgo trees. I made the journey at just the right time to capture them as they turned in unison.

The trip up to the farm, as well as my stay, were marked by misadventures and bad luck. This culminated in the picture itself falling out of my car. The canvas received some damage, and at that point I decided to call it quits.

Portraits

I have neglected portraiture a bit over the past few years. Figuring out landscape painting, among other things, has consumed the bulk of my attention. So recently, I have set aside some studio time, to bring in new sitters.

Since I'm still a bit rusty, I'm going to avoid painting anyone for awhile. Charcoal is more forgiving. At some point I will consider hiring some strangers to sit, but for the time being, the "victims" will be friends and family.

Volkonskoite

Volkonskoite is rare green earth mineral, found mainly in the mountains of Russia. Named after a Russian prince who was a government minister, its use was confined historically to religious icon paintings. Volkonskoite is not well known outside of Russia, the most famous exception being Picasso. He was known to have imported large quantities from the Soviet Union for use in his paintings.

The green color derives from chromium-oxide, also used in a modern equivalent by the same name. The natural variety green is more subtle, and not as "loud" when used in mixtures. It also is far more transparent.

Up until this point, I haven't made much use of a standalone green in my pictures. I am always open to the idea if I could find one that was suitably flexible.



To that end, I've purchased a small jar of the relatively expensive Volkonskoite, to try out.



To the left is the raw color mixed with oil, to the right it has been tinted with white. It is a blueish green with cool undertones. I did not find Volkonskoite as weak as some of the green earths I have tried in the past.

Linseed Oil, Part II

Using the best oil possible is key not only to making paint with the best handling qualities, but also ensuring that a painting ages gracefully. While linseed oil naturally yellows a certain extent over time, an inferior oil will be far worse. In the picture above, the unsightly brown goo is nothing more than linseed oil that has separated from the paint and oozed out of the tube. What is surprising is how awfully brown this modern oil has become.

Over the past month, I have set aside some time to improve my homemade linseed oil. My goal was to speed up and improve the process of refining the raw oil.

The key to speeding up the process was finding a more effective method of removing the heavy fatty acids, or mucilage contained in the raw, unfiltered oil. These impurities are the key cause of unsightly yellowing seen in oil. I wanted to filter the oil mechanically, without the resorting to the strong chemicals used in the production of commercial oil.

In the past I have cleaned my oil with water and sunlight, this method was time-consuming and had to be done in warm weather. Other historical practices suggested washing the oil with a mixture of sand, salt and water. This was also time consuming and repetitious.

A variation of this method substitutes sand for a mixture of diatomaceous earth and cristobalite. These are simple forms of silica, used as a harmless filter medium. The calcined form is easy to find unadulterated, as used in pool filters. The process is new to me, other artists such as Tad Spurgeon have been making their oil using this method for some time.

I mixed one part D.E. with two parts raw flax oil, added a pinch of salt and three parts water. The jars containing the oil were put in a warm spot and shaken periodically over the course of a few days, to disburse the mixture.



The early results were dramatic. Most of the filter mix has settled to the bottom of the jar. The heavy fatty acids have become trapped in the boundary layer between water and oil.



The oil was siphoned off the top, filtered and the process was repeated again several times with fresh ingredients. Salt was used only in the first cleaning.



Not being completely satisfied the oil was good enough, I put the oil on the roof and washed it a few times over several days with water.



Looking down through the jar shows an almost clear oil, very little mucilage remains.



The appearance of the oil has definitely changed.



The oil was put into a newly-built glass box on the roof, to briefly sun-bleach. It will then be set aside for awhile to age, before being put to use.

Woodcut Experiments

I had a chance to revisit my first color woodblock print the other day. After some more trimming of the four separate color blocks, I went ahead and made a new proof.

On the earliest proofs, I had issues with the ink, transferring weakly to the paper. This proof incorporates some very helpful hints and tips given to me since I started experimenting with printmaking. By repeating the application of ink for each layer, I was able to get deeper colors as well as black. To get a solid-bodied black took a lot of applications, which did result in some lost detail from that block.

I am still in the process of working out the arrangement of colors that best suit this picture.