Margret E Short Fine Arts Blog

Living Green

Some of the most useful colors I have found for this project are the lovely green earths. Green earth is a generic term used to describe a family of colors. Verona green, (mined near Verona, Italy), epidot, Bavarian and Bohemian, nicosia, celadonite, terre verde, and vagone are a few.

For the most part, each one is slightly gritty. These natural siliceous mineral  pigments have very low (weak) covering and tinting strength. Most, also, have a greyish-green cast that becomes very apparent after mixed with white.

I have discovered great results from experimentation with these pigments. Often, in my past experience, while making, say......a muted background color, I would need to mix 3 or 4 modern pigments to achieve just the correct tone. Using historic pigments presents an entirely different thought process because fewer colors are necessary. By using one of the green earths which naturally is muted, along with a burnt or raw umber and perhaps a flyspeck of Naples yellow for added translucency, the background tones are easily made. Using only 2 pigments plus a bit of 1 more, and you are there.

Celadon has a rich history full of myths and legends, mostly from the Chinese and Turkish cultures. This pigment has been widely used in glazes for porcelain and pottery since antiquity. According to Victoria Findlay in her book Color; A Natural History of the Palette, celadon was for centuries thought to have secret, almost magical powers, especially in China. If jars glazed with celadon had a clear pleasing tone when struck, people would consider the jars as homes of gods.

Another colorful story is about jars owned by the Sultan in Borneo. He believed the jars had powers of prophecy. One jar "howled dolefully" on the night before the Sultan's wife died. Many many similar legends can be found about this coveted green pigment.

This is one color I have yet to try, but when I do perhaps I will create my own legends.

The Token

Rachel Ruysch is the one token woman represented in the Dutch Exhibit and was famous for her lovely colorful paintings of flowers. Her father was an amateur painter and an internationally renowned professor of anatomy and botany. Because of this she undoubtedly became familiar with flowers and gardens in her early years.

She later married the portrait painter, Jurriaen Pool, and had ten children, but she continued to pursue her skill as an artist. In 1709 Johann Wilhelm, Elector Palatine of Pfalz in Dusseldorf, appointed her his court painter. Rachel Ruysch worked for a distinguished international clientele until she died at age 83 in 1750.

This image detail is from the piece in the exhibit titled simply, Still Life with Flowers, shown here in the catalogue after attacks of my pen making notations of possible color uses and changes. As I have stated before, often, if not almost always, the  colors in the book do not match the colors of the paintings in the exhibit. I spent many hours analyzing each work, determining the colors, and making notations right on the pages for use back in my studio. This preliminary work made it infinitely easier to decide which pigments to use in my project paintings. It was an easy choice to use this colorful and lively painting by this master artist.

Full Steam Ahead

March 1st is just around the corner and full steam ahead it is! Pictured here is a detail of painting #5. The detail is showing a very small portion because this is the "stool climbing canvas" and will be the largest in the exhibit. As some of you know, I started taking piano lessons a few years ago. This introduction to music opened vast amounts of subject matter to use in my paintings, and I have used a music theme here.  Old books, sheet music, bells, and music instruments were composed to design this work based on the piece in the Dutch exhibit by Rachel Ruysch, a floral.

This particular painting is filled with wonderful varieties of color, and I did not feel restricted here like I have using some of the other works. There are reds, pinks, subtle greens, sparkling whites, blue, and dark darks in the background. As time goes on and I progress from one painting to the next, I am discovering that there is a repetition of application of certain colors. Because there are not really that many, perhaps 20 or so different hues to use, the process of what combinations to make is expedited by the simple limitations of numbers.

It is surprising how many vibrant and harmonious colors can be achieved with only a few tubes of paint. Subtle creamy pinks come from white and vermilion, soft buttery yellows from lead tin yellow and white, and endless varieties of gray from all sorts of combinations such as burnt umber and white or a green earth, umber and white. There are also solutions to certain problematic paint characteritics such as the poor drying qualities of blacks. By mixing some dry burnt umber pigment to the black naturally expedites the drying, as burnt umber is a very quick dryer. The color is minimally altered, as the burnt umber really just warms the black somewhat.

As my explorations deepen with progress into this project, research is proving the painters of the 17th Century and before were able to create indescribably endless varieties of color combinations with few available pigments. This simplified work in the studios in spite of the fact they had to mix colors daily or every few days if pig bladders were used for storage. I am finding I like the simplification also, which perhaps will bring that "full steam ahead" to a full boil.

Oil Change

Drying oils are an essential component to painting in oils, and there are several which can be used. The primary function of a drying oil is to bind the pigment particles together which enables the pigment to adhere to the surface of the painting.

The most common oil is linseed which is pressed from the flax seed and has been used since antiquity. It can be hot pressed or cold pressed or boiled or left to thicken in the sun or shaken in a bottle with sand to allow the impurities to settle.

This latter technique is called washed and is very desirable to use but very time consuming also. The most commonly used linseed is cold pressed refined. Linseed can be used as a binder to make or mull dry pigment into paint and also as a medium to alter the consistency of the paint while painting on canvas or a panel.

Another useful oil is walnut derived from the pressing of walnuts. Now, my grandson has an alergy to all tree nuts (even touching the shell can cause a life threatening reaction) so I never use it, but it is commonly found in art studios. 

Poppyseed oil is also widely used and is desirable because of the clear light color. It darkens and yellows less than linseed and therefore, is used for light colors such as white, lead tin yellow, and Naples yellow.

All of these oils contain various fatty acids and triglycerides. During the oxidation process, these small units grow into larger networks and are linked together and polymerized. These networks bind the pigment together while reacting to certain ions in the pigment, accelerating the drying process. This will eventually harden into a dry paint layer on the surface of the painting. Each drying oil can be worth its weight in gold and has a useful place in painting, and can even be changed regularly.

The Painted Word

Here is a list a words I have come to know and love in all my glossaries.

Impasto - thickly applied paint which stands out from the surface of a painting

Pastose - paint mixed to a stiff texture, so that it can be used to create impasto

Grisaille -The process of painting in different shades of grey or near-monochrome

Monochrome - A painting done in one color or various shades of one color

Pentimento - Alteration made by the artist to an area already painted. (plural pentimenti) I looked this up in my Italian/English dictionary and it means something like..."I lied, and I regret it."

Medium - the binding agent for pigments in a painting. Drying oils such as linseed, poppyseed, or walnut are used and many times with an addition of a varnish.

Glaze - A layer of translucent paint applied over other paint to modify its colour, or to give depth and richness of colour. A glaze medium is used with a drying oil or drying oil plus varnish.

Primuersel - A thin layer of oil paint applied to the ground before beginning to paint, particularly in the context of a white chalk ground bound in glue for a panel. This layer modifies the colour of the ground and also, in the case of a chalk ground, makes it less liable to absorb oil from the paint layers above. This would be bad because the oil would continue to absorb into the chalk layer and cause irritating "sunk in" or flat (mat) areas of the painting.

Chiaroscuro - From the Italian chiaro light and scuro dark, the depiction of light and shadow in paintings. Beautiful mysterious darks can be achieved using this technique which was first developed by the Italian painter Caravaggio but later associated with the Dutch.

Scumble - A semi-opaque and thin layer of paint applied over a darker dry or nearly dry underlayer. Effects using warm and cool counterpoints can be very striking using this method.

From the glossary of: Art in the Making

Art Glossary 101

Glossary (glos'e-re, glos'-) n.  pl. -ries   A lexicon of the technical obscure, or foreign words of a work or field. (<L glossarium <glossa, See GLOSS-)   glossarial (glo-sar' e' el) adj. --glosssarially  adv. -- glossarist (glos'e rist, glos') n.

Glossitis -- Inflammation fo the tongue. Really ...its in the dictionary.

To me, books about painting methods and materials that do not have a glossary are not much good. If it is good book, one worth having, but does not contain a glossary, I start one somewhere on one of those mysteriously blank pages that are always at the back or front of books.

All of my books are filled with highlighting, underlining, notes, scribbles, and sticky tabs in a rainbow of colors. It was an agonizing decision to make that first mark in a pristine $80.00 Rembrandt book, hardcover. But once that highlighter made its first neon appearance, there was no turning back. These markings make it immensely easier when going back for review of all kinds of subjects that captured my interested in the first place. 

All sorts of books in my library, even ones by Cennino Cennini, DaVinci, Ernst von de Wetering, Velasquez, and Donald Fels, books about Rembrandt, Vermeer, Caravaggio, Hals, Femish painters, still life, landscape, and countless others have not escaped the wrath of my pesky highlighter. Fortunately, most have glossaries but those that don't have my handmade ones on those mysterious blank pages.

A Thimble Full

"Sparkling light enters from the left" describes Willem Kalf's paintings perfectly and succinctly. He painted luminous elegant objects peering through the shadowy chiaroscuro of his still life compositions.

Willem Kalf, mentioned in my previous post, Juicy Paint, was born in Rotterdam in 1619, and was known not only for his still life, but also became famous for interiors of farmhouses and peasant kitchens mostly in small format scenes. He captured unusual qualities in mundane objects in a manner unseen by other artists.

Brilliantly, he portrayed on a flat canvas the graduated field of light as it travels back into the depth of a room. The objects nearest you, the viewer's eye, have the brightest light, most intense color, and engaging impasto. As you peer into and behind the focus area the objects become less discernible. One at a time while wandering into that darkness, vases, urns, or elegant compotes appear slowly, looking as if light will be dimmed till morning comes. A captivating stillness draws you, the viewer, in for just one moment of tranquility.

In a painting where the light hits the curve of a silver handle, a rind of an orange, or a Wan-li dish, Kalf was masterful at portraying sparkling luminosity. To me, these areas are the most astonishing and beautiful. Very wet paint loaded with a drying oil was placed, light over dark, to convey dots of glowing, even playful, highlights.

Like notes of music Kalf used point and counterpoint across the surface with sharp and blurred strokes of paint that suggest lumps and cavities. The dark underpaint remains visible with these wet in wet applications.

In order to analize his technique further, think about an object full of texture, say, like the inside of a pomegranate. Now visualize it up close to you, then far away. When it is closest to you all the seeds and ins and outs of the pulp are clear. But when it is moved away from you the vision becomes blurred. The edges are unclear, the seeds are perhaps just a mass shape. This is a major component to Kalf's technique. To make something recede into the background it has less or no texture.

Now think of the same object, except apply this to the color. A bright clear color is in the foreground, and as it goes back in space, the color is lost. Willem Kalf was a true master of this technique and created amazing effects with his brush.

Space also is important in analyzing his paintings. Space, or depth and atmosphere, with few objects surrounded by lots of room, give a feeling of peacefulness. There are areas that arouse and excite, full of color, sharp edges, and texture, then calmly sets your senses down again for a rest in the murky darkness.

Previously, I expressed my regret there are no Willem Kalf's in this coming exhibit Rembrandt and the Golden Age of Dutch Art. But by combining the palette of Govert Flinck's Isaac Blessing Jacob and a few of Kalf's playful brush strokes, I was able to utilize a few techniques of this not very well known Dutch artist.

If I could have but a thimble full of his skill, I would be a happy woman. I promise to post an image of a Kalf painting at a later date.

Color Charts

Since the inception of this project, documenting each pigment has been carefully carried out in 3 places; on each tube, and on two charts. Nancy and I have made quite a few now and it is amazing how vastly different the pigments are, not only in hue (color), but saturation, and texture also. It is easy to see why some went out of favor and some remained a staple on the palette. Yellow jarosite is a bright yellow ochre tone and when mixed with white turns a subtle grayish yellow. But the texture is very strange with unusual brushability qualities. When trying to add the color to this chart, it would just roll off my palette knife and not stick to the paper. However, when mixed with white paint, the consistency is very good, and the color is a very soft subtle grayed yellow.

According to Natural Pigments jarosite has only been recently discovered as being the yellow pigment in the murals of the temples of Karnak, Egypt. It is lightfast and has good hiding power, meaning it is opaque not transparent. Eventhough it has been used since antiquity, it did not get its name, jarosite, until 1852: originating from, Jaroso Ravine, Spain.

Another very strange pigment is epidot which is found in Russia and Austria, and there is almost no information about it. It has a hue that could be described as a golden pea green, and when mixed with white has a low tinting power but is quite lovely. However, the texture is unpleasantly gooey (Impenetrable Goo, a previous entry). It must be used immediately after making it or it turns gummy and not brushable at all. I think I will hold off using this one until I find more information about it.

Another quite surprising quality is the difference between the same pigments that are purchased from different suppliers. A lemon ochre from Sinopia can be very unlike one from Kremer, in color and texture. This is certainly because of where the pigment is mined. But this is a very common occurance in the art world. Even tubes of paint from the well known paint makers will vary from batch to batch, and is not uncommon at all. You just learn to deal with it and adjust your palette accordingly.