Andrew's Notes

Building a Shutter

2011-07-01T14:18:00.000-07:00

The last time our old house underwent a serious renovation was in 1971. That was when it got a nice new set of exterior window shutters. Forty years is about as long as these items will stand up in our climate, and all of ours have been showing their age for some time. From time to time I have tried to repair and stabilize them, but this spring it got to the point where one shutter was so rotten it was beginning to fall apart. Something had to be done.

Not too many people make wooden shutters anymore. I called around and finally found a company (some distance away) that still builds them. I phoned them up. 'Give me a ballpark price' , I asked. 'Send us your specifications and we'll quote', they said. Well, I thought, by the time I write all that out I could be well on the way to building it myself. So I thought I'd give it a try.

I had the idea that it would be a complicated job, so I pulled apart the old shutter to see how it was put together. It proved quite simple actually. Through mortises and tenons hold the rails and stiles together - shouldered at top and bottom, full width in the middle.

Before putting the frame together you must cut diagonal slots in the inside faces of the stiles which will hold the louvres in place. I used a dado set to cut these slots a quarter of an inch wide, at 45º. Not having a mortising machine, I chopped the mortises by hand, which proved a tedious task, especially when dressing them to try to get the tenons to fit. Since the stiles are only 2¼ inches wide, next time I will set up a jig and rout them, going halfway in from each side. Now I glued up the frame, wedging the tenons for greater strength and integrity. I used a one-part, powdered resin marine grade glue, which is mixed with water, is very strong and becomes fully waterproof in 48 hours. When the glue had cured, I ran a rabbett down the inside of what was to be the central edge of the shutter, so as to provide a neat overlap with its opposite number when closed. On the outside of this same vertical edge I ran a simple bead as per the original, to dress it off. You can see the rabbett in the photo which shows the trial installation of louvres below.

Next I had to make some trim, which goes around the two apertures, front and back, mitred so as to line up exactly with the inside edges of each louvre aperture. I wasn't able to exactly match the original, so I made a ½" wide by ¼" high cloverleaf profile using my old Sears molding head on my equally ancient radial-arm saw.

At this stage the trim is applied to only one side of the shutter frame, using finish nails and the marine glue. Now the shutter is turned over so as to fit the louvres, which will be prevented from slipping right through the slots by the side pieces of trim, which retains them underneath.

Having first cut the slots, it was now easy to plane the stock for the louvres to the exact thickness for a perfect fit. Using an extra-thin ripping blade, I resawed one-inch pine stock (19mm thick) exactly in half. This gave me two thin planks about 8.5mm thick. My slots actually turned out at 6.7mm wide, so it was a quick and easy job to finish plane the louvre material to this thickness.

In the nature of things, there were subtle differences in the actual precise length of the 39 louvre slots, so I now cut the louvres to length and laid them up in a trial fit, numbering them lightly in pencil. In cases where a louvre was slightly too tight or too loose for the slot I had cut it for, I would find another slot where it would fit just perfectly!

Until this point I had left the louvres slightly oversize in width. They are designed to sit slightly proud of the frame on each side, just about to the level of the upper surface of the trim. In practice, the frame stock being 1¼ inches thick, this meant that the louvres were to be two and one eighth inches (54mm) wide. I quickly accomplished this by clamping the louvres together in batches of thirteen, and running them through my 13" Delta planer on their edges as a block.

Remember now, that the louvres are held in place by the trim, yet stand proud at their edges. So now I cut tiny 45º shoulders on both sides, both ends of all the louvres. You can see in the photo how I batched this process also by laying a 45º support block against the fence of my saw, then stacking a whole bunch of louvres against this support. To ensure the shoulders were exactly the required length despite the variation in louvre length, I also fenced out at 90º on the table on the side I was cutting. This is hard to see, but also illustrated in the photo.

Now that the louvres were precisely fitted and shouldered, it was time to round them over, which I did with my newly acquired Lee Valley one eighth inch radius rounding over plane. What a little gem of a tool that is! One pass down each long corner of the louvres and the job was done.

I glued in the louvres, not so much for strength but for protection. I had noticed that these thin pieces of wood had decayed more at their ends, where damp could penetrate more easily; so putting on a generous coat of waterproof resin glue should extend their life considerably.

Almost finished now: all that remained was to apply the trim on the second side so as to hide the shoulders of the louvres, and lastly, to pin all the joints with wooden dowel.

I was reluctant to use commercial dowel for this purpose, feeling that an unknown species of wood might not survive so well as if I used the same cedar out of which I had built the frames.

It shouldn't be that hard to make enough dowel to pin six joints; and it wasn't. I split a cedar offcut to first get a stick about half an inch square. Then I whittled it with my pocket knife until it was more or less round and roughly 12mm in diameter. I puzzled over how to achieve a precise three-eighth round dowel from this. There is a tool, but I don't have it. It is a metal plate with serrated tapered holes in it. You drive a stick such as I had made through the appropriately sized hole. I looked around the workshop, and my eye fell upon the old handsaw that was one of the first tools I acquired, back in the late sixties. These old handsaws have holes in the tip end of the blade, so that you can hang them up on a nail. Sure enough, here was a three-eighth hole in a piece of hardened steel! I laid the saw flat on my bench with the hole over a benchdog hole and drove my stick through it with a wooden mallet. A mite rough to be sure, since the hole hadn't been made for purpose and sharpened, but a true round dowel. The job was done.

Problematical Pussytoes

2011-05-30T17:12:00.000-07:00

I got on my bike in good time this year. I wanted to catch the early wildflowers along the Niagara Trail, which follows the length of the Niagara River. I live in Niagara-on-the Lake, at the north end of this trail, so my usual route takes me out past Fort George to the river, then southward towards Queenston. At the top of the high, steep west bank of the river, almost within sight of Fort George, is a wide swath of small plants displaying a most curious flower. Each plant carries a single stalk about sixteen inches high, which curves gently towards the sun. At the head of the stalk is a cluster of between ten and twenty little white florets. The florets are cone shaped with rounded heads, and composed of silky whitish hairs surrounded by tiny purple bristles and a ragged pale green calyx. The cluster looks just like, yes, pussytoes.

I took out my trusty Newcomb Wildflower Guide and quickly found that Pussytoes belong to the genus Antennaria. Another common name for these flowers is Early Everlastings. But now comes the tricky bit: which, of a number of species, is this plant? Newcomb precisely describes six different species, but goes on to say that there are about a dozen species altogether in the area ( Northeastern and North-Central North America). They are, he says ‘… very similar in appearance and difficult to identify.’

The species growing here in Niagara appears to share attributes of a number of the varieties described by Newcomb. Firstly, the largest leaves are fairly broad, about 2” long by 7/8” wide, with three main veins beneath. With these attributes we have 3 varieties listed . We can dismiss A. solitaria because we are working with several flower heads. I think we can dismiss A. parlinii (Smooth Pussytoes) because it is reported to have bright green and nearly smooth basal leaves. Our leaves are slightly woolly on the topside, and a quiet sage green in colour. That leaves us with the Plantain-leaved Pussytoes, which is good as far as it goes, but – there is no mention of basal shoots in the description, and the basal leaves illustrated have fairly rounded or blunt tips. The plants I am studying here have vigorous basal shoots which turn up strongly at their ends, and the leaves are decidedly pointed. Basal shoots are only mentioned in connection with a group of varieties that have rather smaller basal leaves, with one prominent vein! Field Pussytoes (A. neglecta) is reported to have basal shoots very slender and prostrate, with small leaves that only overlap at the tip of the shoot. Pity. Our leaves overlap considerably all along the shoot, and the shoot is not prostrate. Smaller Pussytoes (A. neodioica) fits the bill nicely, shootwise, carrying a note that the ‘….basal shoots (are) short, with overlapping leaves, and turned upward at the tip. Lower leaves end in a tiny abrupt point. Yes they do! But wait a minute – we’re only supposed to have one main vein, but we have three. Canada Pussytoes (A. canadensis) is similar but the upper surfaces of the leaves is bright green and smooth.

So, what variety is this? I should be so pleased to find out, and hope someone may tune in here and help with their expertise.

Allow me to summarise the features of this interesting plant. Maximum height 19”. Flower heads several, with purple external hairs. Stem leaves very narrow and well-spaced. Basal shoots are vigorous and thrust strongly upward at the tips. Basal leaves overlapping, dull green and slightly woolly on top surface, very pale, almost white and heavily woolled underneath, with tiny abrupt points. Largest leaves are about 2” long by 7/8” wide with three prominent main veins.

And now for a further complication. A few hundred feet further along the embankment I came upon a very different variety of Pussytoes. These plants were much smaller than those I have just described, with a maximum height of stem of about 9 inches. Instead of appearing white, the flower heads had an overall appearance of dark red, due to the bristles being much stronger and more prominent. The flower heads averaged far fewer florets each, usually between five and ten; the whole flower head therefore having a width of only about 1.5cm, versus 3cm or more for the previous variety. The flower heads match the profile of ‘Smaller Pussytoes’, as illustrated by Newcomb. Basal shoots and leaves are virtually identical to the variety already described, except for being only half the size, the maximum leaf size being about 3x1.5cm. The tiny sharp tips are present on the leaves. Except for the overall flower colour, I should categorize these as ‘Smaller Pussytoes’ A. neodioica. I am rather lost here, but I shall for the time being label this latter variety then as A. neodioica. The plant first described I shall simply call “Larger Pussytoes” for the moment.

Designing Dollshouse Wallpaper

2011-02-22T17:21:00.000-08:00

I have for the last little while been engaged in designing and printing off some dollhouse wallpaper. This exercise has taught me quite a bit about ‘Photoshop’ that I didn’t know before, and has (I believe) produced some interesting results. This enterprise was provoked because we could not seem to find on the Internet the type of wallpaper we needed with which to decorate the grand Georgian style dollshouse that my daughter has been building. We needed some striped wallpaper for the halls, and could not find any. So I set to work and soon had a few templates set up from which to make several varieties of striped paper. Here are some of the results.

At first, I opened a simple blank canvas, about an inch and a quarter wide and ¾ inch high, 300dpi. I set the rulers to ‘pixels’ and drew some vertical lines at intervals which might produce a good effect. I then coloured in the bands of various widths which had been produced. The result looked a bit like your grandfather’s war medals. Next I dragged those ‘template’ forms onto a bigger canvas and pasted them in side by side to make a wide horizontal array. Then I ‘flattened’ the image, rendering it all into one background layer. Using ‘Free Transform’, I ‘stretched’ the image vertically, to produce a page of stripes. All that remained was to select colours for the stripes of different widths, so as to achieve a pleasing effect.

To dress the paper off nicely I needed a frieze to paste along the top, for use in case we didn’t have a molded plaster cornice in the area in which we were working. For this I made another template, this time with horizontal stripes. After blocking out the various bands with colours to match the already made wallpaper, I was left with a central field needing some decoration. In this area I inserted elements that I had designed and created years ago for a totally different project ~ a photo of a plaster urn, a roundel, and a swag that I had made in the Georgian style to decorate a fireplace. I photographed the details of this fireplace and extracted the architectural elements. After enhancing them in Photoshop, I cut and pasted them in at intervals to produce a long band.

Last fall, having anticipated a need for pictures of floral elements, I had taken a number of photos from stems taken from a bunch of yellow roses. Now I worked with those pictures to assemble a variety of ‘Rose Stripe’ papers.

Some other papers I produced by photographing existing old wallpaper from the Victorian era and ‘restoring’ it by cleaning it up ~ in effect repainting an area of the paper, then re-assembling a page from the restored illustration.

As I proceeded, I began to learn new techniques, such as working with layers and textures. Ultimately I found myself able to build completely original paper designs that looked to me very professional. With a little more effort, I think we shall be able produce some finished papers which may be enjoyed for generations.

I have posted more pictures on my ‘Flickr’ photostream, showing aspects not illustrated here.

2011-02-06T14:36:00.001-08:00

Experimenting with a Different Style.

2011-02-06T14:26:00.000-08:00

Here is a watercolour I have been working on. Not quite finished yet, so I am not posting it on Flickr just now. I am also putting in here a reference photo of the Japanese style garden which inspired me to do this picture, and an experimental try at Japanese writing. The writing attempt was done with a brush on the bark of the Kolkwitzia tree (otherwise known as 'Beauty Bush') I should have used a pen instead of a brush, and obviously, I should take lessons before I try such things.

I do not wish to explain this blog any further at the moment. It is here now specifically so someone can take a look and help me with it.

Painting and Printing Decorative Borders

2010-03-23T10:53:00.000-07:00

For the last little while I have been immersing myself in family history again. This included printing up a couple of family trees as gifts. These printouts are getting quite big and were looking rather plain. I thought this time I’d like to decorate them with borders and flower motifs, rather like an illuminated manuscript. I guess I was thinking about that Book of Kells. With the miracle of computers and home printing I was able to accomplish this a lot quicker than the mediaeval monks; nowhere near as well of course, but I had a lot of fun with it. I was partly inspired to do this because I recently bought a large format printer and can now print up to 13 x 19 inches; so when building a tree I only have to glue together half the number of sheets as formerly.

I began by painting in watercolour a long narrow band of mixed tree leaves and fruits; some traditional species from the English woods of my boyhood. Holly, ivy, ash and oak. At this time of year I can’t bring in leafy oak and ash twigs, so I did those from memory, but we do have both holly and ivy growing in the garden, so I brought in bits of that to refer to. I made that band about 18 inches long so that it would print the entire length of a piece of 11 x 17 paper. Then I painted a corner section along the same lines. These border bands are 45mm (about 1¾ inches ) wide.

Then I painted five small stylized wildflowers to go into the various corners. In accordance with my ancestry, I chose the thistle for Scotland and the roses of Lancaster and York to represent those two counties. I don’t know whether Cornwall has a national flower; but I always think of daffodils in the springtime down that way, so I picked that. Lastly, to represent the southeast of England, Essex and Kent, I chose the English bluebell which used to grow abundantly close by where we lived.

I scanned in the results, and with some rather tricky and careful planning I managed to print the border elements onto the sheets upon which I had already printed the family tree data. It helps to be able to flip the border bands horizontally and vertically in Photoshop, and of course, rotate them as required. This not only fools the eye into thinking the pattern is not repetitive, but also assists in achieving a good matchup when ‘splicing’ one page to the next. By this means I was able to print fourteen running feet of border whilst only having to design and paint about three feet.

I have uploaded everything freely on Flickr as usual, so if you like to download the pieces and play around with them you can make printed frames as I did. These illustrations can of course easily be made to print smaller than I painted them. They will probably look even better that way. When you need to ‘splice’ two lengths of the band together, or a piece of band to the corner section, proceed as follows: when you are dragging one of the various pieces into a new ‘canvas’ for assembly, first select the white background of the piece (with a low tolerance, say 10). Then select ‘Inverse’. Your selection now consists of the entirety of the painted elements without the white background. Now drag it over with the ‘Move’ tool and overlay it onto a previous layer. It will appear ‘lacy’ – you can see through between the leaves and twigs to the layer beneath. This enables a perfectly natural splice which will be absolutely undetectable. Merge the visible layers when all is in place and you are satisfied.

Freeing it Up: How I’m learning to paint differently

2010-01-10T08:55:00.000-08:00

I have been provoked into trying some radical departures from my usual style of painting, which as you, my friends, know, is generally deliberate, tight, and detailed. This is all very well, but I do often yearn to achieve a lighter touch. So when Bill and Gerry set up the ‘Flickr’ group ‘Fast and Fabulous’ and invited me to join, I was hooked. If I had to force myself to complete a painting in half an hour there would be no question of employing habitual techniques.

So today I broke out of the mould and did it. Perhaps once or twice in my life I have painted something in less than three hours, (the odd Christmas card, for instance) but this effort, ‘The Niagara River at Brown’s Point’, was painted in 28 minutes. Wow, you sure have to keep the brush moving fast!

I learned a lot from this new approach, the first thing being that you really should choose a simple subject. It helped that I had decided on a snowy landscape. Snow allows you to omit a vast number of brushstrokes. The next thing is, that it is good to internalize your vision to the point where you know exactly what you want to put on the paper; there’s little time now for reference to other sources for inspiration or detail. Better that it is already fixed in the mind. A couple of weeks ago I was driving down the Niagara Parkway, a very familiar route, and as I passed Brown’s Point the striking view through the trees imprinted itself on my mind: a broken sky of pure cerulean, seen through a tracery of sepia branches; the river cobalt green, glimpsed through tall hardwood trunks, mostly maple; a scattering of underbrush amidst the clean, fresh snow. It’s not convenient to stop at that point on the Parkway, and being the driver I could allow myself only a brief glimpse. A week later though, I came this way again, prepared to clarify and reinforce my impression of the scene. With only another two or three seconds to take in the scene, I am trying to train my powers of observation; this is fun in itself, seeing how much you can remember from only a brief instant of study; like Kim’s game.

From this mental picture I was able to plan my ‘order of work’. I had thought of first reserving out some treetrunk highlights, perhaps with vertical slashes with a candle-end, but dismissed this as unnecessarily fussy. So first I must lay in the sky and some violet shadows in the snow, wet-in-wet After the paper dried I would paint in the far bank of the river in a colour close to W&N ‘Neutral Tint’. Then I must broad-brush the treetrunks in sepia and add branches and twigs, next adding the bright flashes of the river, then finally some underbrush in Burnt Sienna. Figuring this out did take some thought.

The matter of colour selection took additional planning that I don’t usually pay much attention to ahead of starting on the picture. Again, simplicity had to be the keynote – little time can be devoted to mixing subtle shades of colour. I decided I needed only five shades - Cerulean Blue, Windsor Violet, Neutral Tint (with slight admixture of Ivory Black), Cobalt Green and Burnt Sienna.

Again departing from my usual technique, I made no preliminary pencil sketch; I just made two tick marks at the side of the page to register where I wanted the horizon and the river to be. As I entered upon the painting I got my next lesson: mix the paint strongly enough to achieve the required tone in one stroke. No time to build up the picture with careful layers. Ouch. I’ll do better next time; promise. The next obvious matter to be addressed is brush technique. Normally, I build my shapes up carefully with fairly small brushes. No time for that now. Broad-brush is essential, at least in many areas. Which brings one quickly to the realization that wielding a broad brush properly has to be learned: achieving the desired shape of brushmark with correctly delineated edges has to be accomplished in one swipe. Oh dear; I have to work on that seriously. Then there’s a question of detail; at the very least, it must be suggested, else the scene appear bland and empty of interest. I learned in this little trial to get some small delicacy in the underbrush by first putting on a little patch of colour with a No.6 round. then quickly feathering out the top of the shape by dragging a dry fan brush through it. I’ve hardly ever used this brush before.

I feel great satisfaction as I contemplate this process. The actual result matters little compared to the pleasure of learning so much in such a short time. Discovering too, that I can in fact produce a worthwhile sketch in very limited time opens vistas of possibility. No longer daunted by thinking I must set aside half a day if I am to paint at all, I begin instead to enjoy the happy thought that maybe I can find thirty minutes each day, like ‘Linfrye’, and might look forward to improving my skills with more frequent practice.

All of which brings me to some final thoughts, which are of gratitude for the inspiration and encouragement I get from my artist friends on ‘Flickr’. Were I on this journey by myself it would be lonely and often disheartening. Having in addition outsiders, (and not only friends), approve of work about which I myself entertain serious doubts gives a balanced perspective. Seeing, if only dimly, through others eyes is interesting.

So much, to come out of so little. Wunderbar!

PERPLEXING PERSPECTIVE ~ or, Some Challenges Encountered in the Painting of an Interior Scene.

2010-01-02T08:58:00.001-08:00

I decided to paint a picture of the Keeping Room in our house. I think this type of subject is an important one in art, yet it does not seem to receive much attention these days. Pictures of interiors memorialize important places and times in our lives. They show how we live and inform our descendants of this in an interesting way. This was powerfully brought home to me when last year I read a magazine article entitled “The Art of Intimacy”, written by Timothy Brittain-Catlin and published in ‘The World of Interiors’, October 2008 edition. The story reviewed an exhibition* of watercolours of Victorian era interiors and was profusely illustrated with fascinating reproductions which, when studied, tell us a great deal about a certain kind of lifestyle in those days. This article directly inspired me to attempt my first serious interior scene in watercolour – ‘View from the Parlour’, which you may see on my ‘Flickr’ site. Having achieved some success with that, this winter I began another view of our home interior.
I enjoy working in this genre for many reasons. As a (usually) slow painter it is helpful to have an unchanging scene which may be revisited as often as necessary, where the light may be examined at many different times each day, and where the comforts of home are close at hand. Another thing: we think that we have an intimate knowledge of all our possessions, but I discover that, speaking for myself, having to carefully study each element of a scene during the painting process gives an even deeper understanding and appreciation of each little treasure.

I set to work on my new project by making a couple of fast pencil sketches and ran into difficulty right away: I couldn’t get everything I wanted into the frame. From the west and south corners of the room I had to omit an essential key element - the fireplace; from the north and east corners the couch could not be included. This a basic problem when composing a ‘roomscape’. Just try to take a photo of any room and you will see what I mean. That is why real estate agents always have to use a very wide-angle lens. But then one quickly runs into distortions of perspective. Which is why I decided to write this blog.
The fact that I have not had the benefit of any education in art is a source of some regret to me. When I look at the works of others I can only envy their confident handling of composition and perspective. I am often frustrated by feeling that I have to reinvent so many wheels. Certainly, you may say that I can educate myself and learn from a wealth of available material, but I would sooner use the time I have to paint rather than study. So I struggle on. I soon came to the conclusion that I would have to somehow ‘unroll’ the room and play pretty fast and loose with the rules of perspective to get what I wanted; so in my mind I opened the room up as one would do by cutting down one side of a box (see Fig.1). I recognized an immediate drawback in this approach: the eye found insufficient differentiation at the centre corner of the design between the two ‘middle’ walls. It looked too flat. All four vertical wall corners actually needed more emphasis. The only way to achieve this was by adding curvature. All the walls could be regularly curved, (as in Figs. 2 and 4), but my mind was offended by the visual effect. There had to be distortion, but it must be hidden as far as possible. Which thought led me initially to ‘pinch’ the corners as shown in Fig.3 and in my rough sketch ‘An Illustration of Chosen Perspective’. This approach, by keeping the main part of each wall plane ‘flat’ or ‘straight’, would allow the elements of furniture all to be drawn in straight lines with more or less normal two-point perspective. The scheme did however produce a high horizon line. I wanted the horizon line to be at seated eye-level, about 48 inches above the floor, not only because this would make the scene easy to sketch from life, but also because it naturally best pleased the mind’s eye. I found a logical solution in Figure 5, which although it appears somewhat weird in preliminary layout, actually works quite well in the finished picture. My analysis is that it works because the areas of very large perspective distortion are irrelevant (as in the ceiling), or disguised (as in the foreground carpet), whilst the areas of minor distortion are hidden (the lower corners of each wall). Exceptions are found in the severe ‘bend’ in the carpet in front of the TV, and in the way the floor slopes down rather obviously from all points towards the viewer. I actually settled on this final composition and painted my watercolour prior to undertaking the in depth analysis of ‘why’ that I outline above. I had become curious to carefully explore various options, and borrowed a book on perspective from the local library as well. From this I learned several basic concepts about different perspective conventions that I had never been aware of: e.g. ‘circular’, ‘three-point’, ‘axonometric’ perspective, and so on. I drew the happy conclusion from this, that I was glad of my previous ignorance, in that it had allowed me to find a novel solution to my visual challenge outside of the conventional constraints that would have hedged my thinking had I been possessed of more formal knowledge. Ignorance, in this case was indeed bliss, or at least serendipity.

I hope you enjoy my work, and that it may interest you into exploring the wonderful world of interiors seen through the eyes of artists.

Here are two good places to look, that might fire your interest:

A group on ‘Flickr’ that I started recently called ‘Roomscapes ~ Paintings of Interiors’:

http://www.flickr.com/groups/1312692@N21/

The Thaw Collection at Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum:

http://www.cooperhewitt.org/EXHIBITIONS/fall-design/House-Proud/#images

* The exhibition referred to was entitled ‘House Proud: 19th-century Watercolour Interiors from the Thaw Collection’, and was mounted by the owners of this collection – Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, N.Y., N.Y.

In the Frame ~ Part Three

2009-10-29T16:42:00.000-07:00

Some Decorative Ideas

Sometimes the frame made from a simple molding appears just a little too plain. I first wrestled with this issue when I was making new frames to display some paintings my grandfather had made some eighty years ago. I had added a linen covered liner frame and that really gave a good effect, but it was still just too quiet. I solved this by using a small rectangular grounding punch, as illustrated in (DSC02524).
A few years back, I bought some more decorative punches from my favourite tool store – ‘Lee Valley Tools’ – based in Ottawa. http://www.leevalley.com/ I put them to good use when I wanted to make a special frame for a two-hundred year old piece of silk embroidery, which had come down through my family. For this, I wanted to evoke the Regency era with some fine detail. I did this by first making a plant ‘stem’ along the molding by alternate shallow cuts with a carving gouge; (DSCN5498). Then I added little oak leaves and acorns with the punches. Feeling that the design was not yet quite full enough, I lastly added a sprinkle of little flowers. I did all this freehand. Don’t fuss with a measured layout. Trust your eye. This may look a little rough when studied close-up in a harsh light, but the final effect on the wall is exactly right. (DSCN5448, 5450).
I stumbled upon another method for making a frame more ornate when I acquired a number of lengths of decorative fillet (DSCN5528) I had been in discussion at the framing shop as to how best to display a rather special watercolour, and it was suggested that I use a double matt separated by a fillet. A selection of designs were brought out and we quickly agreed on a good treatment for the picture. But I then went on to muse out loud as to whether I couldn’t make these tiny moldings myself, and thought how they might be useful to dress up other frame moldings. The upshot was that I was offered a bundle of fillets left over from old projects in order to clear out useless stock. I chose one of these to enhance a molding design I had already used once in its simpler form; (the larger, gold coloured molding in (DSCN5470). Now, instead of running a rabbet on the inner edge, I cut a slot to receive the supporting side of the fillet. The underside of the decorated half of the fillet now provided the land for the picture; (DSCN5340). The finished result is shown in (DSCN5536).
Well now, that’s about it for the time being. In a future blog, I’d like to explain some tips and tricks I have learned for matting watercolours, prints and photos. I did not find the intricacies of this explained in the ‘How to’ books I consulted. I learned the basics from the owner of an Art Supply store, and more recently, some refinements from my Frame Store friend. That topic needs a bit of working up.
If you’ve read to the end here, then you probably intend to try out some of the ideas I have put forward. I hope that this little exposition will help you.

Mind your fingers!

In the Frame ~ Part Two

2009-10-28T12:38:00.000-07:00

Gilding the Molding.

Disclaimer: I have no personal, professional or financial connection to any company or brand mentioned here. I have not received any gift, discount or other inducement from any source whatsoever. I pay retail price for all my art supply needs and tools. Where I feature a particular product, it is because I use it and it works well for me.

Having shown in ‘Part One’ how to make a picture frame molding, I am now going to describe and illustrate how to produce a metallic finish upon it, prior to making up the frame. This process can be used of course on a frame that’s already made up. I have accumulated a number of frames from garage sales, usually at about 50 cents apiece. It’s a good idea to strip the existing finish completely, otherwise make sure to give it a careful sanding so that the new finish will adhere properly.
The finishing is a four-step process: priming, undercoating, putting on a metallic paste, and finally varnishing. Make sure you have made plenty of molding for the size of frame you contemplate (DSCN5321). Run a minimum of 20% over your theoretical needs (50% is better). When making stock this way there will always be little anomalies that will show up during the finishing process, and it’s good to have lots extra so you can select the best. Also, you will find it difficult to reproduce the same frame molding so exactly as to match perfectly what you have already made. In my opinion, the best native wood for making framing is Basswood, called Lime in England and Linden elsewhere, but I find this increasingly difficult to find and expensive. My second choice is Eastern White Pine.
After sanding lightly, I prime the wood with an alkyd primer. The first coat of this will raise the grain slightly and leave a furry surface. Rub down with a worn piece of 220 grit garnet paper and if it needs it, apply a second coat of the primer.
Next is to put on a coloured undercoat, and this needs some thought (and a word of explanation). Because of the burnishing which is done after applying the final metallic finish, a certain amount of undercoat will show through; more or less depending on technique and the effect desired. (DSCN5364). It is therefore important that the colour of the undercoat is in harmony, not only with the metallic colour chosen, but also, to a certain degree, with the nature of the painting and the preponderant colours in it. For a rich, warm effect, a bright red undercoat with a reddish gold on top works well. Under a silver finish I might use black, grey, blue or green. You get the idea. (DSCN5109). For this undercoat I use everyday acrylic craft paint (DSCN5490). If you want a solid metallic finish, then don’t rub this coat down. The metallic paste will stick better to a slightly rough and porous surface; but if, for effect, you want to show a lot of colour through, then rub the undercoat down with a coarse cloth: the metallic paste won’t take the same grip
Now for the metallic coating. The product I use is called ‘Goldfinger’. It is a paste made by Daler-Rowney which comes in five different shades – Antique Gold, Sovereign Gold, Green Gold, Copper and (imitation) Silver (DSCN5491). Rub that on in accordance with the instructions (DSC02517). You can just use your bare finger, but I have lately taken to wearing a latex glove and using a cloth in order to try to protect my aging skin from solvents.
The instructions given with the ‘Goldfinger’ suggest that after the paste is dry (I wait overnight), you should buff up the finish with a cloth, but I have experimented with a harder burnishing and think I can offer a technique which will produce a finish more closely resembling metal foil . Instead of rubbing with a cloth, I employ homemade burnishing tools. The first ones I made were shaped from scraps of hardwoods such as ash and walnut (DSCN2834,5,6). More recently, I have been making burnishers from bone (DSCN5473). Shape them with files and sandpaper, polishing the working surface as finely as possible with 600 grit paper. Once in use, the burnisher will polish itself to a mirror finish. Traditionally, agate was used to burnish when gold leaf was applied over a gesso ground, so I bought a few little agate pebbles to try. They don’t work as well for the purpose, most especially because one cannot work them into a variety of concave shapes which is so easy with bone and wood.
So take a burnisher and gently, but firmly, rub it back and forth along the molding. By holding the work up to the light you will immediately see how a smoother, more polished surface develops. Don’t rub so hard as to remove too much of the gilt. By using tools of different concave and convex radii you can quickly achieve a polished metallic surface. Now finish off by buffing with a soft cloth.
The ultimate task is to varnish the burnished molding, using Daler-Rowney’s ‘Goldfinger Varnish’. This is one area where I have some trouble, and I should be grateful for suggestions to overcome it. The finish you have just achieved by burnishing is simply gorgeous; it cannot be improved upon. But the manufacturer does suggest overlaying a protective coat of their special varnish, made for the purpose, so I have been doing so. There are three problems with this. Firstly, the ‘Goldfinger Varnish’ is alcohol based, and so dries almost instantly. You have only time to lay it on with a full brush and sweep it once, maybe twice to ensure even and complete coverage. Then you have to stop as it will have stickied up. Secondly the flow of varnish tends to dissolve and remove your beautiful finish, so you have to employ a very gentle touch. Thirdly, the final result just doesn’t have quite the same rich sheen as an unvarnished piece. I am thinking that I should maybe not varnish a few frames now, and see how they hold up over a few years. Or else try a different varnish perhaps. Come on now. If you’ve read this far, help me out with a little experimentation and research.

In part three I’ll cover some ideas for decorating framing with special effects.

In the Frame ~ Part One.

2009-10-27T06:55:00.000-07:00

Shaping a Set of Molding Knives.

So let’s get down to business here. Making moldings. What I show may not be directly practicable to many, but it may inspire you to think about finding your own way to do framing, and I think it worth documenting, as a personal adaptation of woodworking techniques first developed in the mid nineteenth century, which gradually replaced those old wooden molding planes that you still can find in the antique shops. Every cabinet maker used to have his own collection of these. I’ve owned and used them myself, but long ago gave that up in favour of a Sears Craftsman three-bladed molding head, which will mount onto either a table saw or a radial-arm, which is what I have. This naturally does a far more even and accurate job in a fraction of the time. This is still available, and cheaply. Here’s what the set looks like. You can still get it from Sears for the same price I paid about thirty years ago - $99; (DSCN1714). - Please refer to my 'Flickr' site to see all the illustrations: http://www.flickr.com/photos/a_henwood/sets/72157614565091611/.

Disappointingly, Sears does not seem to sell the cutter bit sets separately any more as accessories, and neither could their parts department help. Fear not, however; all is not lost. There is a company called Corob Cutters - http://www.corobcutters.com/ - which offers an up-to-date molding head of the same type, and, they offer an extensive range of molding knives, which, (bless their hearts), also fit the Sears head. All this at most reasonable prices, so if you want to try this approach, and have a table or radial-arm saw, you can get into it without breaking the bank. If, on the other hand, you decide this particular approach is not for you, you can instead create a very respectable selection of mouldings using a router and some of the huge variety of bits on offer these days.
I have put my own personal stamp on framing by designing my own mouldings and then filing (by hand) sets of three cutter blades to reproduce the chosen profile. The first, and easy, step is drawing a profile, sometimes copied or adapted from one I have seen and like; (illus - ’Frame Designs 4’ - on 'Flickr'). For most watercolours I usually use a simple, slim frame moulding, for larger, more important pieces or oil paintings, I choose a wider, more ornate design.
Here’s how I made a matching set of three cutter blades to create the picture frame molding shown here : (DSCN5472). These are in High Speed Steel. In this example I start with the plain, square-ended ‘planer’ blade (DSCN1707 - 'Flickr'), though often I can save effort by modifying another ready made shape. The trick, of course, is to achieve the identical shape on each of three blades. This is not as hard as you might think. The task is made quite simple by using a stepped holder to carry the three blades at once, stacked together; (DSCN1705). The wooden holder is designed to support the blades with the bevels flush with each other, and is held in a vise so that these surfaces are level and ready to be worked on; (DSCN1708). Observe from this same illustration that quality control of the delivered cutters is pretty spotty: these three are supposed to be level and even! Remembering that the blades are going to cut at an angle of around 40º, draw an approximation of the profile on the face of one of the blades; no need to do all three. We are not going to use computers or machine tools here, just files and maybe a grinding wheel or point in a Foredom or Dremel flexshaft. I prefer filing, as with grinding it is easy to overheat the metal and lose the temper of the steel; also it is harder to attain an even shape. There will be no precise gauging or measurements here: in the end the eye will tell all. A good selection of small files will do all the work; (DSCN1710). With the blades held as described, just start filing, taking care to keep the tool as straight and level as possible; attempting to cut, in the same pass, an equal amount from each blade. You won’t achieve this without a most important next step: after removing a reasonable amount of material it is time to shuffle the deck! By this I mean – unclamp the blades from the holder and change their order: e.g. if we say they were stacked as 1,2,3, then change that to 3,1,2 for instance. When you do this small discrepancies will show up, (DSCN1711) and you take these differences out with the next filing. Repeat this step from time to time as you progress. Because of the angle of the blade when it contacts the wood, the cut moulding will be shallower and less pronounced than the shape appears on the knife, that is, you must grind the knives to a slightly deeper, more exaggerated extent to achieve the desired cut.
When the knives approximate the shape you want, remove them from the holder and dress them individually with waterstones or oilstones; (DSCN1716).
Now it is time for a trial cut. Mount the cutter blades in the molding head and mill a cut on a short length of wood. You don’t need to cut more than a few inches. Unless you are extremely lucky, you will not be pleased with the result; (DSCN2022X). Note the double ‘tracks’ shown by the middle arrows. The upper and lower arrows point out that the sides of the molding, which should be evenly rounded, are anaemic or missing. The cutters are not registering together. The first thing to do is swap the blades around in the cutter head and run a couple more trial cuts to achieve the best result. Having done this, now mark the blades across the body or edge with a file, 1,2 and 3, according to the particular slot they fill in the molding head; (DSCN2053). (I have numbered the three slots on my molding head with a small punch). From here on, always mount the knives in their own same slot. Next, turn the head by hand over the trial cut and closely examine where each blade falls. Sometimes millscale is left on the base of the blade which interferes with properly square seating, or the blade may not in fact be cut properly square. This in turn may cause the entire blade to track slightly left or right of the others. This can be corrected by a little judicious filing of the base edge of the blade; (DSCN2054). Most of the discrepancies will by now have been taken out. What remains is small differences between the cutting edges of each blade. Turning the head by hand over the latest trial cut will reveal the reasons. Dismount each blade individually and file out the problem area. A final trial should now yield a perfect profile, but one yet marked by striations caused by the filing process; (DSCN2055). Polish these file marks out now using small slipstones; (DSCN5463). Your set of cutters is now finished, and should produce a nice clean stick of molding needing minimal sanding prior to applying a finish; (DSCN2486). The rabbet to hold the picture is easily run with dado blades, the stick ripped from the board, and the back edge of the framing smoothed on a jointer.
This may all sound like a terribly long, slow, involved process, but actually it is not. The methodical approach I have just set out will be just an interesting morning’s work, and the result will be a set of knives that will be useful for a lifetime.
There are ways to further decorate plain moldings. But I’ll get into that later on.

In the Frame ~ an Introduction.

2009-10-26T08:41:00.000-07:00

This blog would be best read with reference to my pictures on ‘Flickr’, where the article will be fully illustrated. You can easily find a particular illustration since I refer below to the photos by number. Sorry I couldn’t figure out a way to enter them in the form of a concise ‘link’. All the relevant photos are together in a set called ‘In the Frame’. Here is a link to that set: http://www.flickr.com/photos/a_henwood/sets/72157614565091611/ The story is in three parts, which I hope to put up over the next few days. Here is an introduction.

The cost of having pictures properly mounted and framed can be a big issue. I have often heard the subject raised amongst artist friends. So it is natural that as an amateur artist myself and also a woodworker, awhile back I began building all the frames for my own paintings. As I gained experience in this, I have developed some techniques that might be of use to others, or at least of interest. I am illustrating my points on ‘Flickr’ in a new set entitled “In the Frame”.

Let me immediately reassure you that I have no intention of boring everybody by reiterating all the usual methods of frame-building that can be found in any of dozens of “How to…” books. Not at all. What I will set out is a narrow view of a few techniques which I have worked on over the past few years. This blog will be in three parts: firstly, a somewhat archaic and labour intensive way whereby I make my own picture frame mouldings; secondly, I’ll set out a really easy way to produce a fine metallic finish on those mouldings. Thirdly, a short section setting out some easy ways of enhancing picture frames with decorative touches.

Now I’ve told you what this is about, half of you may wish to tune out ~ that’s you artists who are actually selling your work. You are excused. If your work is good enough to find a consistent market, then maybe you shouldn’t be making picture frames. You may do better financially, and get more pleasure out of using the time to paint another picture. No, the people I’m talking to here are those like myself, who paint for their own satisfaction and find it hard to justify the expense of framing their work. I understand this even better now, since I recently went in to talk to my friend, the owner of a framing shop in the nearby city of St. Catharines. He told me that one of the frames I had just brought in to be glazed would cost roughly $400, framed and matted in the way I had done it. My total costs were roughly $50, thanks partly to him for furnishing me with matting, glass and foam core at reasonable prices.

The Joys of Aubergine.

2009-10-26T07:07:00.000-07:00

We could get frost any night now, so yesterday being a nice mild day, we picked the last of our eggplants and hot peppers and, with the sun on our backs, enjoyed some gardening. The eggplants weren't growing anymore, but at this time of year they keep well on the vine, we'd already had lots and weren't in a hurry to harvest the rest.

Later, I set to to make one of my favourite recipes ~Eggplant Parmigiana ~ and ended up with enough for three dinners! We were given another eggplant recipe recently also: Scalloped Eggplant, which yields the most delicious and tender vegetable side dish you can imagine.

I thought it would be nice at this time of year to share these two recipes, so here they are.

Baked Aubergine
-Eggplant Parmigiana-

Ingredients:
1kg/2lbs aubergines
olive oil
35g/1½oz/or one third of a cup finely grated parmesan cheese (we use Romano).
400g/14oz./2 cups mozzarella cheese, coarsely grated.
salt & freshly ground black pepper

For the tomato sauce:
60ml/4tbsp olive oil
1 medium onion, finely chopped
1 clove garlic, finely chopped
450g/1lb tomatoes, fresh or canned, chopped, with their juice
salt & freshly ground black pepper
a few leaves of fresh basil or parsley

Method:
1. To make the tomato sauce: First, peel the tomatoes. (Place in a large bowl, pour boiling water over them and allow to stand two minutes. Then the skins will come off). Heat the oil in a medium saucepan, add the onion and cook over medium heat until it is translucent, 3-5 minutes. Stir in the garlic and tomatoes; (add some tomato paste to thicken if desired).. Season with salt and pepper. Add the basil or parsley. Cook for 20-30 minutes. Purée if desired with hand-held blender or food processor.

2. Slice the eggplants lengthwise. Heat a tablespoonful of olive oil in a large frying pan. Cook the eggplant in batches over low to moderate heat with the pan covered, until they soften. As they brown lightly, turn once and cook on the other side. Remove from the pan, set aside, and repeat with remaining slices.

4. Preheat the oven to 180ºC/350ºF/ gasmark 4. Take a wide shallow baking dish. Spread a layer of the tomato sauce in the bottom of the dish. Next, put in a layer of eggplant slices. Spoon on more tomato sauce, then add a layer of mozzarella and a sprinkle of parmesan.. Then a little more tomato sauce. Build up the layers until the ingredients are used up, ending with a covering of tomato sauce and a sprinkling of parmesan. (Add some olives or sautéed mushrooms to the mix if desired).
Bake for about 45 minutes.

Notes:
This recipe as originally given to us called for the eggplants to be sliced, coated in salt, and left for an hour. Then they were to be wiped with paper towel and coated in flour before cooking in the pan. We changed this because , a) the resulting dish was too salty for our taste, there being enough salt in the cheese; and b) we didn’t think the eggplant needed the flour coating. You may wish to experiment with these variations.

SCALLOPED EGGPLANT

This recipe was given to us by Joan, who says ~ “This is one of my all-time favourites! Can be prepared early in the day.”

Ingredients:

1 medium eggplant, or two small, to total at least 1½ lbs.
3 tbsp butter (or margarine).
3 tbsp flour.
1 medium onion, finely chopped.
3 large ripe tomatoes, peeled and chopped.
1 tsp salt.
1 tbsp brown sugar.
1 cup grated old cheddar cheese.
½ cup dry breadcrumbs.

Method:

1. First, make the tomato sauce as follows:
- In a medium saucepan, melt the butter, blend in the flour, and stir over low heat to make a smooth paste.
- Add the onions and tomatoes, stirring into the butter mixture.
- Sprinkle with the salt and brown sugar, and continue cooking over low direct heat, stirring constantly until the mixture is smooth and thick. (Take your time on this step to make it nice and smooth). Set aside.

3. Peel the eggplant and dice it into one-inch cubes.
- Cook in boiling water to cover for 10 minutes.
- Drain thoroughly in a colander and transfer to an 8 cup casserole; (buttered if desired).

4. Pour the tomato sauce all over the eggplant in the casserole. Combine the grated cheese and breadcrumbs, and sprinkle on top.

5. Bake at 350ºF until bubbly and brown; about 30 minutes.

Enjoy!

A Little Watercolour Box

2009-05-28T10:50:00.001-07:00

This blog is more fully illustrated on my ‘Flickr’ site: http://www.flickr.com/photos/a_henwood/sets/72157603742322713/

This summer I foresee the delightful prospect of a whole week devoted to sketching and painting ‘en plein air’: I have the wonderful opportunity to spend this time on holiday in Switzerland, incorporated with a family visit.

With this in view, I have had to scramble a bit to complete the assembly of a suitable kit, making sure I have everything I need for watercolour work in the field. I haven’t done much ‘plein air’ work so far, perhaps half a dozen little pieces, and I certainly haven’t been properly equipped for it! After managing to paint several small works whilst standing up I concluded the first thing I needed was a camp stool! I found that item, together with a light knapsack for which it forms the frame, in an art supply shop in Bath. Other items were soon added, with the help of advice from my friend David Gilmore (‘Gilmopix’ on Flickr). Until now I have not been using a watercolour ‘travelling’ box, since most of my work has been done in my studio and I have always bought my paint in tubes. I decided to buy the small Winsor & Newton ‘Cotman’ box to carry around. This however, only holds twelve pans, and I do find that very limiting. Now, I know that I should work harder on limiting my palette, and there is a school of thought too, which holds that one should mix as many colours as possible from a small range of pigments. Whilst respecting that point of view, I find that really doesn’t work for me. I do love pure colour, and I can’t resist buying lots of them. It seems to me that if a certain pigment offers that colour of itself I like to use it, though certainly with modification when required. What I am saying is – I like to pick the colour as close as possible to the hue I need and mix in as little as possible to bring it to what I want.

All that is to explain why I embarked on the enjoyable project which I have just finished: I have built myself a watercolour box. Why build; you say? – when there are so many ready-made boxes available? For several reasons. I couldn’t easily find a box that would hold as many colours as I wished, and I wanted it to be as small and light as could be, consistent with that requirement. Further, whilst I am not particularly price-sensitive, I did find that my eyebrows went up a bit at the price of an empty box. Also, art supply stores around here are scarce, and I haven’t yet found an online supplier here in Canada. So a couple of weeks ago I set to work.

Now it never does to be in a hurry, especially when designing a delicate piece of work. But sometimes there is a deadline and you must go for it. This box could have been made better, but it does the job. I already had a small plastic mixing palette, which I decided to build into the lid of the box. This roughly determined the overall size. I had also bought plenty of plastic pans and half-pans in anticipation of this work. I planned the interior to hold four rows of pans. Each row would hold eleven half-pans or six full pans.

The first design problem to be solved was how to make sure all the pans of paint would stay in place without having those useful metal strip spring clamps to hold them. The answer came to me in one of those happy wakeful moments in the night, when I allow my mind to range where it will: (my form of meditation). – I would divide the rows with wooden strips onto which I would glue a thin cork facing which would be springy enough to compress slightly and grip the pans. I had the cork – several small sheets, about 2mm thick, acquired for fifty cents at a garage sale a couple of years ago. I knew it would come in handy one day!

I began by making a frame to hold the lid, and another with dividers to hold the pans. I made sure they were identical in outside dimensions. Before I assembled the lower (box) frame I cut the tiny dadoes in the end pieces to space the dividing strips. This spacing was critical. When I measured the plastic paint pans, I found that the full pans were fractionally smaller than the halves, though nominally and supposedly identical. I built this slight difference in, so that one row is specifically designed to hold the full pans, the other three hold half pans. I had to adjust one row (where the fit was a bit sloppy), by adding a layer of thick paper to the wall under the cork facing.

Next I glued on thin sheets of Baltic birch ply to form the top and bottom of the box. I matched the two halves up and sanded them so they were perfectly fair, then fastened them together with a small piano hinge. The front side is fastened by two tiny (20mm) filigree brass latches. (Small box hardware from Lee Valley Tools.) The pans are a ‘push fit’ in the rows. Lastly I applied a number of coats of varnish (it’s amazing how that plywood drinks it up), so that when it gets too messy with accidental paint marks I should be able to wash it off.

I found it difficult to settle on an arrangement for the colours. Partly I tried to be guided by the way Winsor & Newton have ordered the hues on their colour chart, but the need to choose a layout which would as far as possible make it easy for me to find my colours instinctively took precedence. I had arbitrarily decided to reserve one row for full pans, thinking that these should be used for ‘weak’ colours and/or those I use a lot of. I’m sure this preliminary placing will be changed as I find out what works best. Before loading the pans I made sure to label each one with the colour it was to contain, so if I can’t remember what’s what I just have to extract the pan and read the side.

Yesterday I got the box loaded up with thirty-nine paint colours. It is all ready to go. It measure 20cm x 11cm x 2.5cm overall, and weighs exactly 250 grams (just under nine ounces), fully loaded with paint!

So, on to the next task – decide what different watercolour papers to take: what sizes, types, which sketchbooks?

They say that anticipation is half the fun.

Exploring Grandfather's Paintbox - V

2008-12-05T06:42:00.000-08:00

Chapter V

A FUTURE FOR THE PAINTBOX?

Well, there you have it. A leisurely tour through the painting kit of William Hall Henwood. I hope you have enjoyed it.

And now a question presents itself, which is, should I preserve this whole collection as I found it, as a memorial and heirloom to be passed on to my descendants, (should any of them show interest)? Or should I carefully, lovingly, renovate the box, install my own paints and brushes, and take it once more into the field. I have found some brass fittings that fit the castings where the legs screwed in. These same fittings would also fit into bamboo canes of about 9/16” outside diameter, which would make good, lightweight legs . (Or I could easily enough build telescoping legs out of hardwood which would be even better. I have a nice piece of cherry wood that has been waiting twenty-five years for the perfect little project.) There is a third option, difficult, time-consuming, but perhaps worth the effort. I could try to build a replica of the box. Without metal-working tools or the skill, I could not make an exact copy except at unjustifiable expense. I could make the box easily enough to the same size; same hinging, lid, handle and similar brass hooks to hold it closed. I could make it out of the same material as the original since I still have some pieces of walnut lying around, left over from the days when I made furniture for a hobby. But am I ever going to paint in oils en ‘plein air’? Somehow I doubt it.

Perhaps the best answer then, might be to make a walnut box of the same size and appearance simply to hold my oil paints in the studio. This would fill a need, whilst at the same time serving to remind me of the roots of my interest in painting. Tell me what you think.

Thanks, Grandfather.

IN MEMORIAM
WILLIAM HALL HENWOOD
1862-1939
SALVE ET VALE, AVUS

Exploring Grandfather's Paintbox - IV

2008-12-04T09:21:00.001-08:00

Chapter IV

THE BRUSHES

Grandfather was the eldest of six brothers and sisters. The only one of the six who was still alive as I grew to an age where I could remember was my great-uncle, Henry Thomas Henwood, the second youngest of the group. He too had made a career in the Bank, and he too was an artist. Having no living descendants himself, he took an interest in his great-nephews and nieces and in me particularly because I was already showing a liking for and some talent in art. When I was fourteen years old he gave me £5, that is, five pounds sterling, to buy myself a set of oil paints. “You should buy poppy oil” he cautioned me, “not linseed. That will yellow.” Five pounds was still a good sum of money in those days: it enabled me to buy a wooden box from Winsor & Newton, and fill it with a range of artist’s colours. A quality wooden palette, brushes, a clip-on double-dipper; all came out of that generous gift. That equipment today would cost several hundred dollars. Doesn’t that show the inflation we have undergone in the last fifty years! You can’t get a plate of fish and chips for five pounds today, (which, by the way, used to cost me one shilling and threepence (or fifteen cents) when I was a boy). But I digress again.

Uncle Henry invited me down to Devon to stay with him for a couple of weeks during the summer holidays that same year. By then he was a very old man, and in poor health. It was difficult for him to rouse himself, and he hardly stirred from his room. Consequently I spent many happy days rambling over the moors on the west edge of Dartmoor, which began at his doorstep. But he did show me a painting he was still working on, and demonstrated some techniques to help me along.

There is just one painting of his that has come down to me – an unfinished landscape of a meadow with cows in front of a ruined abbey. His painting style and brushwork was quite different from that of my grandfather. His cows are very good.

(But I see you are busy. I shouldn’t keep you so long. Let’s get back to the subject at hand.)

It should be remembered that the original intention of this piece was to make an inventory and catalogue of all the items in grandfather’s painting kit. I hope to be forgiven for doing this regardless of the near inevitability of boring the reader at this point.

There was a small selection of brushes in the central tray of the box. Here is what I found: (DSCN2853), (DSCN2240).

W&N Series 51 #0 Round, sable poor condition, but just usable
Rowney Series 101 #1 Round, sable no bristles remain
unknown unknown ca. #2 Long Flat, bristle poor cond. might be restored
Rowney Series 110 ca.#2 Short Flat, bristle excellent condition
W&N Series A #4 Round, bristle fair condition
W&N Series A #10 Round, bristle very good condition

I conclude that the excellent #2 Short Flat was a replacement for an earlier worn out brush, since it shows signs of light use and carries only one smear of paint on the handle – white.. When I examine my grandfather’s landscapes, it seems to me that this type and size of brush would probably have been used a lot for the trees and hills of the middle ground. I suppose the hairs on the #1 Sable had just disintegrated over time.
I was rather surprised to see the big, #10 Round. I suppose it was used mostly for underpainting the skies – the paint residues on the ferrule and handle are mostly blue and white. Residues on the #2 Long Flat show greens, browns, red and orange, indicating use on trees, grasses and buildings. The #4 Round shows traces of Venetian Red, Yellow Ochre, Raw Umber, and some greens

I am thinking about taking the two best of these brushes back into use.

Exploring Grandfather's Paintbox - III

2008-12-03T07:16:00.000-08:00

Chapter III

THE COLOURS

Illustrated on 'Flickr' - http://www.flickr.com/photos/a_henwood/sets/72157610468871451/

Grandfather had a sure eye for tone and colour. Astonishingly to me, even his early paintings show this ability and confidence. It was not until I myself resumed painting seriously that I began to appreciate just how good a landscape artist he was. A study of his paintings reveals a wealth of the subtle greens and golds, misty blues and purples so typical of the English landscape. He understood the light. Look carefully at any of his paintings and you can see the time of day, and the season of the year. He was not shy to use warm tones of orange and ochre in the foreground to evoke a hot summer day. Long shadows, salmon tinged clouds and purple haze bring to life a late afternoon in the meadows. Yet the colours in his scenes are always harmonious, never garish, the shades gently muted as they are in life in the higher latitudes of temperate northern Europe. In those days before the advent of universal (now virtually free) colour photography it cannot have been easy to capture the moment. Both observation and memory would have to be practiced and honed. In the old days I myself used to do a quick pencil sketch of a scene and cover it with scribbled notes as to hue and tone. Now I take a dozen reference photos instead, but I’m not sure that is better.

So let us talk about colour. In Grandpa’s paintbox are twenty-seven old tubes of paint. These are in three different sizes, all fairly small compared with those commonly sold today. The lead tubes are either two, three or four inches long, and have a uniform diameter of approximately half an inch. The smallest weighs about twelve grams or half an ounce when full, the next about 18 grams, and the largest perhaps 25 grams. At a guess, the tubes hold about 5ml, 10ml and 15ml respectively.

I decided to see if I could sample each of the paints and make a colour chart. I did ultimately manage to accomplish this (Grandfather’s Paint Colours), but it was a lot easier said than done. Naturally, after a lapse of seventy years, the tubes would be a little reluctant to yield their secrets. Surprisingly, some did actually open for me without resistance, but most of the caps needed very careful but firm persuasion before they would unscrew. I devised a method of gripping the tube in a curve-jawed visegrip after first wrapping the body of the tube in several layers of cloth. Then I used a pair of small pliers to unscrew the cap. That worked in a lot of instances, but some tubes were so fragile that they started to tear apart under the twisting strain. In these cases, and in those where I found the paint to be hardened to the point where it wouldn’t squeeze out, I sampled the paint by drilling into the tube (when possible through the neck) with a 9/64” twist bit. This gave me a paint sample in the threads of the drill bit. In cases where the paint was really hard I would then grind the paint in turpentine on a ceramic palette using a round-headed siding nail. In a few cases, the paint seemed quite miraculously fresh, only the label betraying the signs of age. Ultimately I was able to retrieve pigment from every tube. Virtually every colour seems to me still to demonstrate the original hue, with one exception – I am not sure whether perhaps the Aureolin has changed colour over the years. This is not a colour I am familiar with, but I did not expect it to show as such a muddy greenish yellow.

The colours I found in the box make an interesting list. Many of the labels have names I have never encountered before. This is not surprising. With the great strides in chemistry over the last decades there have been concomitant huge developments in the pigments offered to artists. Perhaps the pace has been especially rapid because so many paints used in the past were based on highly toxic compounds. Others were made from rare and expensive substances like the semi-precious stone Lapis lazuli .

I went to the Web to look up some of the unfamiliar names. After many hours of research I found what is (to me) the single best resource for this task of investigating obsolete artists’ colours. That source is “Field’s Chromatography”, edited by Thomas Salter. This treatise was apparently first published in Paris around 1830, then revised and published in English in 1869. I will refer to it below simply as ‘Salter’. It is available freely in its entirety as an ‘e-book’ , courtesy of the Gutenberg Project. What a gift! I also came across the modern equivalent entitled ‘The Pigment Compendium’ by Nicholas Eastaugh et al. The Web provided excerpts only of that one. Both these books are available, but the price of the second one might give a bit of a shock!

But before I discovered 'Salter’ I had already dug up a lot of information, often contradictory. For instance, I started my search by looking up ‘Veronese Green’. -

Veronese Green. What a nice, earthy natural sounding Italian name, I thought. On the very first page studied I found – ‘Veronese Green: Brighter and bluer than Cadmium Green. Favored by the French Impressionists. The original, no longer made, was arsenic based and very toxic.’ (source: rfpaints.com) O... K….so we know why that one is no longer on the charts! But here I went down the wrong path and confused myself, by jumping to the erroneous conclusion that Verona Green was the same thing as Veronese Green. Not so. Verona Green, otherwise known as Terre Verte, or ‘Green Earth’ - ‘ is collected by mining. The most famous and "best" deposit of terre verte could be found near Verona, Italy, and this mine was functional until World War II’. Here is another interesting web page : http://www.sewanee.edu/Chem/Chem&Art/Detail_Pages/Pigments/Green_Earth
Here we are told that this pigment is composed of celadonite and glauconite. Both of these minerals are of the mica group. Terre Verte, the natural earth is still available as an oil and watercolour pigment. Winsor and Newton list their Terre Verte as being– Hydrated Chromium Oxide. So Veronese Green and Verona Green (Terre Verte) are quite different in both colour and composition. The latter is a weak earth colour, a lot less vivid than the Veronese Green discovered in Grandfather’s paintbox, which is close to Viridian, as mentioned in ‘Salter’. - (Veronese Green) or French Veronese Green, is a comparatively recent introduction, similar in colour and general properties to the following (referring to Viridian); beside which, however, it appears dull, muddy, and impure. It is often adulterated with arsenic to an enormous extent, which interferes with its transparency,mars its beauty, and renders it of course rankly poisonous.”

I guess I need a chemist to tell me if I have the arsenic variety!

This detective work begins to take a grip on you. There is a certain fascination in finding a way through all the leads, some false, to arrive at a firm and correct understanding of a pigment; something which you would expect to be simple and straightforward but often turns out exceedingly complicated and perhaps with no firm resolution at all!

The next colour I researched proved more tractable. In this case, ‘Salter’ was no help, as the pigment was only discovered in the twentieth century:
Monastral Blue:
‘A final example (of a serendipitous discovery) occurred in 1928 in Scotland. A.G. Dandridge was operating a chemical plant that produced phthalimide from ammonia and molten phthalic anhydride. Since the temperatures were quite high, the reaction was performed in a large iron sealed container. Dandridge noticed some strange blue crystals on the cover and sides of the container and was curious enough to collect some for examination. he discovered that they resulted from a reaction between the iron container and the contents. Further study found the chemical structure of the pigments and he named them phthalcyanines. By substituting copper for iron, he produced an even better pigment called 'monastral blue'. This family of pigments, which have resulted in over thirty patents, have become some of the most valuable coloring materials for paints, lacquers and printing inks.’ (source: The Bakken Library [ww.bakken.org]}.

That colour then, was a brand new invention at the time my grandfather was painting.

Next I tracked the Vermilions. Winsor & Newton list Vermilion as - ‘Obsolete’ and now offer ‘Vermilion Hue’. I should dearly love to quote ‘Salter’ at full length on this one, but if I start to do that this blog will end up as a book, and mostly plagiarized at that; but I cannot resist giving you his closing paragraph on the colour:

‘ … vermilion is not so much adulterated as it once was; although, even now, brickdust, orpiment, &c. sometimes sophisticate it. The knavish practices to which the pigment has been subjected, have acquired it an ill-fame both with authors and artists. Vermilion has been charged with fading in the light, and with being blackened by impure air; but it was the custom to crimson the colour by means of lake, or tone it to a scarlet hue by red lead. With pigments as with persons, evil communications corrupt good manners—a motto that might be written with advantage on every palette.’

Scarlet Vermilion: is (technically) the compound Mercury Sulphide (HgS). We all know nowadays that mercury is bad news, so no wonder I cannot find it offered as an artist’s colour.
‘Salter’ says: Resembles the preceding (Vermilion) in all respects, except in being more scarlet in its tint, and washing better; advantages which render it more useful when the tone is required to be very bright and pure. At one time, the Dutch alone in Europe possessed the secret of giving to vermilion a rich scarlet colour.

Prussian Brown sounded interesting - ‘Prussian brown is a good and permanent colour made by calcining Prussian blue. It is a very transparent iron brown of a yellowish hue. An-other form of Prussian brown is prepared from a solution of blue copperas added to a solution of yellow prussiate of potash. This is a copper brown’: http://www.oldandsold.com/articles20/painting-methods-13.shtml
I found a very pretty story about how to make Prussian Brown on the website -http://www.pigment.ca/Chromatography/French-Prussian-brown.html
‘According to Bouvier, a colour similar to that of bistre, and rivallingasphaltum in transparency, is produced by partially charring amoderately dark Prussian blue; neither one too intense, which gives aheavy and opaque brownish-red, nor one too aluminous and bright, whichyields a feeble and yellowish tint. Yielding to a rapture we cannotwholly share, he describes its qualities in the warmest terms. In hisopinion, it has the combined advantages of asphaltum, mummy, and rawSienna, without their drawbacks. "I cannot," he says, "commend toohighly the use of this charming bistre-tint: it is as beautiful and goodin water as in oil, perfectly transparent, of a most harmonious tone,and dries better than any other colour suitable for glazing. Closelyresembling asphaltum in tint as well as in transparency, this brown ispreferable to it in every point of view." As the colour is very quicklyand easily obtained, the artist can judge for himself of its propervalue. M. Bouvier's process is, to place upon a clear fire a large ironspoon, into which, when red hot, some pieces of the Prussian blue areput about the size of a small nut: these soon begin to crackle, andthrow off scales in proportion as they grow hot. The spoon is thenremoved, and allowed to cool: if suffered to remain too long on thefire, the right colour will not be produced. When the product is crushedsmall, some of it will be found blackish, and the rest of a yellowishbrown: this is quite as it should be. Chemically, the result is amixture of oxide of iron and partly undecomposed or carbonisedprussiate’.

Doesn’t that sound like fun?

Bouvier, cited above, was I believe the original French author (or originator) in about 1827 of the work later translated as ‘Field’s Chromatography’. On p.310 of ‘The Pigment Compendium’ by Nicholas Eastaugh et al. there are a number of instructions and directions given for how to make Prussian Brown, with references ranging from 1827 to 1906.

Ultra. Ash #2. This little tube intrigued me because, in brackets, it said ‘Lapis lazuli’., which is a semi-precious stone. ‘Answers.com’ says Ultramarine Ash is ‘The residue of lapis lazuli after the ultramarine has been extracted; used as a pigment in paints’. Emma Pearce, in her book ‘Artists’ Materials’ says only that this is ‘poor quality Lapis lazuli’. The sample I recovered from the tube (see chart), proved to be a grey of a slightly greenish-blue cast; quite interesting, and different from anything I can see on the W&N chart today. The ‘freedictionary.com’ says –

‘(Paint.) a pigment which is the residuum of lapis lazuli after the ultramarine has been extracted. It was used by the old masters as a middle or neutral tint for flesh, skies, and draperies, being of a purer and tenderer gray than that produced by the mixture of more positive colors.
- Fairholt.’
‘Salter’ gives an even more poetic description of this colour.

Fascinating. So lastly, I searched for - Mineral Gray, since that also stated on the label that it was ‘Lapis lazuli’.

Mineral Gray which turns out to be an even lower derivative of the stone, obtained after all the blue and ash have been worked out. The sample I have shows a purely neutral grey. So much for the rare and expensive substance! Last of all the unfamiliar colours, I came to -

Verona Brown
‘a pigment peculiar to oil painting, is a native ferruginous earth. A citrine brown of great service in tender drab greens, it forms with terre verte and the madder lakes rich autumnal tints of much beauty and permanence’ – Salter.

In addition to the archaic colours investigated above, Grandfather had the following tubes, which are mostly more familiar:

Antwerp Blue
Aureolin
Burnt Umber
Cadmium Green
Cerulean Blue
Charcoal Gray
Cobalt Magenta
Cobalt Violet
Extra Madder Carmine
French Ultramarine
Indian Red
Ivory Black
Purple Madder
Raw Sienna
Raw Umber
Rose Madder
Venetian Red

I find the total selection provokes some questions. Why such depth in the range of Madders and Browns? Two Verona Browns?, plus Raw Umber which is oh, so similar? and yet another (unlabelled) Mid Brown? What with the Cobalt Violet, the Cobalt Magenta and the three Madders, there are no less than five hues in the red-purple range. But the selection was thin in the blue section. No Cobalt Blue? For me that is an absolute must! How was it that he bought no less than three very close orange/scarlets? Why no yellows apart from the Aureolin? No Yellow Ochre? No Chrome or Cadmium Yellow? Grandfather certainly used plenty of this type of hue in his paintings, so perhaps he had just run out. And there were no whites either.

From my exploration of these colours and their history on the Web I learned some interesting things about the development and use of pigments. Moreover, it really brought home to me what a hugely valuable resource we have now at our fingertips on the Internet. Rare books, documents and studies from scientists and libraries around the world. How marvelous that we live in a new age of enlightenment, where such previously arcane knowledge is now freely available to all.

Exploring Grandfather's Paintbox - II

2008-12-02T06:17:00.000-08:00

Chapter II

THE PAINTBOX

One day about thirty years ago my father took me to see his boyhood haunts. He led me around the ponds and woods and quiet suburbs until we came to the house where he had been born. He noted that the low wall along which he used to run as a child was still there. As he pointed to an intersection a few houses down the street he told me how he used to watch as his father left for work in the mornings. ‘I remember my father’, said he, ‘swinging round that corner in his top hat and tail coat, on his way to work’, striding down to the station to catch his train to the city. In those days suburban living and the middle class were comparatively new developments, resulting very much from the rapid spread of the railways, which had penetrated every part of the country over the previous fifty years. Now people could live in the leafy edges of the metropolis and yet still work in the very heart of the city.
I have come to understand that my grandfather had a love for the countryside, which may account for why he chose to spend a great portion of his retirement in the field, painting. He was a religious man, close to his God. He was a long time member of the London Banks Christian Union, one of the dozen men who made up its general Committee, and for twenty-two years he served as Joint Secretary of that Union. In a letter he wrote in 1936 to one of his sons, my uncle, he commented that – ‘I have sometimes consciously received help when out in the country, all by myself & I have seemed to hear the Still small voice in a way not realized at other times’. He went on to say – ‘We need to realize more how entirely we belong to GOD – we and all we possess, or all those talents of which He has made us steward & for the use of which we shall one day give account.’ Such a faith, which, (do I regret?), I cannot share.

But let us now turn our attention to the paintbox. First glance at this remarkable article shows that it is of the highest quality: It is made of neatly dovetailed solid walnut, with brass fittings. Overall the box is 40cm long, by 29.5cm wide and 8.5cm in depth, that is roughly 16x11.5x3.5 inches. Three brass butt hinges fasten the lid at the back. At the front a pair of small hooks hold it closed, and to carry the box there is a flat leather strap handle, now decayed and broken. In addition there are three fairly heavy brass castings mounted on the outside of this box, one on the lower edge at front centre, and one at each lower back corner. These fittings are threaded, and a trial showed that they accept a three-eighth inch outside diameter coarse thread (12 per inch). So the box is designed for three legs to be screwed in from underneath to support it at a convenient height in the field. The back corner fittings are designed so that the legs angle outwards at about 15 degrees. From the centre front fitting the leg drops vertically, the whole arrangement making a stable tripod. The legs are missing.

When opened, the lid of the box is held in position by a brass strap housed in the left side of the box, which hooks in variably at the lid end to provide a range of working angles for the built-in easel, which is fitted into the lid itself. This easel can hold two panels at once, one behind the other, within the depth of the lid. Panels up to fourteen inches in width and ten inches high can be accommodated, and by means of a sliding adjustment of the easel frame smaller pieces may be held, down to as little as seven and a half inches in width. Two panels (of the same size) may be easily worked on and transported home, even when still wet.

The first thing to be seen, snugly fitting in the main box, is Grandfather’s palette. At 14¾ x 10⅝ inches, rectangular, this is just barely within the inside dimensions of the box. It is made of a thin panel of solid walnut, the thumbhole cut for a right-handed artist. It isn’t dirty or crusted with old paint, though upon it there are indeed still remnants of the paints last used.. Remembering how many paintings it helped to make, it is clear the owner took good care of it. I have now put this palette back into use, lefthanded, so the surface I am using is relatively clean.
Setting aside the palette reveals an interior sectioned by neatly made tin liners. There are compartments for brushes and tubes of paint, and included also are both a small single dipper to clip onto the palette, and a little screw-topped tin can to hold medium or turpentine.

Altogether an ingenious and convenient setup, well designed for the field.

Exploring Grandfather's Paintbox. I

2008-12-01T07:42:00.000-08:00

A Story in Five Chapters, illustrated on ‘Flickr’.

Chapter I

PRELUDE

I opened a nearly full tube of Winsor & Newton Artist’s Oil Colour. It was a small tube of Scarlet Vermillion. Under the cap the threads were quite clean and a gleam of oil winked from the neck of the tube. I squeezed a little onto the brush, where it lay fresh, smooth and brilliant. It gave me the oddest feeling; as if the paint had been waiting for me. Waiting.

I travelled back in time recently - to nineteen thirty-eight. Not so long ago, not so far away; still in living memory, just. Far enough away and long ago to me though, for I had not been born yet.

Let me explain. A few years ago I was privileged and delighted to find myself in possession of my father’s father’s paintbox. I had not even been aware that Grandfather Henwood’s painting kit still existed until it was shown one day to my sister, who was visiting our cousin in Ireland. They thought that perhaps I would like to be the custodian of this artefact from our family history, and so it was brought to me. I was able to see and touch the paints and brushes my ancestor had used. This had great significance to me, because I never knew my paternal grandfather. He departed this world shortly before I arrived in it. Now I felt in contact with him.

I know my family’s history, so William Hall Henwood is not a stranger to me. He was born in the middle of the nineteenth century, and at the age of fifteen he went to work in the Bank. That was not an early age to start employment in those days – my other grandfather began working at the age of twelve; but that is another story. “He should really have gone into the Church” my father mused one day, but instead Grandfather Henwood served faithfully in the Bank for forty-nine years and five months, finally retiring in nineteen twenty-six at the age of sixty-five .

According to my father, he then invested in a dozen art lessons and promptly began to paint. Over the next twelve years he painted (as far as I can estimate) probably about fifty pictures. He painted in oils, mostly on wood panels, though occasionally on canvas boards too. His interest was the English landscape, and from the paintings that I and other close family members own or have seen, he painted chiefly from the countryside round about where he had lived most of his life, the area of northern Essex; the woods, ponds and gently rolling country where lies Epping Forest. His paintings were uniformly small, ten by fourteen inches. After coming into possession of his paintbox I came to realize that this size was a function of the box, which was a travelling kit, designed to be taken into the field.

I decided to thoroughly study this fascinating artefact and family heirloom, and when I did so I discovered there was more to it than immediately met the eye. That gave me the idea of writing down a full inventory and description of what I had found. But as I gradually spent more time investigating the box and its contents, my thoughts began to range wider. And when I dug out and re-read some treasured old letters which have come down to me, and reviewed once more the course of my grandfather’s life, I began to understand him better. So this story could also be called, if you like, - ‘A Tour around my Grandfather’.

Grandfather's Paintbox; an Introduction.

2008-11-30T13:11:00.000-08:00

I have a little story to tell. It is about my grandfather who, in retirement, was a landscape painter. I shall be putting the story on my blog over the next few days. Mainly, it concerns an exploration of something he left behind – his paintbox. I have very much enjoyed examining the paints, brushes and other equipment, along with the box itself, which is a beautifully designed and constructed artefact. All has lain unused for seventy years, and recently came into my care. I have taken a number of photos showing some of the intricacies of the paintbox, with its built-in easel, and in my account I have explained how I sampled all the paint colours which the box still contained. I hope all this may prove interesting to my artist friends, especially those with a fondness for the history of paint and artist’s equipment.
The story is in five parts. Some of the technical bits about historical colours you may find boring, so feel free to fast-forward. On the other hand, I’ve buried a few quotations there that you might find amusing too!
The story will be illustrated on Flickr. You will find the associated photos together in a set entitled ‘Grandfather’s Paintbox’. It is in tribute to, and appreciation of my grandfather, William Hall Henwood.
Here is the link to Flickr:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/a_henwood/sets/72157610468871451/

Realizing the Vision - or Not!

2008-11-28T17:23:00.000-08:00

I have yet to do a painting where I was not first absolutely gripped by the subject. Often I find myself returning to the real world scene to study what it is that I find so exciting about it. There is always some kind of idealized vision in my mind that I need to express, something that is different from what you might call the ‘actuality’, that a camera might see. It may be simply the combination of colours which first attracts, or there may be an emotional context that needs to be memorialized. Sometimes it will be something that startles me visually, that I have never noticed before in life. In some cases the vision is only in memory, the source being now inaccessible or long in the past. When I find my thoughts often recurring to any theme I will put it on my list – of ‘Paintings to Do’! The list gets ever longer, as more pictures get undertaken in the heat of the moment without ever going on the list. But I digress.

Last Sunday I painted a landscape that made me really happy. It did not take very long, and it was a true success (for me at least), because it did in fact simply realize the vision, perhaps with only a tenuous relationship remaining to the original source which inspired me. I’m talking about my little landscape ‘Dawn Breaks over the Gumligenberg’, which I have posted on Flickr. It is amazing how such a happy, albeit simple result can give confidence, (regardless of the opinion of others), and confirm a novice artist in the belief that he or she does indeed have something to offer.

So, funnily enough, this event led me to take a long hard look at one of my paintings which I am least happy with. I find myself at the artistic point now where I think I need not hide my failures. Knowing that I can do, and have done better, I am ready for Critique, with a capital ‘C’. And the reason I want this is because, in connection with the picture I am unhappy with, I have never been able to exactly analyze what is wrong with it. If I can’t figure that out properly, then I may well repeat the same mistakes in the future.

I have to tell you now about the picture, called 'Aidan House' which is a watercolour of a neighbour’s house that I painted some three years ago. It wasn’t a commission; I did it because I was elated by the view of this pretty house all decked in fresh spring colours. The vision was all greens and yellows, cream and black; a bright spring morning with the trees newly leafed. A laburnum tree in flower in the front yard summarized exactly the fresh and happy scene. I cannot say the work went easily, and that should have been a warning sign. Because it was primarily a portrait of a house, I first took exquisite care over perspective and line in the drawing, before ever I dipped a brush into paint. When I was finished I showed it to my surprised neighbour, who was really pleased. So I gave her a framed print; kept the original, which I framed also. It has been hanging on my studio wall ever since, and is beginning to reproach me with its deficiencies.

So what I would really like is for a few honest artists to tell me where I have erred, and what they might have done differently, or even how I might have fixed the painting as it progressed.

I am about to join one or more of the ‘Art Critique’ groups on Flickr, and so I went in to a ‘Pool’ or two to see what I might expect in the way of comments. I have to say I am disappointed. I found that when I click on a picture that I consider poor, it is likely that, rather than offer hurt, people will not have commented at all! Nobody is going to learn from that. Conversely, when a work is good, comments are often just too effusive, whilst not actually offering any analysis as to why the picture in question is so outstanding. Again, while we all welcome the warmth of praise, there is not much learning to be had.

So here we go – I am posting this picture, which I already know is overworked and stiff. It reminds me of some kind of illustration done for a real estate ad. There, that’s my ‘off the top’ critique. Now it’s your turn. I’ve taken off my glasses. Take your best shot!

A Couple of Weeks Study at the Flickr School of Fine Art.

2008-09-05T14:01:00.000-07:00

It was August. It was all tomatoes, all the time. I was eating so many of them that I was dreaming about them. I woke in the night and thought about them. Pure delight, not only for the tastebuds, but for the eye too; and I don’t mean just the fruit. Sturdy vines snake upwards, branching at odd angles, helped here and there by a little support from bamboo stakes. Such beautiful shades of green in leaf and stem. Such interesting compound leaves; each little leaflet different, seeming to have a mind of its own; some large and deeply toothed, others small and rounded. Reaching up, trailing down; heading in all directions in happy chaos. What wonderful patterns of light and shade to be seen in the tangled jungly growth. Spherical glows of gold, orange and red peeking through the gaps. Unripe green globes hidden deep, awaiting their turn. I could sit and look at them for hours. In fact, I did sit and look at them for hours, since for the last many days I have been absorbed in trying to capture them in watercolours.

I wanted to keep in mind some of the lessons that ‘Gilmopix’ had tried to teach me: work with transparent colours, mix up your darks, learn to mix colours more from a limited palette. I started off doing a traditional landscape; well, gardenscape. That is, I drew the whole tomato patch with its regular ranks, in context; the context being our crowded little vegetable patch with the wheelbarrow leaning up hard by against the red-painted picket fence, the compost bin squeezed in on the left, retaining curbs and pathway in front. Behind this, (all too close) rises a huge multi-trunked maple tree. It’s a wonder we get any tomatoes at all, yet they seem to thrive here each year.

Before I had this little painting finished, I was dissatisfied. It was a nice scene, but a bit busy. The eye was pulled this way and that, along the fence all the way to one side, and back again. The sketch was full of potential interest, but perhaps unfocused, lacking a real focal point. Had I so quickly forgotten to incorporate “Gilmopix’s” excellent thoughts on how to place a centre of interest? I thought my rendering of the tomato plants a little hasty and slapdash too. I hadn’t really captured the leaves properly at all. I finished it off and thought about it. It didn’t actually look too bad, but quite soon the chief mistake struck me: I had painted what I saw, instead of my vision. Basic; elementary. But then, that’s where I am in my painting: learning some pretty basic lessons. Cursed with an analytic mind, I jotted down and counted up all the different elements in my picture. I made a total of eighteen definably different parts of the picture. I then turned my attention to my vision – what had I wanted to capture? Tomatoes – vines – leaves – stakes – fence. Five elements. All the rest was superfluous, much of it totally irrelevant. There was another thing I noticed too: the work lacked tonal punch where it mattered most – in the tomato patch. As an experiment I opened the scanned image in Photoshop and threw away the colour. In greyscale the central area of the picture now had little meaning: no proper leaves were discernable, and even the tomato fruits were irregular and hard to find.

I decided to take a little lesson from my Flickr friend, ‘Ciuccio51’. I ran off a print of the image, took a fine permanent ink pen and carefully outlined everything as far back as the fence. I added inked detail to the curbs and made a half-hearted attempt to draw some real leaves. The result was, in my mind, considerably better: the fruit now highlighted; everything in the foreground a little crisper, the background now in softer focus by comparison. I quite liked it.

But I decided I needed to start on a new tack, incorporating the lessons I had learned. I thought that this time I should begin with wet-in-wet, establish some bright fruits and lots of green wash. I wanted to take a lesson from ‘bevmorgan’, and try to achieve a good effect with negative painting upon flowing washes. I got the washes down – bright lemon, green, a little pink. I got that far and then I had to stop. I didn’t feel at all ready for the next stage. Actually, I don’t think I had been ready for the first stage. Too hasty; insufficient planning. Never mind; press on.

But now I thought perhaps I should do a tonal study first, so as to concentrate on a proper composition of the key elements, and to achieve a better representation of the leaves and fruit, without having to worry about colour at the same time. I had never done a tonal study before, but had come across the concept in some of my books on painting technique. I blocked out a very rough bare-bones sketch, outlining only a few tomato fruits, a stake, a couple of vine stems, and a suggestion of the fence. I wanted to try to draw more with the brush this time, rather than filling inside pencil lines with paint. I finally paid enough attention to the actual plants before me. I started painting leaves, and they really did look quite tomatoey. The whole thing came together fairly well, with the fun part being filling in the dark negative areas. I finished off with a thin wash of colour on the fruits only, which I thought set it off nicely. I learned more lessons on this one too: make sure you have a really really smooth curve on the outside of the tomato! Or they will end up looking more like potatoes. Oops! And don’t be careless with perspective on the fence, thinking that so little shows that it doesn’t matter. Amazing how the eye reads tiny discrepancies and says -“Wrong”.

I thought some more. I spent some productive time when I woke the next night: I put in an interesting hour or so meditating on how best to proceed with the colour version. It was too late to reserve any areas out, unless I wanted to begin again, so I had to come up with some order of work which would ensure a good composition. That did take some puzzling out. Obviously, I would first need to do a light pencil sketch over the existing washes. But what next? I came to the conclusion that the visible parts of the red fence should be put in first, because the colour here is so striking, that if I didn’t get a good balance of this right away I might lose it and be constrained later by the overabundance of vegetation. I worked out a sequence for the other parts of the picture and fell contentedly back to sleep.

Next day I was ready, eager and confident to get to work and see if the plan would work. I made a light sketch, taking special care over the alignment of fence parts and a proper angle for shadows on the exposed bits of earth. I very carefully outlined the tomatoes. Boy, is it ever hard to get a fair curve all the way around a fuzzy patch of yellow wash! Then I laid in some red on the visible bits of fence, to give a sense of where I was going. I tried with limited success to wash out the colour from where I wanted the bamboo stakes and put some colour there too. Hmm; would have been better to reserve that out in the first place. Now I was ready to paint the vegetation. It all went along pretty well after that.

I’m reasonably pleased with the result. There are lots of things about it to be dissatisfied with of course. No need to point them all out. I know that you, my teachers will recognize the deficiencies. I know too, that you will also be too kind to point them out, except upon request. That is as it should be, otherwise it could become just too discouraging. I’m still at the stage where I recognize enough flaws in each effort that I really don’t need any more pointed out at the moment. But I am thinking that that will have to change one day. If I ever get to the point where I think I’ve got it right, I’ll let you know – then you can all set me straight!

Thanks to all of you. I have mentioned only three of you in this little essay, but the rest of you know who you are. I am learning from all of you; all my teachers in the Flickr School of Fine Art.

That was a nice couple of weeks.

A Different Approach with some 'Flickr' Postings

2008-08-02T10:51:00.000-07:00

Whilst on holiday in Switzerland recently we enjoyed a wonderful mountain walk above Lauterbrünnen, and towards the end of the day, as we took the train from Kleine Scheidegg back down into the valley, we stopped off in the village of Wengen. We were browsing in a gift shop there when my attention was caught by some items in the postcard rack. There they had a number of fascinating reproductions of early Swiss travel posters. The originals dated from anywhere between the 1880s to the 1940s. I quickly selected eight or ten as souvenirs, mostly choosing those that illustrated places we had ourselves visited.

But there was one that I chose, not for location, but for the subject. I knew I had seen it before, in an old album of my father’s. It was a picture of an early Postbus, full of people, making its way along a mountain road with a background of lake and mountains. On the reverse of the card was mentioned that the poster itself was originally published around 1925.

And here is the personal link. In 1923 my father went on holiday to Switzerland, and being already a keen amateur photographer, he took a number of photos of his travels. He spent some time in the area of Montreux, (where he recorded a visit to Chateau Chillon), and ventured as far south as the St. Bernard Pass. He apparently travelled with a group, and one day they went by motor coach from Aigle to the Col du Pillon. On the way back their vehicle overturned on the way back down. Looking at the photo, one would imagine there must have been injuries, but this is not mentioned in the caption. All this I have gathered from the sequence of photos my father left, as I do not remember ever discussing with him his early travels; an omission I sorely regret today.

You may see from a comparison of the ‘Alpenposten’ poster and the photo my father took of the wreck of his tour bus, that the buses are very similar (though not identical) in design.

So now I have added a brightly coloured postcard to the family history revealed in the old sepia photographs. I intend to juxtapose some more old and new pictures to Flickr, which I hope will prove interesting. And if anyone can recognize anything in the old pictures, be it location, or make of vehicle, an interesting mode of dress, or any clue which might enrich the limited descriptions I am able to give, I shall be most happy to hear your comments.

You again?

2008-07-13T18:50:00.000-07:00

Woke up last night in the wee small hours. Lay there awhile, floating on the black sea of Unthink. Listening. Was it a car door? Voices? An early squirrel scrambling across the shingles? Tried to hear through the white noise of high frequency tinnitus for a signal. Got the regular surf of the blood coursing up next to my ears. Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh. Sixty a minute. Supposed to be rain tonight. Not yet. Nothing.

Listening again. Not with the ears this time. With the mind. Don’t need to go to the bathroom. What then?

Oh.

So it’s you. For fifty years I hardly knew you. Sure, we’d met. I found you interesting, at first. But then, you didn’t stay long. Funny really, when I think back to the time when it seemed you added a certain frisson to existence; I used you to embroider the odd short story of my life. Added a little piquancy. That was then. Get a little tired of your company these days. I’ve noticed your moods. I used to think that if I understood you better we might get along. I might adjust, learn to live quietly in your company. After all, even the unwanted guest has to be accommodated; somehow. Not that easy really. Why do you come now? I knew you would, but I’m never really expecting you. It seems an odd time to visit; but I’m learning; you have your schedule. Just when I thought I was getting a good rest.

Hello, pain.

Wildflowers, and the Perils of Identification thereof.

2008-07-08T18:21:00.000-07:00

Just recently I was so powerfully affected by the beauty of the flowers in bloom in a wild meadow nearby, that I thought to myself - it's not too late, I should at long last take the time to find out some of the names of these little gems of nature. One of the loveliest was a little yellow flower, growing in great profusion and blanketing wide areas of the field. It was only when I got down on my knees for a really close look that I recognized the true wonder it offered. The flowers were borne in fat clusters about six inches long; but the individual florets were the tiniest things imaginable. Four of the smallest petals I have ever seen formed a tiny gold star, with room in the middle for just a couple of stamens, which somehow looked out of scale. There must be thousands of these florets on each cluster. The leaves of the plant were alike beautiful in their delicacy and brillian green colour. Little whorls of needlelike leaflets grew symetrically around the stem, and from the whorl another little stem would grow.

I came back to the meadow again and again. I took photos, I brought home samples of this and other plants. I went to my bookshelf and took down the long-unused Audubon Field Guide to North American Wildflowers, confidently expecting to find the flowers I sought clearly and unambiguously described and illustrated. Then I could properly title the pictures I had uploaded to 'Flickr'.

Ah, if only nature was so simple! To my astonishment, there appeared to be no flower in the manual that matched what I had. Despite diligent searching, I was reduced to calling this "Yellow Wildflower 1". I broadened my investigation. Surely, thought I, with all the millions of pictures on Flickr, someone will have illustrated my little beauty? Well yes; the pictures are indeed there, but they only come up if you already know the name, which, uh, didn't work for me at that time. Searching on "yellow, wildflower, cluster" didn't bring up a match. Not to be thwarted, I next searched for groups: two great groups for wildflowers came up on page one. And here a little serendipity came in. In the course of my search I also came upon a group called "ID Please". What a Godsend. Adherents of this group delight in the puzzle of identification, and within 24 hours of posting a photo of my treasure to the group I had my answer. The flower is called "Lady's Bedstraw" or 'Galium verum' to use its official moniker.

Or is it? It turns out there are possibly hundreds of species of 'Galium', and scores of Bedstraws within the group. I Googled. I Wikipeded. I have examined as many species as I can find, and there seem to be no similar candidates. Why take all this trouble? Because the yellow Lady's Bedstraw is apparently not supposed to live in Canada. It is European. It does not feature in the ROM Field Guide to Wildflowers of Ontario, which I have just taken out from the library.

Which raises the question - is this in fact the European flower, brought accidentally or intentionally to Canada? Or is it some rare variety too uncommon to have been included in the standard texts? I rather lean to the first option. Especially as this field is right next to Fort George, one of the first places in the area inhabited by Europeans. Did they bring mattresses? Did they shake out the old stuffing and unwittingly liberate seeds here. Or did some thoughtful immigrant carefully gather some seeds to bring, thinking not only how useful this plant would be, but how comforting it might be to have this reminder of home?

Where was I? Oh yes, put a name on a flower. Done that.

The Meadow on the Commons

2008-07-05T18:01:00.000-07:00

Last week I took my bike out and started riding out again, down the Niagara Parkway path. This pathway begins just at the east edge of town, and closely skirting Fort George, heads east to the river. The very first stretch of this route passes across the Commons just south of Fort George. The Commons consists of some hundreds of acres of field and woodland. The part that is now open grassland was used for decades as a military encampment, but now lies quiet, except for the odd equestrian event or military re-enactment. Most of the grassland is mown a few times a year, but a patch bordering the woodland towards the river has been left as a natural meadow. As I passed by early last week, I was struck by the wonderful display of wildflowers. The growth was riotous. There were great swathes of different species, blue, pink, purple, mauve and yellow. I got off my bike and made my way through the long grass to the edge of this glorious field. I was quite transfixed. I stood and studied the scene for a while. Not being a botanist, I cannot tell you (yet) the names of all the lovely flowers that carpeted the landscape. Perhaps with the aid of the photos I have posted on Flickr, some kind person will help me with their identification. They are not rare, and I am surprised that, although I consulted my copy of the Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Wildflowers, I was still unable to put a name to any except the Chicory and the Milkweed, both of which I already knew.

The next day I took along my camera and took numerous shots of the area, including some closeups of the flowers and others showing the context of how they grow. I was struck by how the patches of each flower in its thousands formed bands of colour, receding towards the woodland edge. When I got home I examined my photos, and felt frustration and disappointment that somehow I hadn't captured the wonder of it all. I went back several times, even bringing home some samples of the flowers and their leaves and stems, determined to find out what they were.

I realized there was potentially a lovely painting waiting for me here and I soon felt urgently that I should try to capture the scene before nature changed its clothes once more.

So this morning I put my sketchbook and some paints in my saddlebag and set out once more. It was a beautiful day, all day. The sun shone brightly and the air was clear, giving hard edges and a vibrancy to the colours which I hadn't seen before. I had a wonderful time. I stood in the field, painting, for about an hour and a half before I was done. And the great thing was this: I knew that here I had a view which was inherently free; free of any requirement for symmetry, or particular shape. It consisted of bold patches of colour in random shapes and sizes, sometimes flowing one into the other, sometimes showing a natural layering one on the other as they marched into the distance. Spiking up here and there were scores of milkweeds with their pink pom-pom flowers, and the occasional shrub and sapling added interest. There was nothing at all which said "I have to be here, and shown exactly like this!" So, I thought, here's the best chance I'll have to break away from tightness and careful drawing. I decided, for the first time ever, that I would not make a drawing, that I would use no pencil. Usually, I feel a certain fear when beginning a painting, that it won't work out the way I hope; that I won't realize the vision. Today I told myself that I had little need to worry, just so long as I faithfully set out the colours. And so it proved. I am rather happy with this one.

Perspective, Artistic Licence, and the Limitations of Photography.

2008-01-22T04:26:00.000-08:00

I am intrigued by unusual perspectives. I'll illustrate using a couple of my paintings. To see the full size versions, please visit my Flickr page.

This watercolour is entitled "Courtyard Flat, Bath'. In my Flickr description, I say'.....the perspective challenge interested me: when viewing the scene it is actually impossible to get all the elements shown into the picture at once photographically, without distortion'. This statement was quite legitimately queried, and here is the answer:
Notice the railings at the top right, over the jack arch. These railings continue around the front, along the sidewalk edge, in front of the basement well. Note also that the visual horizon is (more or less) exactly at the top edge of the picture. So, to get this picture without those railings would mean poking your camera between them at about two feet above the ground, and then you'd have to use a very wide angle lens to include the window on the left and the white cupboards on the right. Another thing is the sunshine illuminating the scene, which is just as important. To get the sun to shine in at this angle, first, you'd have to demolish a whole row of historic houses on the other side of the street. And then, you'd also have to shift geographically, which is better explained using a second painting. If you compare this picture with photos of the same scene (found in my ‘England’ set), you will see what I mean.

Here is another painting from Bath, in southwest England; latitude, about 52º north.

The picture is called 'Pamela's Garden'. In this case, you could more easily reproduce the scene itself photographically, although I have taken some small artistic liberties to improve the composition. But that, in this case, is not the point. The photographic impossibility here is the light. Here, we are in fact looking to the west. To our left, the high wall seen in the top left of the picture extends right along to join the back wall of the house. The top would be perhaps eighteen feet above the courtyard floor. The sun begins to light up the courtyard just after noon, but doesn't truly shine in until much later in the day. Note the shadow cast by the top of the wall on the steps. See how high the sun is. Even in midsummer, it is impossible to have this much sun. Remember, we are in a latitude of 52º; (that's equivalent to being around the southern end of Hudson's Bay, to those of you who are not geometrically minded). To get this sunshine you'd have to be at least as far south as the Bahamas, say around 35ºN. I took similar (though less extreme) liberties with the sun when painting 'Courtyard Flat'.

Right now I am working on another perspective challenge. This one is more difficult still, as there are curved buildings involved, and the best vantage point to get the composition I want would be approximately 30 feet above the sidewalk. I lugged an aluminum stepladder to the scene so as to get as high as I could, then held a camera over my head to take reference photos, but that only brought my observation point to about ten or twelve feet above the sidewalk. I am still having to create in my mind the higher perspective that I need. A photographer will find something magical in an everyday scene and lead us to see it; but even the greatest photographer would be unable to capture this view in the same way.

On Colour and Values in Painting

2008-01-19T17:01:00.000-08:00

WARNING:
To anyone who has been to Art School, or been involved in fine arts for a while this will probably be old hat. Read no further. You must excuse me. But for those of us who are self-taught, haven’t yet achieved much, and are groping our way towards an understanding in this discipline, matters of colour, hue, shade and value need exploring. I find that putting my thoughts on paper helps me. Whether it is helpful to others is open to question.

I climbed onto my exercise bike again today and started off.

‘What shall I think about today?’ I asked myself. Wrong. Well, … actually, there’s nothing wrong about choosing a subject and thinking about it. The process will most likely lead to a workmanlike solution to whatever the problem was. But that isn’t what I’m after. I don’t have a particular problem or research topic that needs addressing in that way. I’m anticipating,… what? The insights that sometimes come when the mind is free. Was yesterday just a one-off? I think maybe the Buddhists have it right; the trick is, to empty the mind.

It’s windy today; and bright. Partly cloudy. I look out the window. The sun is going in, coming out; playing with the colours. The wind is from the southwest and strong; must be a cold front on the way. Zero at the moment, it’ll probably be colder later. The air is crystal clear.
When the sun is out, the colours are perfectly saturated, when it goes behind a cloud the colours are not just darker, they are duller. And the colour of the shadowed boards under the eaves of my neighbours house is not the same hue as the boards lit by the sun. Why is that? It occurs to me that this de-saturation has basically just a straight inverse relationship to the amount of ambient light. At night, everything is in greyscale, black, grey and white. You can easily explore the effects of desaturation in ‘Photoshop’. Open any picture in this program, and then click on the ‘brush’ tool, or the ‘paintbucket’ on the toolbar at the left side Now pick up a nice colour from your photo by clicking the mouse with the ‘Alt’ key held down. This colour will show as ‘Foreground’ colour in the little square. Now click on that square to ‘Choose Foreground colour’. This will bring up a small page, with your colour marked by a little circle. Drag the little circle straight up towards the top of the page (totally saturated) or straight down towards the bottom (totally desaturated). Notice in the ‘selected colour’ window, how the hue has actually changed. I am trying to figure out why this is. Going back to the shaded board versus the sunlit ones, partly it must be because the sun is lighting up the bright boards with a unique spectrum, or mixture of light wavelengths. The shadowed board, on the other hand, is lit by light reflected from other surfaces, (clouds, buildings) or light from the ‘blue’ sky. So the end result, light finally reflected into the eye of the beholder, is actually a reflection modified from a quite different spectrum. So it makes sense that the perceived colour should change I suppose. But then again, 'Photoshop' doesn't know the unique conditions in which this colour is presented, so there must be more to it than that.

Colour is not as solid, real and defined as I used to think. It’s partly subjective. Different people see colours differently. Even the same person can see colours differently. I learned this one night when I was flying a 767 over the Atlantic. Sitting quietly in the dark, the First Officer an indistinct shadow beside me. Checking the instruments, making position reports; steadily proceeding towards Europe. The lights turned low, so we’d notice anything outside, untoward or not; the cockpit bathed in a soft reddish glow from the instrument lights. One of the instruments, a distance measuring device with LED readout, was a little brighter than the others. It caught my attention as being different. How different? Something about the colour. I studied the numbers. What was it? I looked away, to one side, as I had been doing when I first noticed the difference. The colour changed! I looked back; it reverted. I closed one eye and looked – the light was red. I opened that eye and closed the other. The light was orange! I was getting two distinctly different colour interpretations of the same thing! Very strange. This condition did not present any difficulty, nor was I particularly worried about it. The anomaly stayed with me, on and off, several years. When I would wake up in the morning, the bedpost would appear reddish-brown through one eye, yellowish brown through the other. Now remember, I was a pilot. My eyes were regularly checked, including a test for colour vision. I never had any trouble interpreting the colour charts and reading the numbers. I have perfect colour vision. But? My wife will often see something as a brown colour, that I see as a shade of green; (this in connection with the colour of my trousers). I am merely illustrating here that colour can be interpreted differently. It is not simply a matter of wavelength; it has, for want of a better word, flavour.

Now value; that’s something else, and just as difficult sometimes. Is the blue sky lighter or darker than the sunlit building? Sometimes I really struggle with that. No matter how much I narrow my eyes and squint, I find it hard to decide. Somewhere I read, or heard, the suggestion that the artist should try to assign a lightness/darkness value to each component of their painting on a scale of one to ten. This makes sense, but is again often harder to assess in practice than in theory. Here again, ‘Photoshop’ can come to the rescue. Open a picture and ‘Remove Colour’ so you can see it in greyscale. That’ll tell you.

All this makes leads me to think about the colour sources we use when painting pictures. Some are purer and more reliable; others, less so. Upon reflection, I consider that the two best sources for colour are – the Mind, and the Real World. That is to say, your imagination or what you actually see. Depending on the subject and type of painting, either one of these would be the best bet. For myself, I have to say that my imagination is not as fertile as I would wish, and so making a sketch in ‘Plein Air’ is, ideally, the way I like to go. However, the limitations there are clear: the light is always changing, the weather may be inclement, and you may simply work so slowly as to make this impractical. So what’s next? Oftentimes you end up working from a photo, but this is third-hand colour at best. What I mean is, firstly, the camera interprets the colours. - Recently I was in a camera store, looking to upgrade my digital camera; (these days, you have to change cameras at more or less the same time interval as you change computers). With the bewildering numbers of choices on offer, I asked the manager for his advice. Well, he said, I like Nikon. Why?, I asked. I like the colour better, came the answer. That set me back for a moment. Until then I had not considered that different manufacturers, using differing technologies may end up presenting subtly different colours, depending on the algorithms used. That’s the first divergence. Next is the printer. It too has to measure the colours and values, and decide how best to reproduce them. Thirdly, the ink and paper selected will in turn present a slightly different and unique resultant print. Now you are looking at the print in order to copy it. What kind of light are you working under? Sunlight?, indirect daylight?, incandescent?, fluorescent? (I hope not!). By the time you lay the brush on the paper, you may be a long way removed from the original colour. You can shortcut some of these problems by working from an image on the computer monitor instead of from a print. I prefer this as next best to ‘Plein Air’, but it also presents problems. Is it convenient to paint where your computer is located?

But take heart. Finally, I am learning to trust my instinct, and gain confidence in my painting by constantly reminding myself that the picture is just a representation! In the end, it doesn’t matter which colours are chosen, so long as they provide a happy and recognizable result.

Whoa – thirty minutes already today? Heart rate is up; aerobic effect achieved. Time to climb down off the bike; go and have a shower.

Unexpected Paths to Meditation

2008-01-18T17:55:00.000-08:00

Last summer I bought an exercise bike, at a garage sale, for thirty-five bucks. This was some little time after I had, (so pleased with myself), told my doctor how I was biking down the Niagara Parkway most days. “What are you going to do in the winter?’ he asked. For thirty-five bucks there were of course, no bells, no whistles, no computer on this device. Accessories, if you don’t count the basic speedometer/odometer, consisted of a simple kitchen timer. This thing has sat at the back of my studio, unused, reproaching me, for the last six months. Just looking at it filled me with ennui. How could anybody survive such boredom?
This morning I finally got on it, don’t ask why. I set the primitive brake adjustment so that I felt it a bit in my quads and buckled down. After what seemed like a fairly long time I checked my watch: two minutes had elapsed. Not so easily daunted as all that, and determined to get some good out of it, I pressed on. I thought to myself – I should build a kind of easel to hold a book, and clamp it onto the handlebars here; then the time would pass fast enough. I looked up. On the wall in front of me was a print of a watercolour of mine, that had been used as a calendar picture. July, it said. I studied the picture; traced the perspectives. I thought about summer. I thought about my route down the Parkway. Where would I be right now? I checked the odometer. Just about at the river. In my mind’s eye I saw the bright morning reflections off the water; such a lovely deep viridian. Why is that? Every river seems to have its own predominant colour. The Aare in Switzerland has a wonderful pale milky green shade. Glacial melt I guess. I pedalled on. My mind drifted into other paths. When the body is on autopilot it’ll do that. I thought about the painting I am working on now. Where should the sun be, in order to get the shadows just right? Perhaps I should darken those left hand side buildings.
I was getting warmed up. I set the brake a little harder; let’s go uphill for a bit.
I began to think about the book I have been reading, and my plans for the afternoon.

January is a good month for home redecoration. This year we’re tackling a bedroom. I’m still at the preparatory stage. Scrubbing down, sanding, removing old wallpaper. I’ve kind of settled into half a day of work on my watercolour, half a day of redecoration.
Once, when I was discussing, perhaps lamenting this business of home maintenance with my nephew, he wisely remarked ‘House painting is a meditative experience’. He knew, he’d done more than his share. But I thought, yes, you’re absolutely right, and ever since I have not begrudged that time spent so much, realizing that thoughts can be sorted and creativity can flower. Plans may be made; problems addressed. When you’re sanding walls, you’re pretty well on autopilot again, and the mind is free.

People often say they will go to sleep on a problem and wake up with the solution. It’s not exactly that way in my case. More that if I am wakeful my mind plays and roams and settles on some aspect of what I am doing during my days. Often there will be something yet unsolved – how best can I extract those rotten old concrete encrusted fenceposts? how should those dollhouse walls be fastened together. When the mind is not distracted by having to control the body it’s amazing how well it will work. I do indeed wake with the solution, and perhaps it is arrived at partly subconsciously.

There’s more paths than one up the mountain.

What time is it? Oh, twenty minutes already?. That didn’t seem so long. Some analysis, some synthesis, some conclusions reached. Unexpected.

I worked up a bit of a sweat there. Time for a shower.

Flickr, Friends, and the Balanced Life.

2008-01-18T14:47:00.001-08:00

Flickr, Friends, and the Balanced Life.

I’m sure you’ve all been through this. You start on Flickr just to archive your pictures. Then you begin to meet people; people with the same interests. Well, they would be, wouldn’t they? All of a sudden you have friends out there. It just snowballs, doesn’t it? It’s not that you’re actively seeking out more ‘Contacts’, but somebody new comments, you look at their work, their profile; you say to yourself ‘I like this person, I want to keep in touch, see what they’re going to upload next.’

You started off uploading a few photos for half an hour the odd evening, now you’re on for two hours, three? Most evenings? Well, you like these people, you’re learning from them, you’re inspired. You’re enjoying yourself.

Yes, but with work, family, chores and everything else you just can’t fit in that much time for something new for the long haul. Something has to give, and generally it shouldn’t be work or family or all the other really important stuff. So the sad part is, the time comes out of your other hobbies; like the painting.

So this is for my ‘Flickr’ friends: I’m telling you this so that you’ll know and understand if I have to pull back a bit; if I can’t perhaps chat at such length or so often, or make as many comments. It’s not that I’m bored or tired of it, or you. Quite the contrary: I am stimulated and motivated as never before. And when I’m commenting, I like to think about that picture of yours that inspires me, and ask myself why do I like it so well. It tends to take a bit of time to figure out what I want to say in a comment.

So if I don’t respond to your comments in quite the same way, or address each one in the future, please know that I really appreciate hearing from you just the same. I’ll still be here, but I’ve just got to get everything into a proper balance.

The Purpose of My Blog - and 'Hello World'

2008-01-16T06:43:00.000-08:00

Well now. I'm making some attempt to keep up with the modern world.

A few months ago I signed up to 'Flickr'. At first, my plan was merely to archive all my photos off-site, but I quickly discovered the pleasure of sharing and meeting others with similar interests. This in turn led to me posting increasingly long and sometimes only marginally relevant comments at the bottom of my own photos, in response to the kind remarks of others. In some cases, people have been curious about my techniques in connection with hobbies such as woodworking or card-making. It seemed to me inappropriate to enter into a long dissertation in the 'photo comment' format, so I felt a need for someplace like this where I can talk to (and listen to) friends (and relatives) around the world. So here I am.

This is beginning to cut into my painting time, so I will sign off. I look forward to exchanging news and views with my Flickr friends, and, who knows? maybe ...you.