I Hit 50!

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I woke on my 50th birthday sick. Sick enough to call out of work. Sick enough I’ve sent my wife to pick up a covid* test, while I hope that it’s not. I don’t really want to be out of work sick.

Anyway, hitting 50 years old has brought with it a bit of nostalgia for my past and wistfulness for things I wish I had done, as well as a desire to actually do them.

I have spent the last few weeks making my own oil drawing sticks with my own custom colors. I’ve kind of fallen in love with the process. It’s a DIY that leads to additional art. The expense isn’t small but it’s cheaper than buying a full kit of oil paints over time.

I’ve also been making black walnut ink and dye. My silly wolf shirt has never looked cooler. It’s a warm shade of brown that looks phenomenal. So warm and earthy. While the denim chore coat I over dyed looks a little dirty. It’s going to get another soak in the dye bath and a 48 hour soak in an alum mordant.

The black walnut ink this year is even deeper brown. It’s truly lovely. I can’t wait to make some art with it.

I am attempting to do the lake-ing process with it and create a pigment I can make an oil pigment stick with it as well as an ink for making prints.

Lake-ing is a process where you mix washing soda and alum into a dye bath to get the color to adhere to the alum to create a water insoluble colorant that can then be dried, ground and turned into watercolors or oil paints. The walnut husks have tons of sugars and while this is fine for ink or even liquid watercolors, it’s not great for lake-ing, it results in a sticky gummy mess. The lake-d pigments need washing to remove the sugars. This makes the lake process take long and be, in general, a pain in my ass.

Anyway, I lake-d about a quart of my dye and it has taken me about 4 days to get about half of it cleaned and drying.

The walnuts keep giving up more and more dye. The first amount of dye was very thick with sugars, the second soak is thinner but very intense with color. I’m on my 3rd soak and honestly, I wonder how many gallons of colorant I’m going to get out of these walnuts. I’m going to soak them again. We’ll see what happens with 4 soaks. I’m soaking the 10 ish pounds of walnut husks and walnuts in roughly 3 gallons of of hot water for several days, then draining and adding in 3 more gallons. It’s an enormous amount of dye and far more than I’ll ever need, but I’m giving some to a coworker and pretty much dying everything I own that is made of natural fibers that is white in the house brown.

I also ordered myself a few plain white cotton button down shirts. I want to play with folding them to create interesting patterns with the walnut dye. I have ideas.

The oil pigment sticks have been really interesting to work with and I hope to keep making them. They feel like super creamy oil pastels but they harden on the paper or panel. They hold their shape and get rubbery is the best description. Once they harden up they can be layered over. This means that my art works are taking more time to complete, I have to be more patient. The exploration into the colors I actually use has been very helpful. I like earthy tones as well as BRIHT bold colors. SO mixing my own custom colors has been very interesting and very cool. The other thing is that the colors themselves mix better on the artwork than oil pastels. It’s less work to get a blend than it was ever before.

I guess the point of this birthday post is that while my inner urge is to change things up I realize through this writing that I’m doing exactly what I want with my art- exploring and evolving. I hope for my next years to keep that up- explore and evolve.

This post is one of few that get’s posted concurrently with my Ko-Fi posts. Usually, my posts go live on Ko-Fi a month before they are here on this blog. If you enjoy my writing and YouTube channel please head over to my Ko-Fi page and consider supporting me. It helps buy art supplies and keeps me posting and making more videos for YouTube. Continue reading →

Getting Revved Up

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Value studies are a fundamental skill taught in many high school and college art classes. Grab a brush, or dip pen, and a bottle of India ink plus some water and you’ve got the tools you need for a simple black and white value study. It’s simple it’s effective. You have to think in terms of black gray and white.

When I had my summer of art way back in 2002 (0r 03?) I did a LOT of value studies and simple pen and ink drawings. I’ve written about this summer extensively. I got up, drove to a tourist spot, drew and painted, then came home and listed EVERYTHING on eBay. Every sketch, every doodle.

Shockingly most of it sold and pretty quickly. I sent out India ink sketches all over the US and a surprising number overseas.

I decided to return to some of my artistic roots last night, but with a twist.

Yesterday, I shot a video that will go live on Thursday, about the importance of prep work. In that video I use Meeden soft body matte acrylic paint to tone canvases and paper. I spent about 2 hours outside in my backyard toning 10 small canvases, 5 medium panels, and 30 pieces of paper. Big brush and 5 shades of paint. I mixed mud and grays and used the colors straight out of the bottles.

The matte paint is really nice for working on top of with India Ink. So last night I pulled a stack of these toned papers out and started to do some value studies. Simple pen and ink, created with pens made from Knot Weed*. Making reed style pens with knot weed is probably the only really good use for it, other than eating the shoots on occasion. Anyway, it seemed like a fun thing to do- create drawings of a place using a tool I gathered the materials for in the place I’m drawing.

Cutting a reed pen from knot weed needs a sharp strong knife. It’s best to cut the general shape of the pen while the knot weed is still soft and green. It’s much harder to cut when it’s dry, but it’s not terrible to shape when dry.

I cut myself 5 pens, cracked one and ended up with 4 usable dip pens. (More on these later.)

I used my images of the stormy skies and started to create while watching the dark thriller Furious.

This one is the simplest- India ink, walnut ink, and a small amount of colored pencil. The ink was scraped away to create the lighter areas.

A little more complicated here, the toned paper had 2 colors- pink and gray. IT worked really well for this image. I used the widest pen to create some marks that look like balsam fir to me. The lightness of the sky was added in with white water soluble crayons. A hint of gray colored pencils.

I let myself get a little wild with this one- all the materials stated but I also used an acid brush to add in some water and create some variation with the white crayon and walnut ink. I used the sides of the pens to scrape away and move the ink into puddles.

Trying to capture the dark airiness of this tree on the left. I think I did okay with scraping the ink around with the side of the pen.

This was the last one I worked on. This is nit a scene of Maine but of the Willows. I wanted to capture the trees airiness, plus the sticks of the bushes and the angular harshness of the rocks. I like how the walnut ink bled into the sky. I tempted fate with the technique, but I like it.

*Knot Weed is an invasive species but my parents have a small well contained stand of it on the farm. I hate it and we’ve tried to eradicate it a few times, but it takes years of dedicated effort and likely poison to get rid of it. Which honestly would leave a barren hole in the garden. But the reason it is well contained is that it is next to their house, there is a cellar entrance on one side and an entrance to the house on the other side. The lawn side gets mowed down regularly. My Dad also regularly goes in and cut the whole stand down to the ground.

Lesson 3- Getting into Flow State- What I Learned

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from Wikipedia:
Flow in positive psychology, also known colloquially as being in the zone or focused, is the mental state in which a person performing some activity is fully immersed in a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and enjoyment in the process of the activity. In essence, flow is characterized by the complete absorption in what one does, and a resulting transformation in one’s sense of time.[1] Flow is the melting together of action and consciousness; the state of finding a balance between a skill and how challenging that task is. It requires a high level of concentration. Flow is used as a coping skill for stress and anxiety when productively pursuing a form of leisure that matches one’s skill set.[2]

Flow state is that feeling as an artist where you are focused and in the zone, and I believe we can train ourselves into achieving it. This is why I believe in regular artistic practice and not daily for most creative people. Daily is prescriptive and rigid. Regular allows for flexibility and spontaneity. Regular practice means that it is part of my day and part of my routine, but it means that if I skip the practice I don’t beat myself up or even feel guilty for missing a day. It means that I can come back to the practice (whatever that may be) when I’m ready.

It also means that I feel good about my practice when I do it, I’m not doing it in drudgery or guilt.

Getting to flow state can take time, and if I’m working out of drudgery or guilt, I’m not going to get there.

For me getting into flow state means that the 30 minutes I set to work moves quickly, or slowly, depending on the work. Usually for me, getting into FLOW makes time feel fast. When I work in flow state, I feel competent and the works feels like it’s gone fast. I know in my videos I’ll state, wow that went quick.

I believe that the regular work of going to the same area and working in similar materials regularly, assists me into getting into flow fast.

Lightfastness Testing- 2 Month Results

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Apparently doing a lightfastness test is now controversial? People will really try to create clicks out of anything. No I won’t link to the guy ranting about artists doing their own lightfastness tests and calling out manufacturers for their BS. Instead I’ll like to this video by Sarah Renae Clark, who does a good job explaining the blue wool test, why it’s kind of garbage for art supplies, and how she did her tests.

I am currently using a North West facing window that gets full sun from about noon to sunset- during a Massachusetts summer. Roughly 8 to 9 hours a day from July to August. Yes that’s a lot of sun, yes it gets hot in the room and on the pane of glass. My goal isn’t to create museum or typical hanging situations, it’s to see how long a material will last when applied the way I use it. This means I’m not applying it in the way the manufacturer applied it in their tests. I’m doing washes, I’m scribbling, I’m swatching.

Anyway, I feel comfortable that my lightfastness tests give me the information I need to make art that lasts. You should conduct your own or look for results from other artists who make art like yours who share their work.

I’m also going to add here, I think lightfastness is important if you sell your work. It is less important if you are only working in a journal for yourself. I have art that I made that has been on my wall for 20 years made from who knows what kind of materials and it has probably faded more than I know. And yeah I hang my own art on the wall.

Now let’s discuss these tests I did with my current urban sketching/en plein air supplies.

I have been pleasantly surprised by the Arrtx watercolors, Beam Paints, Art of Soil, Meeden soft bodied acrylics and Stockmar Crayons. Almost all the colors showed little to now shifting except for the Arrtx Cad Red Pale and 2 of the shades of green in the Meeden soft bodied paints. None of the Beam or Art of Soil paints shifted at all. The Stockmar Crayons in bright bold primary and secondary colors are aimed at children and I expected them to respond like other brands of crayons and disappear, but they did not. Instead the colors are bright, bold, and vibrant- and the window didn’t get hot enough to melt the wax into the paper*.

Some disappointing results- Arteeza gouache. More of the colors disappeared or shifted than I expected. The “nude” colored Miya charcoal pencil shifted drastically. A number of the Aliexpress woodless charcoal pencils also disappeared or shifted drastically in color.

The most disappointing result was the number of Prismacolor colored pencils- both regular and watercolor that changed color or disappeared. It was just really disheartening to use a supposedly professional (Premier) colored pencil and have the color just absolutely change or disappear.

I wasn’t at all surprised when the Seami watercolors completely disappeared. This was pretty much an expected result.

*I am just going to write this here, I don’t think my window gets hot enough to cook any of the materials placed in it. The wax would have heated and melted into the paper if that were the case. There is no wax halo and the texture of the wax is still felt on the surface of the smooth Strathmore mixed media paper. So do with that what you will.

** IMO Lightfastness tests by individual artists are important because they give you information on how the material will last in the way that an artist uses it. You know I’m not the person suggesting that the only good materials are lightfast materials. I use more lightfast materials on works that I’m going to sell. I use anything I want in my sketches and art journal. You do you. That said, I do think that manufacturers should list accurate information on their tools. There have been a number of artists doing lightfastness tests on materials coming from budget friendly brands. Lightwish, Phoenix, Rubens, Mart Marie, etc… And more than a few of the items claims don’t match up with the artist tests. Here are some of the videos that offer up real world bright light tests over time:

https://youtu.be/plfnSqz67bo?si=fCQH_OxZZjvfiGgA

https://youtu.be/GlmOHZMlKus?si=Bwwq0Mc9SSQcIObs

https://youtu.be/EV_L_n61qVg?si=t8BoxVk5iZJslWRc

https://youtu.be/YCDYR3McULc?si=HP-VEi6q9kp6k86d

Lesson 1 from The Unofficial Artist in Residency- Desaturated Colors

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I learned a bunch of stuff from my Unofficial Artist In Residency at Salem Willows. Today I want to focus on desaturated colors.

I mentioned this in the video I’ll link below. Colors in the distance are desaturated, also a bit hazy. You can observe this When you look out across a distance, things further and further away appear more and more faded. Colors are a bit more muted. In my area distant trees appear a bit more blue and pale. In other areas I see artists represent colors as more pink or purple the more distant they are from the viewer. Capturing this color change is interesting.

It’s necessary to convince the viewers eye to buy that the image has depth.

The colors need to desaturate to make the foreground pop.

With acrylics and watercolors you do this by mixing on the palette or paper. For acrylics and gouache you can add a hint of white. For watercolor, more water and a touch of the color opposite.

With oil pastels, it’s a little different. Some brands blend well others just don’t. Some people use a palette knife and mix their oil pastels on a palette and apply with a knife.

I decided to mix the colors that I’d use desaturated in a series of tests to see what colors I could get. Generally I used 2 colors- a blue and a green. On some I added white and others I didn’t.

Here are images of my tests and some images made with them.

Sticky Messy Oil Pastels

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My last post was about proper storage of oil pastels.

My recommendation is that they are stored as air tight as possible- I will switch to an oversized zipper bag inside the tote at work, and I’ll keep using my nearly air tight clasping tote at home.

I decided to take some pics of what the sticky oil pastels look like in my sketchbook.

The above image is of my home set which has been stored air tight. The feel of them is still silky smooth and feels like drawing with lipstick. There are a few colors that are more transparent, particularly the greens and browns.

This image shows the work version. You can see that the application is significantly thicker. The color also seems to stick to itself and lift off the page. You can see that some colors are more opaque, this is only because there is so much MORE oil pastel on the page. (The colors are also in a different order from my package. Kids.)

It was really startling how different they 2 packages of pastels feel.

As a note, the pastels were both applied to the same paper in air conditioning. I have noticed that when I’ve take the work oil pastels outside for en plein air, they are smoother and less sticky.

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The Way an Art Material is Stored Matters

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In my post “Buttery Next Steps” I mentioned that oil pastels have a shelf life- Paul Rubens goes from buttery and smooth to sticky and less pleasant. My conclusion is that they are a use it or lose it material.

I’d like to amend this to, it depends on how you store them.

I store all of my art supplies in my basement studio in latching totes. They aren’t perfectly air tight, nor are they watertight, but they are close. I store my work art materials in less expensive non-latching totes.

In both cases I use a variety of sizes. A large difference is that at work, while in use the materials often sit without a lid but in the tote. While at home, my oil pastels get the lid put on them every time I’m done using them.

The work oil pastels are mostly, but not every box, much stickier, especially with an unwrapped stick than the oil pastels at home. Even the same brands have differences. While the Paul Rubens pastels at work were sticky and kind of gooey in how they moved the home version was just as slippery and soft as the day I bought them.

The difference is drastic.

This image was made with the “work” oil pastel. The layers are thicker and stickier.

This image was made with the “home” oil pastels. I used Mungyo and Paul Rubens. The layers are thinner and smoother, though there is still texture. The texture is intentional.

I’d like to also point out the temperature differences in my home studio versus my work studio. My home studio is cooler than the outside temp in the summer and remains pretty cool all winter. Humidity is controlled by a dehumidifier in the summer. My work studio… Is warm all winter and humid in the summer though we have 2 dehumidifiers running it’s humid. The AC is controlled by others, and doesn’t always work for the basement printshop.

These are Mungyo gallery oil pastels. They are the only pastels in my air tight container that got harder over time. they were also much more firm than other brands.

The differences in the 2 locations in terms of heat/cold and humidity are pretty drastic. I think my tendency to keep my personal oil pastels in an air tight container, born largely out of organization and storage needs rather than thinking about how the materials would act or survive if in an air tight containers

Mont Marie. Soft silky smooth, even after over a year of storage. Also, available in a tin and not quite as smooth as Rubens or Lightwish.

I chose air tight (mostly) containers because I want all my paper stored in air tight containers. Sometimes I forget to empty the dehumidifier and paper can mold but also it can retain smells. I’m not sure there is much worse than opening up a package of musty smelling paper.

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Buttery Next Steps

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Matching Materials to Feels

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One of the things we talk about in art therapy is how the very materials we use can impact the emotional state of a client. Depending on the person’s needs you assess and offer a material.

Materials are classified as controlled or loose. Controlled materials are things like pencils, pens, and markers. Loose materials are things like watercolors or regular clay. Of course there is a whole range of materials in the middle- things like acrylic, gouache, or tempera paints. Where would we put oil and chalk pastels? Or paint markers?

These designations get even more complicated when you layer in a person’s capabilities and skill level with a material. Most days I’d say gouache and acrylic are pretty controlled for me. Most days I’d even think that watercolors are something I have a lot of control with.

But then there are days when I don’t have control.

Case in point:

A few weeks back my DayJob announced internally a bunch of changes, the one I can now talk about is the closure of our film school program and that 2 of my friends are getting laid off.

BIG DEEP BREATH

Exhale

This obviously impacted me pretty deeply, I have mentioned in a few videos that I felt like I was mixing mud and that the watercolor and media felt out of control. I painted and used too much water and the color dripped down the paper in a way I had not expected, but normally would have, and felt frustration.

When the materials don’t match our mood, it doesn’t fit our needs, and it leads to frustration and art that doesn’t feel like it quite fit. But match the material to the mood and feeling? That’s where the magic lives.

Feeling Looser with Limited Materials

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Lately my en plein air bag has gotten heavy with additional mixed media materials. I keep adding to my materials that I might want to use, despite the fact that when I get out there I use just a few. This problem is compounded by the fact that I picked up the Soola pouch. It encourages maximalism over minimal supplies.

The decision paralysis over basically my entire studio out there with me wasn’t helpful at my goal of quickly (30 minutes-ish) capturing the feelings of a spot.

So in these videos I limited my supplies down to:

Water soluble graphite crayons
Water soluble charcoal pencils in fun colors
Some sort of water soluble colored pencil
My own walnut ink and acrylic ink
Some Inktense
Water brushes

I didn’t use everything, I started out with water soluble pencils and the graphite crayons and added in as I wanted color or something that matched the feelings.

I also chose to work 9×12 inches with a taped border.

After this I switched things up and decided I REALLY need to lighten my load out- it has to now fit in my Vernon Trunk Bag for my bike. I switched everything out to my cardboard pochade box, which works REALLY well. Shockingly well. I’m going to make a whole video about building one.

The thing about working with just a few materials and focusing only on values- dark and lights means that I can not worry about mixing colors and matching them or not. When I was using the Seami kits I used a pale pink and purple color for the beach and honestly it’s perfect. I’ve got to remember that pink is a good color for the beach.

Using minimal materials also means that the images feel more low stakes, at least to me. I don’t get stressed out at the idea that I might want to sell these images (though I’ll totally sell them if any one is interested.)

Anyway, here are the videos:

https://youtu.be/uBfQl_FxJBg