How to make Stand Oil.

Go on ebay, and search for 'organic flax oil'. Make sure it has no additives. Compare prices, make your choice, and order.

Get a couple of empty jars with screw top lids while you're waiting on delivery. Wash them in very hot water, and drain.

When your oil arrives, pour it into your jars until they are about half full. Add a generous amount of salt to each jar, then top up with water until they're full, and screw on the lids.

Shake the jars vigorously, then put them on a sunlit window sill. Shake them once a day for about a month, then whenever you remember when you pass by them. Leave in the sunny spot for a year.

When summer comes around, buy a turkey baster syringe. Use it to remove the oil from the jars and put it into a plastic tray, such as is used to hold seedling pots. Put this tray back on your sunny window sill, and partially cover with a sheet of glass or perspex, leaving a gap for air. Once in a while, whisk the oil in the tray with an old fork kept for this purpose.

You will notice the oil getting thicker over time. When it has reached a treacly consistency, pour the oil into small glass jars and seal them. Congratulations: you have stand oil.

This will make a fine painting medium when mixed with turpentine or mineral spirits.

For further information I can recommend this site:

https://tadspurgeon.com/

'Painting the Visual Impression' review.

'Painting the Visual Impression', by Richard Whitney.
ISBN: 978-1-938394-12-6

I ordered the book from Richard Whitney's website

a couple of years ago after reading an article about him on the Sight-Size blog. After searching in vain for a Paypal button, I ended up emailing the author for a price that included postage to the UK, and after a courteous and helpful exchange we arrived at a slightly eye watering $50. (While the book is modestly priced, the postage charges from the US seem exorbitant, though when you consider the distances involved, reasonable.)

Anyway. The book arrived, neatly and safely packaged soon after I sent cash through the post. Note well: you don't have to do this. You can get the Kindle version for your newfangled electronic reader for considerably less and no postal charges, but I'm just a Luddite who prefers real books made of dead trees.

The book is a well made paperback, 9" high by 6" wide, with 95 pages, many of which carry full colour illustrations, as does the cover. Whitney's landscapes and portraits are represented, and the latter stand comparison with Renaissance examples.

And while the book is slim, the content is dense and information heavy, with a great deal of practical advice about the process of painting. This is divided into named chapters, in which the relevant information is presented as a series of aphorisms, short sentences that appear deceptively simple, but unpack into lessons as you consider them and apply them to your painting.

The overall effect is one of listening to a great painter and teacher as they look at your painting. I've learned most from previous tutors while listening to them talk about painting, and reading this book is the next best thing. As painters, we turn to instruction when we run out of ways to progress using what we already know, and this book offers new insights into a process that might have become too familiar.

Can I recommend this book? Wholeheartedly and without reservation. I've said elsewhere that books which fail to teach me get quietly relisted for sale. 'Painting the Visual Impression', on the other hand,  is going to stay in my collection and be a well thumbed addition to my library for as long as I paint.

Shift it, Artboy.

I went out early on a drawing expedition one day last week. Took a drawing I'd begun on a quarter-imperial sheet of paper clipped to an MDF board, a propelling pencil, and a brush pen filled with watered down Payne's grey.

It was sunny and just a little after sunrise when I began the drawing a couple of weeks ago, but it was overcast and drizzling that day. I spent a little while longer on the drawing and took some more reference photos, but it wasn't going anywhere, and I probably won't start a painting anytime soon. There's a colour study I might finish in the studio, but I'll hold off on the painting until I feel ready. Sometimes an idea needs to incubate until you come up with an approach.

And while I'm here, why did no one tell me about these brush pens? I bought a couple off the Ken Bromley website. They are brilliant. The concept is simple: a brush head screwed onto a reservoir into which you can put any watered down paint you like. A fountain pen with a brush nib, in other words.

I risked a second expedition after lunch, now that the plague is dying down, and worked on a sketchbook drawing with the same tools. Had to move once when an ageing couple refused to walk past me because they would get too close and might catch the Chinese EbolAIDSitis. Of course they stood there for a couple of minutes first, waiting for me to read their minds rather than saying, 'Shift it, artboy, plague avoiders coming through!' No one does quiet, seething, passive-aggressive rage like we do over here. Makes me proud to be British.

One other thing I can recommend is getting up really early - around 4am - for the good light. Every direction your head turns, there's another real life Claude to look at, and the bonus cherry on top is that there's nobody else around at that hour to spoil your fun.

Back in the Saddle

I left my day job last Tuesday. Reached retirement age on Wednesday, and got up at 4 on Thursday, to go out painting.

Wrestled with a 10x12 of a spot I'd noticed walking to work, and considering I hadn't done any plein air painting in, what, three years? It went pretty well.

I had a hard time opening some of the paint tubes. The caps had locked shut, stuck fast with paint and oil. I found out that if you use the lid of your easel like a nutcracker, you can fix that easily.

Came home, ate another breakfast, took a nap, then worked on a studio painting I hadn't touched in a while. Went well. 

Oil paint order.

I ordered some oil paint from Ken Bromley online. It's Winsor & Newton artists' oil colour, they have a sale at least once a year with up to 35% off the usual retail price, and throw in a free 200ml tube of Titanium white if you buy a minimum of six tubes.

Ordered on Thursday and they arrived at my door on Friday.

So: Over a third off the full price, and next day delivery.

Service so good you feel miffed because you can't find anything to complain about.

Why did I buy Winsor & Newton?

Good enough for Turner, probably more than good enough for me.

Why artists' quality?

Colour stability and permanence. Student quality paint sometimes uses odd pigments with peculiar and unexpected colours. There's a world of difference between Cobalt blue and Cobalt blue hue, for example. Also the pigment load in artists' quality paint is higher, which means you don't end up with weirdly washed out mixes on your palette. I've used cheap paint and ended up with an over oily, low colour mess on my palette. Cheap paint is usually a false economy.

Why these colours in particular?

Cadmium Lemon: purest, cleanest yellow closest to spectrum yellow. Excellent covering and tinting power. Better for mixing clean greens than Cadmium Yellow, which tends to be a bit orangey.

Yellow Ochre: gets a lot of work done painting landscape. Good base for dirty greens, with the addition of black or blue. Also a cheap pigment, which doesn't hurt.

French Ultramarine: pure, clean blue slightly on the violet side of spectrum blue. Good in glazes and mixtures, with good tinting strength. I've been using this as a general purpose blue for a while now. Again, a cheap pigment.

Burnt Sienna: good dirty red, useful in landscape. Makes a coloured black when mixed with blue. If you use a layered technique, it's a nice warm, orangey underpainting for landscape.

Flesh Tint: should probably never be anywhere near your palette if you're painting actual flesh, but it's great for lightening landscape greens and taking the bilious edge off the green hue.

Naples Yellow: this used to be made from lead antimonate, and was a marvel at creating distance when scumbled thinly over a painting's background. Now I think it's just a mix of white and yellow ochre, but it's a convenient colour to have on your palette. Again, great for lightening landscape greens.

That's all for now. Look out for a review of Rosemary & Co. brushes next.

Horse etiquette

Having decided to do a second version of a large painting (you can see the GIMP study I did in the previous post) I found it needed more reference material.

The foreground tree was a problem insofar as it had to have an interesting trunk. I strolled around looking for a candidate, and found a couple.

The second problem was the horse, which needed a new and different pose, so I stalked the local horses with my camera. And breached horse etiquette by being a bit too sneaky, when I walked into the field where they were grazing* and startled them. Ever been glared at by a horse?

Anyway...went back next day, found the big white guy on his own, and managed to snap him. I don't think he was impressed. Once his curiosity was satisfied he turned on his heels and favoured me with his rear end until I left. 

'Put that in your picture.'

* Kindly note I would no more trespass on a farmer's land than I would stride uninvited into his kitchen and make free with his toaster. There's a public footpath through the field.  

GIMPing

I've been working on an old painting in GIMP, given that I wasn't too happy with the way it turned out in real life.

I changed the format from a square to a 3:2 rectangle, and introduced some changes, cutting and pasting trees from other finished paintings. Like the repoussoir on the left?* I've been looking all over for a tree that would do the job, auditioning the local hopefuls for the part. I might end up just inventing one, the way Constable used to.

Shoving pixels around with a mouse is easier than painting, that's for sure. But at some point I'm going to have to turn this back into a real painting. Wish me luck.

*Repoussoir is my word of the day. Next week, fandango.