Duplex

 The acrylic palette here includes 

Pemco primary magenta

Grumbacher Hyplar cadmium barium yellow

Grumbacher Hyplar Cadmium barium read deep

Rhiotec titanium white

Liquitex ultramarine blue

Riotech burnt umber

Honestly the student grade just doesn’t cut it except maybe for under painting. This pallet is something I used at home, as opposed to in my kit. I need quantity and quality at home. Jars or squeeze bottles? Also  the old pants go a bit gummy and have a questionable toxicity.

I was aiming to make the translucency of the plate part of the story here.

The Bachelor

 The apples keep getting better. The video is terrible-I’m too busy painting! The series would have been four but I would like to keep going. Student grade acrylic works well as a ground if cut 1/4 into gesso. I picked up a quantity on sale not really knowing how I would use it. At first I thought them useless as they are shiny and transparent. The Bachelor was made with regular heavy body acrylics whereas triplex was Golden Open acrylic, which are both transparent and precious feeling. Small tubes, perhaps?

Triplex

 How do you like these apples? This one is done at home using two lamps. The plate colours are dark and intense. I like where this is going, and aim to make a set of four with dwelling related titles. The 6x6 format is great for my skill development.

Acrylic Apples: Quarters

 What a difference light makes. Today I’m working without lamps and a bay window at my back, with barely enough overcast daylight to get shadow, highlight and reflection. My regular acrylic palette has  burnt umber, phthalo blue, alizarin, cad red, Arylide yellow medium, pale lemon and Titanium white.

Compare these two-such a small adjustment stroke to the background made such a difference in spatial dimension.

Watercolour Swatches

 I have a new approach to swatching where I can note transparency, lift, and light fastness. When my Curry’s art supply store moved away I picked up new colours on sale and it was fun to do new tests because the task is already started!

Swatches 

High Park Hillside Garden

 

My friend Ileen and I stole a couple of quiet hours in High Park today, to do some oil painting. We found a spot next to a bridge that had been chained off for no apparent reason. the changing light made me quit after about an hour and a half, so as not to blend too much trying to accommodate the light. I want nice chunks of paint colour to rest where they’re placed, to make a kind of colour poem. The red underpainting peeking through helps pull it all together. Ileen pointed out that Tom Thompson used red underpainting, and I googled who invented it- Titian?


Check out Ileen’s painting! @ileensart

China Town and the Salt Mines

 What does Chinatown have in common with the salt mine? One, they waited a long time for me to paint them, and two, they both had strong under painting. It is proving a challenge to paint the water over red. 

Goderich salt mines, underpainting

The initial drawing is covered up entirely but I try to leave sparks of the underpainting peeking through in small amounts. Blocking in dark areas is fairly quick and very satisfying!

Chinatown, sketch, underpainting and 90% finished,
These are Acrylic, 8x10 on stretched canvas.

My brushes are a mixture of sizes. I want less fussiness so I choose the largest I think I can work with. Ideally, each small painting, if successful, could be made bigger with a similar approach. The Salt Mine, Goderich has subject matter I love. I wish it could look more like Hester Berry painted it! Ah, well, perhaps in time. I think the umbrella in China town needs more bright saturatied colour, and the hats and sign lettering need addition, as well as the flag lettering details. The blue sign at the to needs the top truncated to get the cantilever in the architecture back.

I’m using a new medium for these, by a Canadian company - “TriArt” that offers better UV protection, and improves the stroke.