Articles by David

First published on 1 October 2006.

Also of interest

• Glazing (25)
• You say “sfumah-to,” I say “sfumay-to” (0)
• Wet sanding (1)
• Ultramarine in tempera and oil (4)
• Three ways to use oil painting mediums (0)

<rant>

At the New York times, an article on a show exhibiting modern interpretations of Rockwell’s “Four Freedoms.”

These are posters depicting subjects such as bird pooping “democracy” onto the earth and an obese person with the caption “this is abuse of the freedom from want.”

I hate this kind of pseudo-ironic, self-absorbed, visual bloviation. Because the academic art establishment is just about entirely leftist, this kind of art almost always presents ideas of the political left. I’m very very independent politically, but I hate this kind of stuff regardless of whether I am in agreement with (or indifferent to) the ideas being expressed.¹

Elliott Earls’s reinterpretation of Norman Rockwell’s “Four Freedoms” practically screams. A little girl seems to be crying, her eye bruised, with an American flag in the background and two words framing her figure: “Liberty Weeps.” The color scheme is red, white and blue, but patriotic pride has been supplanted by sadness.

How tiresome.

My reaction to anything like this is one of visceral contempt. Art like this likes to pretend that it is “dangerous.” Yet none of the “artists” participating have any fear of having the government take any interest in this work. They aren’t going to be carried away in the night and never seen again, as an artist expressing “inappropriate” ideas might have been in Soviet Union, Nazi Germany, or nowadays in a place like North Korea. (This is particularly well illustrated by the picture by Chip Kidd, depicting a burnt U.S. flag and the caption, “Freedom of Speech”—made with the full understanding that no one will ever consider censoring it.) No one who might affect their careers is going to refuse to hire them, because anyone who might hire a political artist is going to at least pretend to like this kind of crap. Instead of having their careers destroyed by bravely “speaking truth to power,” these mediocre hacks get written up in the New York Times. They are expressing entirely mainstream ideas, better expressed in other ways. This work adds nothing to discourse on freedom in modern society. Yet these artists, and the writer of the article, indicate surprise and disappointment that the show doesn’t garner much attention. People just walk by and ignore it. They are demonstrating not a dislike of art, but a disinterest in vapid garbage. Good for them.

I would hate any picture that depicts George Bush looking into a mirror and seeing Adolph Hitler. I would hate any picture that depicts Barak Obama as a hand puppet of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. It doesn’t matter what the politics are. Such pictures are banal, idiotic rubbish. They require no thought or creativity. If you seen one, you can think of all possible variations on the theme in about five minutes. They are political cartoons—bad political cartoons. They are not art.² They are not even interesting.

</rant>

Do you agree? Disagree? Are there kinds of political art that are good? If so, what distinguishes good from bad? Feel free to comment.

Note: there’s not going to be any discussion of politics here; just the badness (or not, if you want to disagree with me) of this clumsy approach to political art. Any explicitly political comments will be deleted. If you want to discuss politics, you won’t have any trouble finding places on the web for that.

¹ I might respect an artist slightly more if he or she were demonstrating a little bit of chutzpah by making non-leftist art and presenting it to the leftist art establishment. But not much.

² I don’t mean to imply that a cartoon or illustration cannot be art. It is only to say that this specific kind of cartoon, by and large, is nowhere near to being art.

Also of interest

• Silly art terminology rant (0)

Since this month is the site’s two year anniversary, I am re-posting some items from the past that I particularly like. This one was first posted on 28 August 2006.

Also of interest

• You say “sfumah-to,” I say “sfumay-to” (0)
• Wet sanding (1)
• Ultramarine in tempera and oil (4)
• Three ways to use oil painting mediums (0)
• The Velázquez palette (3)

Also of interest

• Work in progress (5)
• Vertigo (0)
• Upward (0)
• Torn (0)
• This photo (0)

All the Strange Hours is two years old today. Coincidentally, the blog is also approaching it’s 100,000th page view. As internet sites go, that’s not an incredibly high number over two years, but I appreciate the attention. Over the next few weeks I plan to re-post some “best of” items that might be worth looking at again.

Thanks to everyone who has come by and stayed awhile. And thank especially to those who have contributed to the blog by commenting or—in Katarzyna’s case—by posting.

I’d like to take this opportunity to reiterate my invitation to others who might want to participate here. If you’d like to blog at ATSH about visual art, send me an email and we can discuss it.

Also of interest

• Wordpress rocks! (0)
• Welcome (0)
• Thinking about this site (6)
• The new and improved “All the Strange Hours” (2)
• Ten thousand (4)

Also of interest

• Work in progress (5)
• Vertigo (0)
• Upward (0)
• Torn (0)
• This photo (0)

Also of interest

• Work in progress (5)
• Vertigo (0)
• Upward (0)
• Torn (0)
• This photo (0)

Some of the best paintings in the world were made long before the beginning of recorded history. Not all prehistoric art is great, but some of it is as brilliant and evocative as any art from any era. The cave art at Lascaux is an particularly inspired example.

Over at his excellent Illustration Art blog, David Apatoff has a post—“Lunatics and Bureaucrats”—about various ways in which people damage art. One of his examples is the damage the French government has done to the images at Lascaux via an ill-planned air conditioning system and various attempts to fix it while covering their asses from any assessment of blame.

A person named Laurence Beasley runs an organization devoted to saving what can be saved at Lascaux. I would strongly recommend that you sign the petition, or even donate some cash, to support her cause.

So I spent some time working with the old “putrido” recipe described in this post.

First I made titanium white egg tempera by grinding egg yolk (with a little water added) to titanium white pigment. I used a frosted glass muller, grinding on a marble slab. Following the recipe, I made it stiffer than I would if I were going to paint with it in egg tempera. Then I used a palette knife to mix it in approximately equal parts with some tube flake white (Doak’s flake 1c). (I don’t work with lead white in powder form.) I mulled the mixture on the slab. As the recipe predicted, the paint instantly became very stiff—much stiffer than either of the two ingredients before mulling. The recipe suggests adding oil, emulsion, or water. I added more egg yolk (emulsion) until the paint became workable. I mulled for several minutes and transferred it to my palette. It was quite thick.

Then I made some burnt sienna oil paint by mulling in linseed oil. I tried making egg tempera by mixing egg yolk with pigment/water paste, but it was very thin. I added a bit of dry pigment. Then I followed the same procedure, mixing the oil paint with the egg tempera in equal proportions. Again, it stiffened instantly. This time I added a bit of oil and, when that didn’t do the trick, a little water. After mulling this mixture for a few minutes, I transferred it to my palette. Again, it was very thick.

Then I tried painting with it. The paint alone was unworkably thick and pasty. It mixed easily with water, however. I was able to paint loosely. It handled similarly to other tempera grassa recipes I’ve worked with when thinned with water. Easier to blend than egg tempera, but not so smooth as oil paint. I could imagine using this for a lean underpainting.

Conclusions:

• Overall, this was not a success. The paint is not manageable without a lot of thinning down. It is not superior to other recipes that are easier to make. On the other hand, this was my first time. Next time, I will experiment by adding more oil to the mixture. It should still be water-mixable even with considerably more oil than I used.
• This is time-consuming. It would only be worth doing if I could make up a palette of colors and get them to last for at least a week or two before becoming bad or, well, putrid. The recipe suggests a few drops of clove oil. That would preserve the egg yolk and act as a retarder for the oil. The problem, potentially, is that the clove oil would retard the drying of the oil component of the paint after it’s been applied to the painting. That might slow the process of applying multiple layers. Another possibility would be to add a few drops of white wine vinegar.
• In terms of time, this will really only work for me with tempera mixed with tube paint. I don’t have time to grind my own fresh oil paint routinely, although that would probably produce superior results.
• Thus, I need to learn how to make more workable paint, and learn to make it last.

Update

24 June 2008: Applied thinly, the paint was completely dry the next day. It definitely has potential, at least for underpainting.

Also of interest

• Making gesso (2)
• Tempera grassa 2 (0)
• Tempera grassa 1 (9)
• Keeping oil paint fresh (5)
• Doak’s cristallo medium (5)

On the Q&A page, Bethan writes,

I am interested in the various substrates used by 15-16th century painters- specifically wood. Which species of wood was commonly used and how were the panels constructed? I am assuming they had to be constructed very well in order to have lasted centuries without warping- a problem I am currently having. I am using birch plywood with Gamblin’s Traditional Gesso.

Bethan,

In the 15th and 16th centuries, artists typically used a local wood cut with the grain from the center of large trees. That kind of panel is hard to get these days. Italians liked woods such as poplar, cutting panels thick (up to an inch). Northern Europeans liked harder woods such as oak, which was usually cut thinner.

Panels were typically cut and planed to size, then seasoned for a year or more in the studio, with additional planing as needed as seasoning progressed. Modern authors often suggest finding seasoned high quality wood from old furniture or doors that might otherwise be discarded.

Warping is common with traditional gesso, since hide glue is very strong (stronger than most modern glues). I usually apply several coats of hide glue to the back of a panel to counteract the stress on the front. You can also gesso both sides equally. Some artists glue braces to the back of their panels, but that itself can cause problems. A carpenter can also construct a cradle using sliding dovetail joins which place less stress on the panel. You can find examples at www.realgesso.com.

I have found that birch plywood varies considerably in quality. It best to use furniture-grade or marine grade plywood rather than the stuff you find in any given home supply store. I also paint on tempered pressed wood panels (hardboard). These have been used since the early 20th century with mixed results. They are made differently now than they used to be, and the quality is variable. With care, it seems to work reasonably well.

Of course, the best panel material is high-grade aluminum honeycomb, but that’s incredibly expensive and hard to find.

Good luck!

Also of interest

• Making gesso (2)
• Just as good (3)

I just made a page for visitors to post questions—you can see a link to it in the navigation bar at the top of each page. I get a fair number of questions, sometimes attached to a random post because the visitor didn’t really know where else to post the question. So now there’s a place.

If you put a relevant question into the comments there, I will respond. Of course, my response may be simply to tell you that I don’t know. But feel free to give it a try. It’s not exactly an internet forum, but it will serve for now.

Update

21 June 2008: Of course, the first question (an excellent one) stumped me. More, please. I’ll have a good answer to someone’s question eventually.

Also of interest

• Wordpress rocks! (0)
• Welcome (0)
• Two years (2)
• Thinking about this site (6)
• The new and improved “All the Strange Hours” (2)

Paulin writes,

Here my dilemma today. I need to fill a 36 × 36 Canvas with a base color. I need the paint to be really fluid/wet so as to have a very smooth surface (no brush strokes) and be able to blend monochromatically to give some depth. I am getting all kinds of mixed messages about how to handle the paint itself. Some say use galkyd slow dry with a bit of turpenoid, but I have read that the paint can “wrinkle”. Some say use liquin but it will take forever to dry…

I’m personally not a big fan of alkyd-based mediums, especially in multi-layered paintings. Also, I hate the way they smell.

Here’s what I’d do. I would thin the paint very slightly (I like real turps or spike, but not everyone likes the smell, so you can use mineral spirits if necessary). Make sure you have excellent ventilation. I’d apply the paint with a wide, soft brush, getting it reasonably flat. Then I’d take a clean soft flat or fan brush and dip it in solvent. With a very soft touch, I’d whisper it over the surface of the painting, knocking down flat spots. This would take a long time for a 36 × 36 canvas. I’d let the canvas dry flat in a dust-free room (or covered by a jury-rigged plastic “tent” to keep dust off of it).

Another option would be to add a bit of thinned stand oil to the paint. Stand oil tends to level brush strokes and dry hard and glossy, especially when the painting is allowed to dry flat to avoid sagging. For layers after that, you’d need to take steps to ensure adhesion to the glossy base layer, such as wet sanding or using a medium containing a balsam.

Also of interest

• Oil painting medium (0)
• You say “sfumah-to,” I say “sfumay-to” (0)
• Where to find medium supplies (7)
• Wet sanding (1)
• Ultramarine in tempera and oil (4)

Those who’ve been reading here for awhile or have delved into the archives know that I’ve sometimes experimented with a traditional painting medium called tempera grassa. TG was most commonly used in the 15th and 16th centuries; it represents a transitional medium between egg tempera and true oil painting. TG consists of pigment mixed with an emulsion of egg and oil. Since the 16th century, TG has been fairly obscure—the best recent example would be the 20th century Italian master, Pietro Annigoni.

In the 19th century (especially in Germany), painting recipes were developed that involved various combinations of tempera ingredients, often including some combination of egg white, whole egg, linseed oil, stand oil, dammar varnish, stand oil, and turpentine. You can find many such recipes on the internet with a few simple Google searches. I’ve usually avoided these relatively complex recipes in favor of simple emulsions of egg yolk (the traditional binder for egg tempera) and linseed or walnut oil, mixed with pigment/water paste.

Recently, I ran across a web reprint of Egg Tempera Painting, Tempera Underpainting, Oil Emulsion Painting: A Manual of Technique, by Vaclav Vitlacyl and Rupert Davidson Turnbull. Published in 1935, it is a compendium of various tempera techniques. One that caught my eye is a recipe they call “putrido.” Putrido is one name for tempera grassa (because it starts to smell bad after a few days). They say that this is based on a recipe from an old manuscript found in Venice. For all I know it’s what was used in the Renaissance.

Take whatever quantity of dry color you wish to prepare. Divide it into two equal parts. Rub up one part with yolk of egg only into a fairly stiff paste. Rub up the other part with sun-bleached linseed oil, to about the consistency of ordinary tube colours. (To save time or trouble, it is possible to use ordinary tube oil colours, but to be sure of your ingredients, it is always advisable to grind your own colour in oil.) The part that is rubbed up with oil may be slightly larger in quantity than the part rubbed with yolk of egg. Then take the two parts so prepared and grind them together, preferably on the marble slab. It will be found that when these two parts are put together, the resultant mixture will stiffen at once into a very stiff paste, too stiff to be easily rubbed. This may be softened down by the addition of either water, emulsion, or linseed oil. If you wish to use the Putrido in its leaner form, add either water or the emulsion (Medium Fat Emulsion), but if you wish to paint with it as an oil paint using oil as the medium, then thin it down with oil. In either case, add the water, the emulsion, or the oil very slowly, only a few drops at a time, until the paste becomes a smooth cream easily handled on the marble slab.

I find this to be pretty interesting. It is a recipe that is similar to what I’ve done before, is simple to make, doesn’t involve solvents, and uses egg yolk (rather than the white or the whole egg), with which I am more familiar. They suggest that adding a small amount of oil of clove will preserve the paint mixture and allow it to be kept for some time (although not indefinitely). I expect that storing them in a refrigerator, especially in warm weather, would be a good idea. The oil of clove would also act as a retarder for the oil component of the paint, causing to dry more slowly. That could be a good or a bad thing, but I expect one would have to wait between layers for the paint to dry. You could try to balance the retarding effect of the clove oil by adding a small amount of lead napthenate, but that makes for a more complex reaction than I am really comfortable with.

I’ll have to try this recipe soon. I have a large painting that I started in tempera and then stopped work on. It might make an excellent underpainting for this TG recipe.

Also of interest

• Tempera grassa 2 (0)
• Tempera grassa 1 (9)
• Ultramarine in tempera and oil (4)
• The Three Graces (0)
• The smell of earths (0)

RESISTANCE AND TROUBLE

We get ourselves into trouble because it’s a cheap way to get attention. Trouble is a faux form of fame. It’s easier to get busted in the bedroom with the faculty chairman’s wife than it is to finish that dissertation on the metaphysics of motley in the novellas of Joseph Conrad.

Ill health is a form of trouble, as are alcoholism and drug addiction, proneness to accidents, all neuroses including compulsive screwing-up, and such seemingly benign foibles as jealousy, chronic lateness, and the blasting of rap music at 110 dB from your smoked-glass ‘95 Supra. Anything that draws attention to ourselves through pain-free or artificial means is a manifestation of Resistance.

Cruelty to others is a form of Resistance, as is the willing endurance of cruelty from others.

The working artist will not tolerate trouble in her life because she knows trouble prevents her from doing her work. The working artist banishes from her world all sources of trouble. She harnesses the urge for trouble and transforms it in her work.

Also of interest

• Book Review: “The War of Art” (4)

I hesitate to post this. The image depends on very subtle gradations of value, and those are not captured very well by my camera (with my limited photographic skills at least). Many of the value changes are much harsher in this image than on the actual painting. But here it is.

“Bag and Bulb,” oil on lead-primed canvas, 16 × 20”.

Also of interest

• You say “sfumah-to,” I say “sfumay-to” (0)
• Wet sanding (1)
• Ultramarine in tempera and oil (4)
• Three ways to use oil painting mediums (0)
• The Velázquez palette (3)