I thought I may have met my “end” yesterday, ironically while painting at Lands End beach in San Francisco.

Like many of you, I often hike to remote places to paint the perfect spot and find myself in the middle of nowhere. There are Mountain Lions to think about, snakes, made-up sadistic hatchet-yielding crazies–and then, there’re ourselves. My emergency was stupidly self-inflicted: While rocking out to Arctic Monkeys, and being completely in the zone (my painting was going well), I drank a big gulp of Turpentine (correction: I drank mineral spirits) thinking it was my water! Yikes! (Note to self: stop storing extra turps spirits in Calistoga bottles).

I called 911…”we need to send an ambulance, where are you?”. I could only describe vaguely where I was since I’d hiked 25 minutes from some unknown parking lot along the coast and I’d never been to this spot before. No one was around, so I couldn’t ask. All I could manage was, I can see the Golden Gate bridge! I was definitely in panic. I need an ambulance?

To make a long (embarrassing) story short…after hiking and getting disconnected/connected from 911 a couple of times, I eventually got connected to the Poison Control Center: “Gee, why did you drink that?” was the first question…then my age, am I breathing normally, etc. Luckily, the solution was to drink milk/juice (not water, and don’t vomit). I’m fine now.

Well, you’ve learned another lesson on my blog, don’t drink Turpentine or mineral spirits (just in case you were unsure on the matter).

Lands End (San Francisco) - Oil on Linen - 9×12

.

Back to the Art: I liked the painting I was working on during this fiasco, so after resting a bit, I finished the remaining 10% at home. This ended up being a good study in grays, which are so important to achieving effective color.This isn’t the best photograph (I’ll get a scan when it dries), but the most intense colors needed to be the light-struck waves and the shadowed water. For the lightest crest of the white water, I used Titanium White with a little Hansa Yellow, a beautiful cool yellow on my palette. You’d think that a warm yellow like Cad Yellow would make for a better sun-light white, but I’ve found the cool yellows more convincing. The shadow side of the water is a combination of several colors, as frankly, I had a hard time arriving at the right color. I would say the end color is a combination of Magnesium Blue, Ultramarine Blue and Titanium White.

For the shadow side of the rocks, I used a thin wash of Alizarin Crimson, killed back a bit with Sap Green, and probably a touch of Ultramarine Blue. The light-struck rock color was made from some grays on the side of my palette, adjusted here and there with warm and cool variations. Do you save your grays? After every painting, I scrape my left over paint into piles of analogous colors, usually one general warm, one violet, one green. These neutral colors provide a means of harmonizing color in subsequent paintings.

I’m often asked about my palette, so thought I’d dedicate a post to this for future reference. First, I know many painters (great ones, in fact) believe in a limitted palette. Most that follow that path do so because it ensures color harmony, and it certainly makes packing paints much easier. I’d love to carry three colors plus white, as artist’s like Ken Auster and Kevin Macpherson do. I go back-and-forth on this, but I think an extended, “full spectrum” color palette–the same used by Ovanes Berberian and other colorists, including his mentor Serge Bongart–is best for my needs. I would suggest however that if you’re new to oil painting, start with a limitted palette and branch out from there, once you’ve become familiar with their mixing properties first. Start with Alizarin Crimson, Cadnium Yellow Medium and Ultramarine Blue.

When I use my full color spectrum palette, I don’t cram every color into every painting. That would be difficult to harmonize (unless you add a bit of black to ever cover pile, which does harmonize a painting nicely). I include a wide array of colors because I want a full range of options for any single painting. I will typically paint with a limitted set of colors and ignore the rest for a given work. It may be that a scene is best represented with Sap Green, Alizarin and White. You never know. I look at a scene carefully and pick out major color notes that match to my palette, before I begin.

My palette consists of the following paints, all Classic Artist Oils unless otherwise noted. I buy my paints in either 10oz caulking tubes or quart containers. Much cheaper than the tiny tubes sold in art supply stores.

	Hansa Yellow. This is my cool yellow. I’ve tried Cadnium Yellow Light, but I find it doesn’t have as much punch as this yellow. It’s transparent enought to mix well with any color on your palette. I’ll use it for my lightest light in just about any situation (see samples below).		Cadium Yellow Medium. This is a common warm, light value yellow.
	Yellow Ocrhe. Good medium value cool yellow. As a basic earthtone, a must of course for any landscape painter. I’ll use this color, white and sometimes a tad Cadmium Orange for the light side of clouds.		Hansa Yellow Orange. This is my favorite color. It’s a cool orange. It makes great greens, mixed with either California Blue or Ultramarine Blue. It also mixes really well with Permanet Rose to make great sunset colors.
	Cadmium Orange. Your basic warm orange. Too opaque for my tastes. I’d love it if every color on my palette were transparent–they’re so much easier to mix. I guess I should be a watercolorist. This will probably be the first color I drop from my palette, although I like it there because I can mix it with any of my blues to make a really nice gray.		Fire Red. This is my warm mid-value red. Most artists use Cad Red Light, but I find the tinting strength of this color much better. It’s very powerful. Good to use in flesh tone mixtures (I found this color while studying the figure with Jim Smyth).
	Permanent Rose (Winsor Newton) or Rose Madder (Classic Artist Oils). This Winsor Newton color is dangerously strong. Use with care to create great medium value violets with Cobalt Blue. It’s also great for painting flowers.		Alizarin Crimson. My dark, cool red. I alternate between Classic Artist’s Oils and Gamblin brands. The latter claims to make a permanent pigment. I like to mix it with Sap Green to make my darkest darks. Makes for a nice transparent washes, and you can easily mix warm/cool varieties.
	California Blue. This is a very dark version of Ultramarine Blue. I got the recipe from Brigitte Curt, who I believe got it from Ovanes Berberian. It’s a custom mixture of Phthalo Blue and . Great for making cool transparent darks, and dark greens together with Hanse Yellow Orange.		Ultramarine Blue. The standard dark, warm-valued blue. Has lots of practical uses, but I find that it really tends to kill the life of warmer-toned mixtures. If I’m trying to cool a color, I’m more likely to reach for Cerulean Blue or California Blue.
	Cobalt Blue. This is considered a “true blue” (ie, neither cool nor warm). It’s the most expensive color on my palette, so I only use it carefully–generally in sky colors and to make beuatiful medium value violets with Permanent Rose.		Cerulean Blue. This is usually the truest sky color, particularly along the coast–whereas I find Cobalt Blue more true at higher elevations or places with little humidity.
	Magnesium Blue. This warm blue is by far the most powerful on my palette, second to Permanent Rose. It’s tinting strength is incredible. Use with caution! I rare mix this with anything, other than white of course. If you want to add instant intensity to your sky, add a little of this blue, the same value as a Cobolt Blue and white sky. They vibrate well together.		Virdian Green. My cool green. I tend to only use this in seascapes and citiscapes. It’s just not a terrible “naturual” looking color by itself, except for representing man-made things, like stop lights that read “go”
	Sap Green. I rarely use this color, other than mixing dark transparent underwashes. I will grab a bit to “green up” a color quickly, because as a transparent color, it does mix well and rarely muddies other mixtures.		Mars Black. This is an opaque black, so I don’t use it to mix transparent underwashes. I do use it to tone down colors that are too raw. Of course you can do that by mixing the colors complement, but if you’re plein air painting and racing to capture something, grabbing a little black works more quickly.
	Titanium White. I’ve tried others, like Flake White, but find this white meets my needs just fine.

Here are some examples of how I use my palette. Thanksgiving Day Snow on the right shows my use of Magnesium Blue, vibrating against a Cobalt Blue sky. This painting also uses transparent washes quite a bit, which you can see in the top left (click the image to enlarge). The washes were made with Sap Green, Alizarin Crimson, and California Blue. I like the abstract quality of this painting, the caligraphic brush strokes. I was trying to convey both stillness and life.

The “Peninsula Hillside” painting on the left shows how I use colors like Hansa Yellow Orange (in the trees), with a touch of blue to give it a golden green glow. I’ve also alternated Cerulean and Cobalt Blue in the sky to get that vibration. The trick is to do this without mixing the colors together and creating mud.
I typically mix my lightest lights with Hansa Yellow and Titanium White. The painting “Towards the Sun, Crystal Springs“, which I did facing the late afternoon sun, uses this combination. I also uses in my snow scenes to show the lightest lights of the snow.

The other day, one of my favorite artist-bloggers Michael Chesley Johnson wrote about his “Viewing Mantle”, on his blog, “A Plein Air Painter’s Blog”. He writes, “In my opinion, an artist really needs to live with his paintings in a place of calm in order to render a fair judgement.”

This hit home with me. I recall as a software engineer I would at times spend hours looking at the same code, missing the bug that I was trying to find. Only after stepping away for bit was I able to come back to that code and see the problem–usually immediately. The same applies to my paintings. You can spend hours working on a painting, seeing nothing but it. You need to rest your eyes, and better yet, put the painting away before you over-work it and look at it in fresh eyes the next day.

Another reason I have my own viewing mantel is to see my work in the same lighting conditions that the average collector would have. We’d like to think our paintings will installed perfect spotlights illuminating the work in a dark calm room, but of course, that’s not the case. Most rooms have indirect sunlight during the day and indirect incandescent at night. Usually, much less light than you had when you painted it outdoors or a well lit studio.

So, step back. Place your work in a place of calm in your home, under lighting conditions less than ideal. You’ll see where that last stroke needs to go, or where the values aren’t reading. Happy Painting!

Michael Chesley Johnson, one of my favorite painters and bloggers, wrote recently about the use of photography vs “painting from life”. It’s a really wonderful post, check it out.

• Consistent paint quality. Even while a student (I still am!), don’t buy the so-called “student grade” paints. They’re somewhat less expensive, but you’ll pay for it in frustration and poor quality results. When you’re learning, you need to learn with the materials that you’ll paint with for a life time. Whatever brand of paint you choose, when you know you’re happy, stick with it. Most of my paint is by Classic Artist Oils. They are incredibly cheap in large quantities (10 oz “guns”) and used by many masters, including Ken Auster and Ovanes Berberian. I do use Gamblin occasionally (especially their mediums, which I love). Their Permanent Alizarin is allegedly the only true permanent Alizarin Crimson on the market.
• Are “Student Grade” Oils really cheaper? I did a quick price comparison using the Winsor Newton prices on Dick Blick vs. Classic Artist Oils. Even with a sale running right now at Dick Blick (far below retail prices), the high quality Classic Artist Oils rival Winsor Newton’s WINTON student grade. Eg, For Ultramarine Blue, the price per oz was: WINTON: $2.13/oz; Winsor Newton Artist Oils: $4.90/oz; and Classic Artist Oils: $2.40/oz. So even while on SALE, Winsor Newton’s Artists Oils cost double the price of Classic Artists Oils and comparable in price to W/N student grade WINTON oils. It pays to buy in larger quantity.

• Your easel is your foundation. Easels can be the most difficult decision you’ll make for outdoor painting. I use OpenBoxM for small kits that I take hiking, and a Soltek easel for larger works outdoors that don’t require too far of a hike. Be warned, however, Solteks break constantly. I’m currently testing a 12×16″ palette OpenBoxM easel as my primary outdoor kit. So far, so good. I’m phasing out my Soltek due to technical difficulties. If I could afford it, I may buy two like Ken Auster, who assumes one will always be in the shop while one is in working condition.

OpenBoxM 12×16″ Palette Pochade, Tripod Mounted

Soltek Easel, all-in-one, but unreliable

• Brushes with body. Flimsy brushes without enough hair are frustrating! I use only pure hog hair bristles brushes, and sometimes the synthetic/natural bristle blends by Ultrect. Brands I trust include: Dick Blick Masterstroke; Robert Simmons; Winsor Newton Rathbone and Utrecht.
• Painting surface is objective. Of all materials, I think the surface you paint on is the most personal. I prefer a smooth surface with just the right amount of tooth. For me, that’s a double-primed linen (naturally, the most expensive!). It just “feels right”. My advice is to try everything, every surface with every combination of preparation (gesso, primer, etc). I use RayMar’s double-primed linen panels (as well as their panel carriers for storage).
• Studio light intensity and color must match the viewers. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve painted a work in my studio that I thought was perfect, only to see a dark, less intense version in the gallery or home of the collector. Just as you don’t paint in direct sunlight outdoors (because it results in dull, dark paintings when viewed indoors), you should moderate your indoor studio lighting. I tend to paint indoors with too much light, and when that painting is put in my living room (for example), it looks much less impressive. I try to get in the habit now of placing a painting I’m working on in my living room with typical nighttime “indoor light” to see how it looks.
• Use anything and everything. One of my favorite artists to watch is Camille Przwodek. She’ll use anything and everything at her disposal to make a painting work: the end of a brush, a scraper, paper towel. No one is going to judge your painting’s quality someday based on traditional technique, it’s the end result that matters to them. So use the opposite end of the brush, your fingers, whatever you need to create the effect you need.

What did I leave out? Let me know in Comments, and I’ll add to this post.

I’ve had both collectors and artists ask me about varnishing. In my experience, most plein air painters seem to skip this important step. Perhaps it’s because we sell work right off the easel! No time to let the painting dry…

I think varnishing is important, both for the presentation and preservation of your work. I know I was skeptical initially, until I started regularly varnishing, and experiementing with varnish types. I found that the oft-used “retouch varnishes” created too much glare. My goal is to have a uniform surface, one in which the richness of the darks show through, yet don’t overpower the light pigments.

The best solution I’ve found is Gamblin’s Gamvar varnish, mixed with about 10% cold wax medium. Gamvar is mixed by the artist, so you know it’s fresh. You’re given the solvent and varnish crystals. Gamblin recommends you mix the varnish and keep it for a year, no more. I don’t like a strong reflection on the surface, so I mix about 10% cold wax medum. This mixture gives me the depth of color I want, with no glare!

When I see paintings that aren’t varnished, I almost want to get my kit out and do it for them. Look at the difference in this detail of a painting I’m varnishing. I’ve put two strokes of my Gamvar/Cold Wax Medium mixture. The yellow arrows indicate the border between varnished and unvarnished sections of the painting. Look how much richer the darks are! You should also note that it doesn’t have much impact on lights. Varnish brings out the richness of dark to midtone parts of the canvas.

Here are the Gamlin products I used to varnish: Gamvar and Gamblin Cold Wax Medium. Their site also has this great FAQ on varnishing. Try it, and let me know how it works for you.

Happy painting!

If you’re a painter and have been exposed to many other working artists (in workshops, plein air events, etc) you’ll notice some commonalities in how we paint, and certainly lots of individual differences. One significant difference I’ve noticed to the practice of toning your canvas. Most plein air artists agree that a start white canvas working outdoors (even in the shade) is very hard on the eyes. It also detracts–I think–from one my goals, which is freedom. I want to be loose! Have fun! I don’t want to see bits of stark white showing up here and there. It’s a distraction.

Artists have solved this problem by toning their canvas, either at their painting site or in the studio. For the uninitiated: toning is the practice of deadening the white of a canvas with a color, usually in a light to mid-value range. Toning on site has it’s advantages: you can select the undertone to match the scene more closely. However, the disadvantage I see is that I believe it usually results in slightly more grayish, muddy colors. And I love color.

What color to tone? This is a rather difficult question, there are so many exceptions, and by the way, some artists only tone one color all the time. I vary my tone. Ted Georschner tones with a Yellow Ocher; Ken Auster tones with a medium value gray. Both undeniably master artists, so there is no right or wrong answer. Its what you’re comfortable with.

I tone an equal number of linen canvas boards with Yellow Ocher and with Gray. I’ve studied with both Ted and Ken, and I’ve seen the value in both–depending upon the circumstances. Basically, I use a Grey tone on paintings where the light is Grey-ish (eg, night scenes, cloudy days, etc). I use a Yellow Ocher tone when I want a strong feeling of sun light. The details of two different paintings below demonstrate each approach. The gray I use is a Golden Acrylic Gesso, and I mix the gray myself using a combination of Paynes Gray and Cadmium Red (both acrylic, of course). The Yellow Ocher is Classic Artist Oils, right out of the tube.

This is a detail from a snow scene in which I used a gray toned board. It was quite cloudy, and there was a lot of gray in the picture. Made life easier.	This is also a snow scene detail, but there was bright sunlight strong. The bits of Yellow showing through the canvas add a sense of light.

So, what’s right for you? You’ll never know, until you experiment. Happy Painting!

PS. A toned canvas must be dry thoroughly before you apply paint, because it can easily wipe off. I dry my toned canvases (and even finished paintings) in my oven. Don’t laugh! I have about a dozen pilot lights in this old Wedgwood stove, may as well use that energy for some purpose. I leave them in for a day or two (no more, otherwise the boards can warp).