Professional Practices

Of Cheap (Yellow) Paint and its discontents. Get the good stuff.

Artwork, Professional Practices
Indian-Yellow-1024x731

Indian Yellow – Pigment that was originally created from the urine of cows that were fed mango leaves. (Not since 1908! No cows harmed at Gamblin!) Photo courtesy of Gamblincolors.com

The things we do for colors. Thankfully cows are no longer force fed mango leaves to create this pigment. Gone are Mummy Brown. Dragons Blood. Hartshorn. Paris Green. Smalt. Cochineal Red. Wait, that one is still in use. Ew. (Bug juice)

When in art college and grad school there was the ongoing debate and decision making -could I afford to get the quality (ie expensive) paints or just get the student grade? For the most part, if I could, I got the good stuff. I didn’t know the difference back then. Not many instructors went over the quality of pigments, they just gave you their list of suggested paints. And off to the store I went.

Later, the art geek in me started learning more about the pigments and what made up the different paints. What was the difference between a student/cheaper paint and a “professional grade” paint. (hint = more filler, less pigment in the cheaper stuff) What was the difference between a HUE vs a pure pigment, other than the price? (hint = HUE on a label means it’s a MIX of pigments to create a similar color to the expensive one.)

Knowledge is power, and I got really good at understanding the labels and the pigments that created the paints I love. And I developed more confidence by learning how to mix my own colors from some really good primary colors by Maimeri Puro, thanks to one of my classmates. Working with just the primaries (plus) is a time honored painting style that does end up being more economically saavy, though not as fun shopping. (my standard palette has at least 12 colors. Unless I am plein-airing. Then it’s 6)

My biggest peeve in color is Yellow. Yes, our basic, primary, yellow. Why would that color irk me so? Well, when it is a quality yellow, what joy it is to paint. It does exactly what I want, mixes beautifully, and does not disappear. (tip – add a *touch* of titanium white to your yellow if you are having trouble, it adds a little opacity that sometimes can help)

When I skimp and use cheaper brand yellows, wow. What a difference. It simply vanishes. It takes gobs and gobs of yellow just to create an average mix. And it is almost always, too transparent. All colors have their specific opacities, but cadmiums should NOT be transparent.

Now, I didn’t believe this for a long time after school. I used whatever grade of paint I could afford, and wondered why I was having so much trouble. But I had a revelation when I was teaching an afterschool art program for kids. Some of them proudly brought in their brand new mega art kits – the ones that have everything under the sun, packaged in a beautiful folding wooden easel.  The paints were awful. Really, really awful. The filler (what is added to the paint as well as medium) was so prevalent the colors barely mixed. And to go back to yellow – we tried mixing greens and literally could not mix greens – the yellow disappeared. If I hadn’t seen it for myself I would not have believed it.

So my two cents, if this rant has been useful – get the higher quality paint, unless you can’t afford it. In that case, choose wisely/research what you want to spend your money on – earth colors and whites are usually be less spendy. Are you willing to do the work and mix those colors? Splurge on  a set of good quality primary colors plus a tube of white. Higher quality paints will suprisingly last longer and provide a much more satisfying experience.

My favorite oil paint brands? Gamblin, Williamsburg, MGraham are my top favorites but I also use Winsor Newton (and their student grade, Winton) and Grumbacher.

Curious about oil paints, mediums, etc? Check out Gamblin Oil Paints website. Very informative and has helpful videos too. http://www.Gamblincolors.com

Have you had issues with your color mixing?

Thanks for listening! Warmly, Dana

 

 

 

Are you ready for a(n Art) Challenge?

Dogs, February 2018, Professional Practices

I am thankful that I am finally getting over a rather rough cold, as well as healing up from a freak fall on my porch stairs. It was a rough couple weeks. It’s been a while since I painted, from sheer pain/exhaustion/feeling icky. My energy came back, and I discovered that I will happily work away listening to Audible or podcasts.  I get away to distracted listening to the news.

We are still waiting for an electrician to come by and fix our electrical issue – all the rooms on one of our electrical circuits is being temperamental. It is kinda working, but it affects my daughter’s bedroom and my studio, so I have taken over the dining room table.

But, I digress. I was listening to the Leslie Saeta Artists Helping Artists Podcast, and she is promoting her February “30 in 30 Art Challenge” I was originally not going to join up, but, I have changed my mind. Here’s why, and some background.

I was first introduced to the concept of art challenge around 2008-2009. It was a show called The Forgotten Works Challenge, held at the Tashiro Kaplan Building near Pioneer Square, Seattle. The “Challenge” consisted of creating 30 artworks on 8×10 canvasboard panels, within 30 days. Exactly. That’s a lot of surface to cover. I remember telling the coordinator I would not be able to complete the challenge – he said – slap some sharpie smiley faces on the blank ones, but bring them ALL back. Light Bulb! Since then, though, I have figured out how to complete all the panels. 😉

Since then, I have pretty much done some variation of the 30 day challenge. Sometimes even a couple times a year. If you check out the sidebar on this blog, most of the Series posted were done in that mindset. What can I say, I like series. Also, it sure made me a better, faster, more confident painter.

I think it has helped me more recently, to have some kind of theme. So my theme for the February 30 in 30 Challenge is The Brown Dog. Why? Well, it’s the Year of the Dog in the Chinese Lunar New Year. AND February 16th is the Lunar New Year start day! AND it’s the year of the EARTH dog (element, get it, brown dog, earth dog) AND my favorite subjects are… Dogs! So. Very. Excited.

Have you done Leslie’s Art Challenge? Or another one in your town? How have you approached it?

If you want to join Leslie’s Challenge, here’s the link – you you might have to cut and paste, sorry – https://www.saetastudio.com/30-in-30.html.   I recommend listening to the latest Artists Helping Artists podcast – it talks about how this (or any) Art Challenge can be very useful to any artist. Enjoy!

Psst – check out Amber Honour’s blog – burntumberarts.com She’s doing her own January Challenge. And I believe #stradaeasel is doing one too! Follow them on FB or Instagram, and while you’re at it – check me out too of you want – @DanaAldisStudio

Let’s Talk Tech, and Other Things

Professional Practices, Uncategorized

So 2018 started off not quite as smoothly as I would have liked. We had a lovely trip home for the holidays – first time in over a decade. It was great to see family, though too short of a trip to actually visit anyone outside of the immediate families. Still, watching my four year old daughter really experience Christmas was priceless.

Back home in Washington, my Dell laptop (only a couple years old) decided that it would no longer cooperate and reboot correctly after a bunch of updates. Granted, Windows 10 was always buggy, but come on. Like any tech, I just wanted it to work. I have images to load, stuff to print, things to market. So now the laptop sits on my desk. A brick. I have a good friend in Seattle that wants to give it a shot, so we will go see him in a week or so.

Thinking positively, it will make me less likely to tinker around on text based stuff and crank out some studio work. And now I am putting my IPad into overdrive use. As much as I like touch screens, nothing beats a good keyboard. Right now I am using one by Arteck, and trying to finish this post on my IPad.

I wanted to share with you my favorite apps of 2017. I have a couple that have come in really handy, and perhaps you might enjoy them as well. Most have free options, though, I have found that I ended up purchasing the yearly membership, which has a couple more perks.

First – “Later”, an app that helps you schedule posts to Instagram. The free version allows you to post up to 30 posts a month, and that works for me, for now. Very easy to use.

Second – IFTTT (If This, Then That) has helped me cross post to most social media platforms. And if you don’t find what you need, you can create your own “applet”. So now, if I post to my Instagram page, it automatically shows up on my FB Page and Twitter feed. A specific hashtag will post to my Pinterest. Gone (for the most part) are the days of loading each account individually. I am pleased that it doesn’t just load a link, which was happening with Hootsuite.

Third – PicMonkey. I did pay for the “Royale” version, which gives me more options. I can edit pictures, crop, create collages that are size specific (for social media or other things)

Fourth – Canva. A great app for non designers (and probably) designers too – to build very nice layouts for print or social media. Again, I did purchase the yearly membership, which allows you to access more layouts and has more perks.

I hope you take a moment to check out the apps. Perhaps they can benefit you as well. I wish everyone a happy and prosperous new year.