I want to tell you about mixing darks. For years I lived under the impression that a “real artist” doesn’t use black paint, even though it’s a part of many colors, like one of my favorites Payne’s Gray. In school mixing black with anything was definitely frowned upon. Instead we were expected to mix colors together to create deep dark shades. One of my professors taught me a dark that I really like and still use. It’s useful with a variety of colors because it can be mixed warm or cool.

It uses the following 3 colors:

• Pthalo Blue
• Alizarin Crimson
• Pthalo Green

 

For the standard deep dark color, mix all 3 in equal proportions. If you’d like it warmer add more aliz crim.

This recipe can be changed up by mixing in various proportions:

• alizarin crimson
• Pthalo Blue
• Cadmium Yellow Med or Cad Orange

 

Again start with equal amounts of each and adjust the colors to get the shade you want and need.

The various art professors who had issues with black said it “muddied” your colors. To a point that’s true, if you add a TON of black to a mix of colors it can turn to mud and not be clear. That being said, adding a  touch of black to a color will dull it and darken it.

One professor that I had suggested that we use it as a base color for shadows. Where another suggested that we use thalo blue for shadows and another suggested that we use thalo green for shadows.

I’ve found that the truth lies somewhere within the maze of contradictory and fuzzy advice these knowledgeable ladies and gents shared with me oh so many years ago. The core of this whole discussion is that you need to stare at a shadow and decide for yourself what color does it lean towards? Red Blue Green? Depending on what you see you should lean that way.

For me, my shadows lean toward the blue purple side of the spectrum so I start with a touch of pthalo blue and a tough of alizarin crimson hue or quid magenta.

Even though I feel okay using black now, I still tend to make my darks from blends of colors. In the image below that dark dark color is the second blend I wrote about AND I had it lean toward blue.

Please be aware as you read this post that I'm not "claiming copyright" to the IDEA behind cult of stuff, the idea that we've got too much stuff and that we fall victim to marketing. What I'm claiming is that someone was inspired by my post, wrote their own after reading mine and seeing that it was quite popular (over 600 hits in 24 hours), and then posted their post. What is the usual course of events with blogs is that the blog post that inspired the post gets a linkback, it's blogging courtesy. What I'm complaining about is a severe lack of blogging manners.

You’ll notice this blog is covered under the creative commons license. There’s a button somewhere on here that states which license it’s covered under. I do this so that people can repost parts of my blog (with attribution) and my images (also with attribution) so long as their blog or group is not for profit. I do this because I see copyright as divisive (more on this in another post). As it’s currently set up copyright is designed to protect big companies (will further be referred to as “the man”) and not the little guy, aka me, as a blogger or an artist. Legally sure it does but it costs money to copyright something and if I were to copyright (register) everything I produced I’d soon be broke.

That being said, I don’t think people should copy other people’s art work, teach classes that other people came up with, buy journals from bookbinders only to steal the design, nor do I think that someone should take someone else’s ranting tirade and rewrite it so that it’s more palatable for their audience and then post it on their blog. You see all of that is wrong, and when people do such things they are morally corrupt people who care more about their bottom line than they do about their fellow human beings.

Just as a for instance. I had an email conversation that sparked one of my cult of stuff posts. I wrote to the person with whom I had the conversation with to be sure that she was okay that I riffed on our conversation. After I got the okay I posted the rant. If I write a response to a post, or a post inspired by another blogger I write “hey this post was inspired by so-and-so over here, read it!” That’s blogger courtesy. I’ve been blogging for a LONG time, since 2000. So this is something you learn when you’ve been blogging for a long time and perhaps it’s something you don’t get if you come out of the old school publishing industry. One might think that it’s something you’d pick up after a year or more of blogging.

My point being if you like one of my blog posts, feel free to repost it with a link back. If you can’t link back don’t repost. It’s simple. IF you like a blog post but don’t think it’s quite right for your audience, contact me I’m willing to do a rewrite. IF you think you can write a better post, feel free, but the courteous thing to do is provide a link back to the author who inspired you. If you can’t or won’t do that, well you are probably of questionable morale judgment and I don’t want my blog and writing associated with you.

On another note don’t talk about respect, copyright and copywrong if you aren’t going to follow by your very own rules, it’s hypocritical.

Some assorted pictures supporting my theory of blog-lifting:

Oh mother nature! Sometimes she’s the bane of my existence. I have this meeting at the regional office in Cambridge, MA. I had planned to go in extra early, as I usually do before meetings, to beat traffic. This time I had planned to wander about with either my pochade box or with my camera. I’d get a little art time into what would otherwise be wasted time sitting in my car.

Sadly it sounds like mother nature has other plans in store for me, like sitting in my car, because we’re supposed to get showers. I’m packing my stuff just in case but I’m bummed about the prospect of rain.

BUT on a good note the weather for this weekend is supposed to be great, so I plan to make another visit to a scenic location and paint with my pochade, this time on the tripod!

Painting at the beach among the rocks. Jane took this pic of me while she waited for layers on her watercolor to dry. I really love our art adventures!

One of my summer goals is to spend more time walking in this pretty city that I live in, get to know it by foot. Some of you may know that a few summers ago I got to know it by motorized bike. I traveled around the city on my little bike, okay, mini hog, and snapped pictures of it near landmarks. I traveled to nearly every park in the city, there are nearly 15, and really got to enjoy the city. I did many of these trips at sunrise and sunset, as there are fewer cars on the road and thus it was safer.

Anyway, I’ve decided that this summer I want to spend more time walking the city. Beverly is a pretty safe city that is friendly to walkers and there are lots of neat places to walk to.

So anyway, I walked up to the festival today and then walked around the park. I shot a bunch of pictures to get more accustomed to my camera. I need to learn how to use it better. I got some neat shots, some of which I put up on the blog yesterday. Anyway I took a few more shots and I’ll post them here.

Awhile back I was emailing back and forth with an art friend about messages received online with negative intentions. A month or so before someone who runs another group online sent me a long rambling email telling me, “Hey I don’t want you to take this the wrong way and I don’t think you suck, but I don’t want to be associated with you, and by the way, you suck.” The way the message was written she wanted some sort of apology for an imagined slight, it took me off guard, and the tone in which it was written ticked me off. I collected myself and fired off a response. She fired off another long rambling email which again beat the dead horse of me sucking. I fired off another response and her another. After the 3^rd exchange I realized I wasn’t going to get anywhere, no matter what I said or did this person was always going to think that I suck. I stopped responding. I let it go. I let her go.

In my conversation with my art friend I suggested that my friend shut out the haters, block their email and IP addresses, give them the finger and go on with her life.

The realization that I came to today is that is not what I did with the person who repeatedly said I sucked, you know, for my own good, in a patronizing “this hurts me more than it hurts you tone.” I let her go, which is inherently different from shutting her out. I said my piece and when I realized we were never going to see eye-to-eye, I let her go.

Fighting with someone who wants nothing more than the fight is a pointless activity. It detracts from the real good that can happen and from your reality. Life doesn’t need to be full of drama for it to be exciting and full of wonder.

I did learn from the experience. I learned that if someone comes to me first spouting sweet nothings about how great I am and then pretends to be a friend that they can turn on a dime at some perceived misstep. In the end I did block her email and IP address, I did that first, before I realized I’d let her go. I have to think that the conversation that I had with her before blocking her was as useful as the act of blocking.

This negative Nancy’s wanted nothing more but to tear me down to build herself up. But why? Some might say she’s jealous of my success (I run 2 websites that don’t make money, um yay?) or that she wants what I have. I asked myself all kinds of questions immediately after the interaction what exactly had I done to incur her wrath? I wanted to know where it came from. I wanted to explore it learn from it.

In the end I wasted a lot of time pondering her words and her anger, wondering if she were justified.

I let her throw a wrench into my life.

I gave her control.

I took the control back and let her go.

What does this have to do with art? It’s the time suck, the time I spent worrying about her I spent away from art, I let it get me blocked up and upset. Online interactions can sometimes leave me  feeling grumpy and tired and sometimes I just need to let go.