Author: mentler
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GAMBLIN ARTIST OILS REVIEW
Gamblin Artist’s Oils have luscious working properties, and each color possesses unique characteristics in terms of texture, undertone, and tinting strength. The range of colors includes both historically accurate paints and modern, synthetically derived hues. Most are made with alkali-refined linseed oil as a binder, which creates a strong, flexible paint film and yellows significantly…
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Blockx Oil Paint Review
PROSPECTUS:_In the Blockx tradition, paint is still hand-ground using a slowly rotating three roll stone mill. Only pure pigment is used. All colors have a minimum lightfastness rating of 7 out of 8 on the blue wool scale, so the entire line can be considered perfectly lightfast.Iron oxides, earth pigments, and blacks are ground with…
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What Would Leo Do When Placing His Easel
‘When you draw from Nature, stand at a distance three times the height of the object you wish to draw.’ LDV’ What Leo advocates here is to place your easel so you can see the Whole subject and the working surface at the same time. For portraits or still-lifes, one’s easel would be relatively close…
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THE PATH TO MASTERY
Mastery requires comprehending a multitude of ideas simultaneously. Since one’s conscious brain can only understand one thing at a time, this task becomes the province of one’s subconscious. For the Draughtsman, this means the establishment of a knowledge vault filled with a vast resource of material. At the core of this subconscious knowledge base resides…
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Navigating The Drawing Process
Getting back to ‘R.U.D.I.M.E.N.T.S.,’ we have arrived at ‘N,’ which is a placeholder for ‘Navigation.’ The creative journey is never-ending; the goal is ‘Mastery’ which is elusive, undefinable, and rarely attained. The path is long and the trek takes time, but time flies when you are having a good time. ‘Have no fear of perfection – you’ll never reach it.’…
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FORESHORTENING
Believable ‘aspective’ views’ play a major role in foreshortening. When the two methods the Old Masters used to solve the problems of extreme foreshortening are revealed, the novice is baffled to no end. The Master draughtsman has two basic methods of dealing with extreme foreshortening. Method Number One: They ‘eliminated‘ it. Method Number Two: They…
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ASPECTIVE VIEW
The late Myron Barnstone may not have invented the word ‘aspective’ but he certainly expanded and cemented its meaning. The word ‘aspective‘ seems to have been coined to describe Ancient Egyptian art. The Ancient Egyptians depicted the most recognizable aspects of things. The Egyptians depicted various parts of their subjects to provide the most recognizable…
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HOG BRISTLE BRUSHES
The Society of Figurative Arts’ mission here is to support product lines that maintain a focused commitment to the professional artist. TSoFA has been examining the characteristics of hog bristle brushes for the professional oil painter. These tests have taken several weeks, here are the observations. The top manufacturers of professional-grade hog bristle brushes, in no particular…
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The Aesthetics of Anatomy
We often encounter naysayers when it comes to the importance of anatomy for the artist. This is common advice from the mimesis minions. At face value, it is easy to scare the novice into believing that knowledge of anatomy will hurt their drawings. It appears far to medical, to complicated, and to Latin. To aide…
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RAPHAEL PARIS CLASSIC BRUSHES
TSoFA has been examining the characteristics of hog bristle brushes for the professional oil painter. These tests have taken several weeks, here are the observations. The top manufacturers of professional-grade hog bristle brushes, in no particular order, are Escoda, Raphael, Isabey, and Da Vinci. We have included other manufacturers in the past, but recent acquisitions…