To the Reader

April 3, Monday. Today I finished (or came close to finishing the rudiments of) a painting that you can look at, which I call “Hockey Night”, which owes much to Dali. I am reading Dali’s book, 50 Secrets of Magic Craftsmanship.

April 7, FridayI worked on another “Dali” painting, namely Figure Skater. I don’t like it as much as the previous, but I may do it again and again until I get something more to my liking. However, someone else might like it. Work continues on a CD of some of my sketchbooks, which should be ready before Easter.

February 17, 2007. I have decided to make this mainly a “painting log”, mostly about experiments with materials, and I removed the instruction that told the search engines not to index it. So in recent days what did I learn?

• I can paint in egg-tempera on canvas paper. The medium, consisting of egg-yolk and water, did not seem to want to stick to the canvas paper, but I found that if I used a cleanex to rub in some paint vigorously, thereafter the surface has been receptive and I have been painting all day.
• In egg-tempera painting, you mix pure pigments directly with egg-yolk medium. For some pigments this is all you need to do. Especially metallic pigments, which are cadmium for yellows and reds, cobalt for blues and greens (and violet), titanium and zinc for white, viridian (mainly a copper oxide) for green, nickle titanate for pale yellow. It also works for the “earth colors”, which include burnt umber, raw umber, raw sienna, burnt sienna, yellow ochre, and green earth. But there are other colors that are more dyes than pigments. I recently acquired Indian yellow (somehow cow urine is involved in its production), quinacridone red, prussian blue, and others. First of all, if a pigment is very light in weight, as are organic pigments, it is difficult to mix it with water because it will float on top as a powder. The secret is to add a little alcohol to the dry pigment, which will wet it, then add water. The second thing about these pigments is that you probably need to add some inert filler to make paint you can work with. I have kaolin (finest white powdered clay), talc (pure, no scent added), powdered chalk, and aluminum stearate. Today I was trying to paint with Prussian blue (the color used in blueprints), but it did not make good paint until I mixed some talc with it. The talc did not in the least tint the paint, just made it thick and homogenous so I could work with it.
• I have some essential tools. First, I found ceramic dishes that are used for escargots, one dish with a depression in the middle, and six round crates surrounding it. They were at a dollar store, and I bought as many as I could, because the dollar store was going out of business. They are the best, because ceramic porcelain is easy to clean, and the little bowls are big enough to hold a fair amount of paint. These are better than the things sold specifically for artists. The second thing I have is a medicine dropper. It is constantly necessary to be adding water to this and that (or oil, or anything else). The third thing I have is straws. I use these like the medicine dropper. I used to dip my brush in the egg-yolk medium as I was mixing paint, but this would contaminate the egg with color. Now I cut a straw into smaller straws, dip the straw into the medium, put my finger on the end to hold the liquid, then release my finger when I want to drop the medium into some paint. I cut the straw off when it gets clogged. The fourth thing I have is popsicle sticks. I use these to remove pigment from its container, then to mix the pigment into paint. The fifth thing I have is a blank piece of paper, so when I load up my brush with paint, I can paint a line on the paper to make sure that the brush is not over-loaded, etc.
• Egg tempera becomes hard and brittle with time. For that reason it has been traditionally been painted on rigid panels. These are prepared with “gesso”, made of animal glue and whiting (usually chalk). So, if one is going to paint on paper, then one should mount the painting on a rigid surface at some point. How to mount it? The Frame Shop in my neighborhood has mounted my pictures on foamboard using drymount tissue. The owner has done a very good job with crinkled and warped pieces of paper, and the end result was perfect. However, there were difficulties recently. I prepared some paper, painted it with rabbit-skin glue on both sides, and painted on it. Either the paint was too thick, or the rabbit-skin glue did not like the drymount tissue, or my glue did not work with the heat, but dry mount did not work. So, I used rubber cement. Now, as my colleague Nisar showed me, this is how to use rubber cement. Coat both surfaces, then wait until the cement appears dry. Then press the surfaces together. Rubber cement has the advantage that it will not cause paper to buckle, as does water-based glue, so there is minimum problems with bubbles. So now I mount paintings on foamcore.

I am looking for information on a painting medium called temperone, used by Tintoretto and others in the Renaissance. I found this information at Kremer Pigments:

Temperone is made according to a recipe from the 16th century and is a water-thinnable emulsion of rye flour, larch turpentine, linseed oil, honey and distilled water. The properties of this medium yield an excellent adhesion on oil and emulsion grounds.
History: Painters like Tintoretto required a fast-drying and cheap medium to finish large-scale work in a short time. Temperone makes it possible to paint quickly, up to 10 layers in one day. It dries within minutes to a satin gloss, and can be overpainted immediately. The emulsion remains water-soluble for a while, making it ideal for a sketch-like painting process that is easily corrected.
Temperone is highly elastic on canvas and has good pigment binding properties. To impart lustre and durability, a final varnish of sandarac dissolved in ethyl alcohol is recommended. Temperone is best kept in the refrigerator, where it will last for about 6 months.

February 19th. Today I assembled the following ingredients. Rye flour, water, honey, linseed oil, Canada Balsam. I am using Canada Balsam in place of Venetian (Larch) turpentine. It is a resin in any case. Meanwhile, I found the following description of making paint using rye flour:

2 kg of ferrous sulphate is dissolved into 50 litres of boiling water. In this dissolution 2 - 2 1/2 kg of finely grounded rye or wheat flour is whisked in. After 15 minutes of boiling and stirring 8 kg of red colour pigment is added while stirring energetically. Let this mixture boil for another 15 minutes and the paint is ready. If necessary you can add 1 - 1 1/2 litres of linseed oil, wood tar or fish oil or cod-liver oil to make the paint stronger. The ferrous sulphate is mainly used to block for the algae.

In my quest to make temperone, I mixed the rye flour with cold water, but I see that it is probably necessary to boil or heat. Also, rye flour has grit in it that has to be filtered out. My first batch did not adhere so well as expected. Not glutinous enough.

February 26th. Still obsessed with temperone. Today I found mention that Venetian Turpentine (the resin of a Larch tree) was used in the grooming of horses, perhaps to protect their hooves. So, I ordered some at a very good price from a “tack shop” in Missassauga, with a website: www.greenhawk.net. It is about one tenth the price for what it is at an art supply store.

March 1st. While I wait for the Venetian Turpentine, I am still using a small (and expensive) jar of Canadian Balsam. I experimented with dissolving it. It seemed to dissolve in rubbing alcohol, but I could see small particles still. The same result with paint thinner, or varsol, the petroleum product. But in turpentine, it just melted away beautifully. Then I added some of this thinned balsam to my temperone, and it is very good. I have been working on a painting with it, and indeed, you can paint many layers in the course of a day. The paint tends to bead up, probably should have a different proportion of water to oil or resin, more or less, but by working it it quickly adheres to the previous paint. And I added chalk to temperone and made gesso, and gessoed a canvas board. The French master painter William Bougereau prepared his canvases with some sort of mixture that included flour.

Now I have a big jar of temperone mixture. I should have sifted the rye flour before mixing, because it has larger darker pieces that did not dissolve, and this stuff cannot be easily separated now that I have a wet mixture. Next time I will sift the dry rye flour. For now, I will paint with it and let this “grit” add character to the paintings. My research seems to indicate that the kind of flour does not matter, I can use wheat flour.

HOW THE ARTIST CAN MAKE COFFEE IN A SIMPLE MANNER.

As Agent Fox Muldar (played by David Duchovny) said in the X-Files when he was offerred a cup of instant coffee, it is not what they take out of the coffee to make it instant, it is what they put in the coffee to take the other stuff out. So the serious artist is always attentive to ingredients. He prefers to make his own materials, because then he knows what they are. The true artist does not like to use disposable materials if he can use something again and again. So to the true artist, I suggest the following. Find a pair of white socks, one that is intact, and one that is well-worn and useless. Use the useless one as a rag to clean your brushes. Take the other one and cut the neck of the sock from the foot. Use the neck of the sock to keep your right hand and wrist warm as you type on the computer in the winter, because it is more sensible to heat the air closest to your body than the entire dwelling. Use the foot of the sock as a filter. Place the ground coffee in it, then immerse it in a cup of hot water. Only the pure essence of coffee without the solids will fill the cup, and the liquid essence will be more pure and rich than from a paper filter. Furthermore, it is a small matter for the artist to squeeze the last bit of coffee from the sock. Then turning the sock inside out, the artist will empty the grounds into a container to use as composte, and rinse what little remains in the sink.

WHY THE ARTIST SHOULD HAVE PLANTS INDOORS

We try to abstain from commentary on global warming. But we cannot. First, consider this experiment. Weigh some soil and put it in a large pot. Plant something in the pot. Let the plant grow. Then weigh the plant, and weigh the soil. The weight of the soil has hardly changed, but the plant is very heavy. So … plants derive their weight from the air. Another consideration, primitive peoples who did not keep accurate records were taken by surprise by things such as eclipses and other natural cycles. To appease the gods, they would sacrifice humans for the restoration of the way things were. Now, imagine our collective memory was so short that we did not remember that one season usually follows another, and that the high priests instituted human sacrifices in order to bring the winter to an end. Our collective memory is short. Our data concerning the past is very sparse, but at one time there were lush forests on the highest island in the Arctic. If the world were that warm, then the methane locked in the oceans would have been released, etc. etc., but the world did not end. But our scientists are now the high priests. The vocal globalwarmists think that the scientific method is first to stir up worry and hysteria, then to direct the frantic mob to the political leaders, then have them take “strong action” so that the leaders will have a stronger mandate to interfere in everyone’s daily life and livelihood, then to do some research. It does not matter whether it will be refuted, because science will move to the next hysteria to make the people beg to be ruled with a strong hand, and global warming will be forgotten. And the high priest Stephen Hawking wants to leave the planet because it will get so bad, and find a black hole to curl up in.

Anyways, back to plants. Plants remove stuff from the air. The artist may use turpentine, oil of cloves, tobacco smoke, and other things as part of his process. Plants remove that stuff. For example, Plants Remove Formaldehyde from the air. So, there should be lots of plants everywhere, outside, inside, all over the place. And build parking lots, if they must be built, so that there are places for plants throughout. In some countries people have lawns on their roofs.

THE DOG

March 21, 2007. Today my dog died, and I buried her. Below is an image, one of my favorites, of the dog.

My brother sends me a sketch for “special occasion pictures”—I do big pictures for the front of the house for the big days, Christmas, Easter, Canada Day (and I may add to the list). This years picture has a symbol of Christ, which is the first two letters of the name in Greek, which is Chi (Χ) and Rho (Ρ), which to us looks like a “P” with an “X” through it. The Chi-Rho symbol is emerging from an egg. I am painting the picture on a canvas board, 2 x 3 feet. First, I painted it grey. Then I used up all my acrylic modeling paste and drew in the picture thick with a palette knife. I spent a lot of time filling in empty space with tessellations, that is, geometric patterns that can be repeated like tiles. I allowed the sculpted picture to dry overnight. Then this morning I put watered-down paint, which sinks in the low areas if you do it a certain way. When that was dry enough, I applied “sparkle colors” that I bought at a dollar-store. The basic method is to apply acrylic transparent medium to the area you want to sparkle, then sprinkle on the sparkles. When it was dry enough, I shook the painting and the sparkles remained where I wanted them. For one Canadian dollar I got five colors of sparkles, and there was plenty of the stuff for my purposes, with lots left over. Makes me think that sometime I would like to get hold of some colored sands. I like the effect. First, the sculpted modeling paste has good relief, and the sparkles look different under every light. Of course, the picture will be in my on-line gallery when I am really finished.

APRIL 6th, 2007 (Good Friday) — Most (or all) of the canvas, canvas boards, and canvas paper that can be bought is primed with acrylic gesso. It is shiny. Canvas boards are mounted on paper, which I would describe as padboard. If I paint on a canvas board using acrylic, the moisture can penetrate through to the paper board underneath and cause it to warp. If that happens, I can sometimes remedy the situation by painting the other side, which will cause the opposite warp, and it evens out, but that is a nuisance.

For a long time I have wanted to use such easy-to-obtain materials for egg-tempera painting (and now for “temperone”, which is the flour-honey-oil-balsam emulsion). But these materials do not like acrylic, and tend to bead up. Painting with a very light touch can help, and then I can hope that when the first layer of paint is thoroughly dry it will adhere. But that is not a certainty. Eventually egg will adhere to anything very strongly, but I never know how long to wait. If it does not adhere yet, I find that when I return to the painting, the new paint may loosen the old paint.

So, I have discovered something. I picked up an old painting. Originally I had created a scratch board using black Alkyd paint on a white shiny piece of “Thrifty White” masonite, which is coated with shiny white alkyd (oil-based) paint. I scratch a picture, then over time did some oil painting on it. A full year later, I returned to it. I rubbed a few drops of linseed oil over the entire surface. Then I painted on it with egg-tempera. The egg-tempera, despite its water content, loved that little bit of oil, and when it dried, the egg and the oil had hardened together. So I repeated the process, another rubbing of oil (just enough so I could see that the oil had covered the surface), and more egg. With each layer of oil, the colors underneath get deeper or richer, and the whole painting becomes more cohesive.

Today I am trying another experiment. I spent my spare moments painting a picture on canvas-paper using India Ink. Then in the evening I mixed some chalk, some yellow ochre pigment, and some linseed oil, and I brushed it over the India Ink. Finally, I used a small bit of rag to rub it all so it would be even, and as thin as possible. Tomorrow, the linseed oil will be in the middle of drying, and if I paint on it with egg-tempera I will not cause the paper to buckle, and the egg-tempera will cling immediately to the oil.

Someone might wonder, why bother? Why not simply use acrylics? Why not use oil alone? Why break an egg, separate the yolk from the white, filter out the solids, add some essential oil to prevent spoilage, mix it by hand with colors? Well, the water in acrylics causes the paper to buckle. Acrylics is hard on brushes, and I must clean brushes with soap every few minutes. Acrylics dries in the tubes or bottles, or becomes lumpy, and in general you cannot be sure what will come out of the tube. And what about oil? Oil is very nice for mixing colors together smoothly, but it is messy. Because it dries slowly, you have to be very careful so that your hand does not rest on wet-paint. You must clean your brushes with solvents, then with soap and water. You must very carefully dispose of rags and other materials that have linseed oil (I put them in a large can of water) to avoid spontaneous combustion. You must store your paintings in a special way while you wait for them to dry.

Egg-tempera (and temperone) are water-soluble. Egg paint dries very fast, and if you want, it is almost like drawing with a colored pencil. If you add linseed oil to the egg-yolk, it is still water-soluble, but it handles more like oil, with more possibility of blending colors. Now, if I use egg-tempera to paint into wet (or semi-dry) oil, I can work the egg into the oil, and the water does not seem to prevent this. If I simply paint, I can paint a strong and clear line that floats on the oil. The very best feature is this, that you can paint a strong thin line of white on top of something dark. You cannot do that with oil (not easily) or with acrylic. Also, egg-tempera can be used on dry oil. Now, by alternating between many layers of oil and egg-tempera, you can build up a painting of marvelous luminosity. I cannot paint like Van Eyck, but I can understand perfectly how he did what he did. I may repeat this point, if you want to paint egg-tempera into oil, use the smallest possible amount of oil and rub it thoroughly into the surface.