Truckee Open Art Studio Tour Coming Up Next Month

I would like to invite you to make plans now for a visit to the first annual TOAST next month!

All original paintings will be discounted by 25% for the tour, and I will be putting together a bargain bin!

Meet Susan Bloom, a guest artist in my studio. 

We hope to see you on one of the weekends, July 17-19 and 24-26.....

How To Clean Your Brushes and Keep Them Like New

I promised a few people that I would re-post this blog so here goes.....

I use a product I found through my lovely plein air teacher, Brigitte Curt. This product is amazing. The best part is that it is ecologically safe and harmless to your brushes. It even gets out dried oil paint in your brushes and clothes. This means I don't have to make all my clothes into paint clothes, ha! I will tell you how to use it on your clothes and dried up brushes that you thought you'd have to throw away at the bottom of this post. But first, let's go through my procedure for regular brush cleaning.

I've also had some of my students tell me that Murphy's Oil Soap works very well and is available in most stores. 

Cover the bottom of a small bucket, can or jar with Brush Flush.

Now, dip your brush into the Brush Flush and get it saturated well.

Usually I've been using the same brushes all week, and I do clean them with mineral spirits, but to get them in good shape you need to remove all of the paint. 

Next, take a leftover kitchen sponge and wipe your brush into it, back and forth. You will be amazed how much paint is still in your brush.

Rinse, and repeat until the brush and suds are paint free. The soap suds will turn white.

Rinse with warm running water.

Then wipe to make sure all the paint is removed. Be gentle with your brush. Alway wipe away from the ferrel. 

Now your brush is clean. It might be stained, but the paint has been removed and your brush will last you! Wipe it dry, gently.

Lie flat on an absorbent surface.

After you have cleaned all your brushes, dip your fingers into the Brush Flush. Now wipe your brush with your fingers, shaping it.

Squeeze the tip, and the hairs will stick together and dry correctly.

Give them a day to dry in a sunny place if your can. If the paint is dry because you forgot to clean it at all, just saturate the brush hairs with the Brush Flush and let is set for a day, dip again, loosen into the soap and let it set again. When the hairs are nice and soft, follow the above directions.

If you have dried paint on your clothes, pour a little Brush Flush into the paint, scrub, and let set. Repeat until the paint loosens up. Then wash as unusual.

PLEASE NOTE

When you are in the middle of a painting and you are cleaning paint from your brushes, take care not to cram you brush into the mineral spirit can. 

BE GENTLE and swipe it back and forth inside the spirit can to remove the paint. NEVER push your brush into the can and never leave it in the can. The MS will dry out your bristles and make them brittle. 

When you take the brush out of the can after a few swipes, sop up the extra moister with your rag or paper towel. One more tip, if you will get into the habit of wiping your dirty brush with a paper towel BEFORE you dip into the can you will save on Mineral Spirits. 

See ya next time.....

Find Out What Your Palette Can Do For You....

We have been talking about our palette and color mixing for a couple of weeks. This week I wanted to share a very useful exercise that will teach you what your palette can do for you.

It is not a quick and easy exercise. But I promise you, it will open your eyes!

Here is how it goes:
Grid a sheet of gessoed canvas, about a 16x20" with about one inch boxes. You will need to have at the same number of squares across the top and side of your grid, as the number of paint colors you use on your palette. I used my basic palette colors in addition to some mixed colors (in quotes below).

Keep in mind I don't have all these colors on my palette at the same time and I don't always use tube greens. Also note that I always like to have 1-3 mixed grays on my palette for mixing purposes.

The paint colors across the top and down the side are exactly the same and in the same order. In the example above they are:

White                            W
Cad Yellow Medium    CYM
Yellow Ochre               YO
(mixed Orange)            O
Cad Red Light              CRL
Rose                              R
Alizarin Crimson          A
(mixed Violet)              V
Cobalt Blue                   CB
Ultramarine Blue          UB
(mixed violet blue/gray)    VBG
Pthaylo Blue                  PB
Viridian (I think?)          VG
Pthaylo Green                 PG
(mixed neutral middle gray)    NG
Payne's Gray or Black    B
Transparent Oxide Red   TOR

What happens next? A whole eye opening experience. It starts out tedious but believe me when I say, you will develop a rhythm and you will have so much fun when you begin to see what you get with each mix.

Begin by painting each square across the top in the order on your usual palette, (use your own palette paint colors), and then paint them in the same order down the side.

1-The first square - white is already done.

2-The second color is CYM. Mix white with CYM and paint the box where the two meet.

3-Now, move to the third color, YO. Mix white with YO and paint the box where the two colors meet. You will be mixing each color with white first, and you paint that in the square where the YO along the top and the YO along the side MEET! Above you can see this, the YO light is painted in the square where the two meet. Think of a crossword puzzle.

It can be tricky, especially as you get going and you are mixing more and more colors with each other, so use your finger on each hand to find the middle square by starting at the top and side and then follow to the center where they meet.

You will mix each color (along the top) with those colors that are along the side. What you will find out is that each color will get mixed with every other color on your palette - in addition each color will be mixed with every other color PLUS WHITE. You will get the idea after a while.

4-Still working with YO, you will then mix YO with CYM, the color that is above the YO tint box. If you put your finger on the YO on top and the YOM on the left, you will paint this box with that mix.
Now mix a little white into that mix and paint the box left of the YO tint, where the CYM on top meets the YO on the side.

5-Continue with one color at a time. I found that if I mix the original color with white first, it kind of helped me set the pace and keep my place. After I painted in the tinted color, I began mixing the pure color with the color that meets it from the side. After I mix two colors together, I paint the box above the tinted version of this same color. THEN mix a little white into it and paint the box on the left side of the tinted color. Move to the next color!

You will find in the finish that the color mixes that are below the white mixes will all be lighter because they have been mixed with white. The color mixes above are pure color mixes.

I don't know how to explain it any better my friends. It is not as difficult as it sounds, especially after you get going. I had so much fun discovering these new mixes, and was most of the time surprised at the beautiful colors that would evolve.

What you will learn through this exercise is much more than you might expect. Your mixing on the palette while painting will be much easier and smoother. You will discover new ways to get the mix you are looking for with less effort. You will save time.

If you paint this on a sheet of canvas or board you can take it with you or post it in your studio and use it as a reference.

I hope you give it a try. Please send me a note or just leave a comment if you do, and ask questions. Let me know if I said anything that doesn't make sense. Best of luck to you!

What? A Limited Palette? And Mixing Compliments

As I mentioned in the previous post, in the Wednesday studio classes we are studying color and color mixing using a limited palette. For those of us who started out with a full palette of color, (guilty!), we have a lot to learn. 

When I started teaching I began learning so much. I started setting up still lifes, so my students could learn the value of painting from life. I had painted this way, but not a lot. When I first learned to paint I painted mostly from photographs, (how NOT to paint). So, I began to "see" and identify value and color on a whole new level. What they say is true, to teach what you want to learn!

But, to stay on my topic, I then started teaching these color mixing exercises. The above photograph is one example. This is a wonderful way to learn to understand what your palette can do for you.

Use the color wheel as a guide and chose any two compliments. Paint a small square - use a palette knife or a size ten flat brush - on each side of the scale. No need to get fancy and draw everything out perfectly. You just want to practice this quickly and move to another set of compliments. Note - paint on a canvas sheet, and when it dries you can take it with you to class or use it in your studio as a guide.

When you paint your complimentary color on each side of the scale, allow about three inches in between. Now you begin to mix the two. The trick here is to use your eyes and not equal amounts of paint. The goal is to mix a neutral, one that does not lean toward either of the complimentary colors. 

So when I mixed yellow and violet, I used a LOT more yellow than violet for the neutral mix. It is important that you judge this correctly so take your time on this.

So now you have three spots of color. One compliment on each side and a their neutral gray mix in the center of the two. Now you will mix each compliment with the neutral mix, and your goal here is to lean the color mix toward it's compliment. So the middle right yellow spot will be less neutral than the center spot and more yellow than violet. On the left, the mix will be more violet than yellow. 

From here just add a little white to each mixture (toward a middle value), and paint it directly below the "pure" colors you just painted. Then do this again, adding enough white to mix a very light value. 

That's it. You will have fun using several different tube colors for each compliment. After you have done this with all three primaries, go on ahead and paint the secondaries and tertiaries the same way.

There are many more valuable exercises to do, but this one is simple and easy and will pay big benefits.

Last week we painted a still life set up using only black, white and ONE color. It was a fun learning experience and a good study of value and what you can do with one color.