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Cerulean Blue Chromium—Does it Stay or Does It Go?
It shouldn’t surprise anyone that my friends like to talk to me about pigments. A couple years ago my friend Paul started talking to me about Cerulean Blue Chromium (CBC). In the Daniel Smith line it’s PB36. There is no standard usage of paint names in the industry so in a different line a different […]
Color Chart Fun
The best way to learn your pigments is to put them to real-world tests painting subjects you might actually paint. Your mind has to work out how to adjust color temperature and value on the fly. You get to use up leftover paint that you already had out on your palette. Creating a color range […]
Selecting Pinks for Portraits
At the beginning of this year I had some palette choices to make. Whether to keep Opera Pink on my palette was one of those choices. If you look at my journals and out of journal paintings you’ll see that I kept testing Opera Pink. It wasn’t a color that I actively sought out. It […]
Another Reason to Sketch and Paint the Same Subject Multiple Times
Continuing my thoughts from Friday’s post I wanted to add another reason why it is a good idea to sketch and paint the same subject multiple times—the fun of trying different media out and seeing how the use of different media changes your interpretation. On this page spread I first sketched a a watercolor portrait […]
Rewetting Dried Watercolor (and Gouache)
I’ve posted a video on YouTube today about rewetting dried watercolor—either dried tube paint or paint that came in pans. I did this because a friend asked me about painting with gouache. She didn’t understand how I managed my water in gouache—either fresh from the tube, or when it was dried out. I explained that […]
Still That Secondary Triad
Sometimes I make myself laugh, catch myself by surprise. I look at this and see I kept working with that Secondary Colors triad. In this sketch from February there’s still the green, the orange, and the purple (which was a mix of quin pink and phthalo blue), with a little bit of that pink on […]
Clearing Up Some Confusion About Gouache
After Monday’s post on the Stoneground Gouache Pans I want to clear up some confusion about gouache—a question I have received a lot over the years. Question: I am writing to ask if you know of any gouache that doesn’t have acrylic paint in it? I’ve developed super sensitivities to chemical odors, can’t use […]
A Look at Stoneground Gouache Pans
Everyone who reads my blog knows that I love gouache. I have since childhood. So I was excited to see a new gouache, Stoneground Gouache, bring out a line of gouache in pans. Who doesn’t like the ease of having pans of paint when out and about? I’ve done a video product […]
Liner Brush Test Sheet
Most of you might not want to wait until I finish testing all the liner and rigger brushes I’m going to be testing to hear which is my favorite. Frankly I don’t know how long this project is going to take me. So in the interim I’m posting my initial test sheets (which are two […]
More Direct Brush Painting With the Liner Brush
This is about sketch 4 or 5 in my series of testing liner brushes. I like this dog sketch (and it’s already on my Instagram page so I thought I’d round out the week with it). I’m still using Schmincke’s Ocean Grey with a warm and a cool red. The difference here is that I’ve […]