The Antique Dealer - Menton France

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The Antique Dealer - Menton France  18x24  Oils on canvas panel

Another painting inspired by Jilly's Menton Daily Photos. This fellow is an antique dealer sitting on one of his pieces looking a "bit" displeased with something. Maybe it was the last meal he ate, maybe there are no customers. Maybe, perhaps, who knows?

I think that his eyes are kind but his mouth reflects some disappointment(s)?

Cherry Blossoms Study #1 - Study for Work In Progress

Cherry Blossoms Study #1  11x14  Oils on canvas panel

Study for Work In Progress.

This is an 11x14 "sketch" for a painting for my daughter. The final size will be 3 feet by 3 feet on stretched canvas.  I didn't have a "small" square support/ground to work with, so I used one of my canvas covered masonite panels.

Question to knowledgeable artists:  is a canvas panel called a "support" or a "ground"?  I looked at the Golden Paints.com  web site and I interpret them as saying that a "support" and a "ground" are essentially the same thing only different.?!  Aaaack!  I'm assuming that the support is the material to which ground is applied.  Then my oil paints are applied the the ground that has been applied to the support.

So . . . . . what is the thing called that I frame (maybe) & hang on the wall? 

A PAINTING! (DUH!)

What is a Ground?
Historically, a ground is a surface specially prepared for painting by applying a layer of paint of even tone in preparation for further painting techniques. Acrylic Gesso can be used as a ground in the true sense, or a layer of gel, medium or paint can also be used for this purpose. With the availability of so many suitable products, a ground can be very specifically tailored for the requirements of the artist. 

What is a Support?
The term "support" refers to any material onto which paint is applied. Canvas, wood, and paper are common painting supports, but the types of supports used for artwork are very extensive. Cave walls and animal skins were among the first supports. Plaster frescos and wooden panels later became prominent, which eventually gave way to linen and cotton canvases. Modern supports such as polyester canvases, AcrylaWeave® and Syntra® panels will most likely succumb to other advancing technology. The search for the ideal support is perhaps a never-ending quest, and is very much influenced by the types of materials available at the time. 

Woman Near Green House

 

Woman Near Green House  16x20  Oil on canvas panel

Updated Photo 1/2/10  - The photo of the "new" painting is on the left, the "old" painting is on the right.  I tried to improve the rendering of the woman's hands and face.  The darker photo is just digital bloggerization; I didn't change anything about the house in the painting. Honest!

For a person who tries to avoid GREEEEEN, I sure went through a LOT of green in this painting.  I picked this out of some public domain photos on the internet cause it seemed like I needed to make a painting.

It's hard to believe, but this will be my last posting in 2009! Tomorrow is 2010. That number seems cumbersome to me but I'll need to get used to it.

I'll probably make some adjustments to this painting after a while and before I sign it. I guess it will be finished when it's finished.

Happy New Year!

Good Spot For The Parade

Good Spot For The Parade 16 1/2 x 20 3/8 Oil on canvas panel

Nov 24 2009 - updated the photo. FINI! DONE!

Nov 20 2009 - updated the photo after "touching up" the painting a little bit. I feel that it STILL needs SOMETHING! I have no clue what. :-)

This started out as a painting of a woman sitting on a sunny park bench reading her book. B-O-R-I-N-G. SO, I sat her down between two benches in an aluminum lawn chair and gave her a warm coat and a lap blanket . Because the parade is taking place in Arkansas, the graffiti on the wall is "localized" a bit. (My apologies to all Arkansans and graffiti artists.)

The strange panel size comes from recycling scraps of Masonite and pieces of wood. I glued the Masonite to the pine wood frame. I "squared" it up with my table saw when the glue was dry. I probably did it backwards, but that's how I usually do things, so why change now? :-)

At last the painting is in focus in the photograph. I told my camera that I wasn't really taking a photo so it relaxed and let things happen. woo hoo.

Weekend Shoppers

Weekend Shoppers 11x14 Oil on Canvas panel

This appears to be a family (tourists?) out shopping on Main Street in Eureka Springs AR. This was in the summer on one of the hotter days we had a few months ago. I'm guess that this is Mom and Dad out with their daughter. I go to look at and photograph the people - Melissa likes to go into the shops. This works out really well for us both.

I had problems with lighting this painting for the photo. I keep getting glare this is the best of many. I'll try again today to see if I can make a digital photo with a smart camera. The camera is smarter than the operator, that's for sure! :-)

Eureka Springs has many natural mineral springs. Two web sites where you can read more about it are: http://www.eurekasprings.com/ and http://www.eurekasprings.org/

We always stop at Bubba's BBQ - really! :-) Good BBQ and real people work there.

This is pointed on one of my home made Masonite panels covered with canvas. These panels have the look of canvas without the "bounce" of stretched canvas. The Masonite is reinforced with 3/4 inch square pieces of pine glued in place. I use better quality carpenter's glue clamped to the frame while the canvas is glued (and back stapled) to the Masonite with rabbit skin glue then I apply 3 or 4 coats of tinted Gesso. Presently my panels are "only" 3/4 inch thick. I'll make some thicker "gallery" panels later. I'll explain it mo bettah if anybody who is interested reads this far and lets me know with a comment.

All The News

$75.00 plus shipping

All The News 9 3/4x11 Oil on Canvas panel

I saw all of these newspaper "boxes" lined up at the NW Arkansas Community College campus and thought it was remarkable that there is so much printed material available. Much of it is free! I'm NOT a student, by the way. I probably should be but I'm not. :-)

The support for this painting is on one of my experiments with Masonite panels. The Masonite is glued to a pine frame and that assembly is covered with canvas. I DO like the look and feel of canvas, I just don't like the "give" of open-backed stretched canvas. I make these braced Masonite panels (no warping), wrap them with canvas, do the gesso thing then make my paintings. A happy camper! The odd size of this panel (9 3/4x11) is a result of using a left over piece of Masonite to test my panel-making method. Maybe a subject for a separate posting.

These panels would be good if a person likes "gallery wrapped" supports. Personally, I prefer putting my paintings in frames - which I usually make myself.

PS - The "box" at the far left (by the tree) is a trash bin! What does that mean? :-)

I really LIKE masonite!

This is one of many reasons that I like to use masonite rather than canvas or other "soft" painting supports. Lots of people don't like masonite for their good reasons. But when something heavy fell on this finished piece (it was framed and signed) and poked a hole in it all I had to do was use my table saw and cut off six inches. Granted, I was lucky that the hole was in a place where I could do that.

The "new" piece measures 12x24

The "old" piece measured 12x30

"THE HOLE" The hole measures about 6 inches by 3 inches.

The hole sort of looks cool in a photograph. A big bird flying by? Note the smudged signature! Oh well! What the - - - - ?

Question about Gesso - Part 2

Question about Gesso - Part 2. In case you're interested . . . .

On May 23, 2009 I posted a question about storing gesso without it getting lumpy after being stored over time. MY "problem" is that LUMPS (great gooey globs of gesso, really) form in the gesso when I store the partly empty (partly full?) container. Then I have to deal with the clumpy, lumpy gesso the next time I want to gesso a support. I make my own Masonite panel supports and canvas supports so when I make a "batch" of supports, I use my gesso. I pour the gesso onto the new support then use a 6 inch foam "cabinet & door" paint roller to spread the gesso.

Suggested "solutions" were:

• store the container upside down
• put the gesso in progressively smaller containers expelling the air
• use all of the gesso
  

After some "experimenting":

• I found that the clumps still formed when storing the gesso container upside down. But now the clumps/lumps are at the bottom of the jar when the container is turned upright.
• Putting the unused gesso in a soft-side plastic bottle (e.g. plastic soda pop bottle) was messy getting the gesso from a quart jar into a one or two liter plastic bottle - even using a funnel. Plus a great deal of gesso stays in the first container. AND small lumps still formed even when the air seems to be pretty much totally expelled.

So . . . . If (WHEN) I use gesso I have to take my lumps! :-) I'll only buy the quart sized containers of gesso although it's a bit more expensive than the larger sizes. AND when I make a bunch of supports I'll try to make enough so that I'll use most if not all of the container. Where's the savings when buying the larger container if I'm spending time unlumping a gessoed support ?

That's my story and I'm sticking to it. :-)
Ken B.

A Question About Gesso

I have a question to others who use Acrylic Gesso prime their supports.

I buy quarts of Gesso and prime several supports (mainly Masonite panels) at a time. After a while LUMPS of semi-dry gesso develop and as I apply the gesso, I need to pick these lumps out of the still wet gesso on the panel. After I've picked off the lumps I need to "fix" the places where the lumps were. Aaaarrrghhhhhh!!!!!

I think it happens after I've lowered the level in the gesso container and the top of the gesso begins to set up and form a "skin".

Does anybody have a solution to this problem? Maybe storing in progressively smaller containers? Or is this something I need to accept as one of life's burdens?

Sept 9, 2009 - See Gesso Question Part 2

Home Made Masonite Panels

Attached are some Masonite panel layouts that I drew up several years ago so that I had some idea of the number of various standard sized panels from one 4'x8' Masonite sheet. With some effort and around $7-$8 for a 4'x8' piece of 1/8" Masonite you can get 10 to 30 home made panels. The 3/16" thickness is $3 or $4 dollars more per sheet.

The actual cut sizes will depend upon the width of the saw blade used to make the cuts. I usually have the lumber yard cut the 4'x8' sheets into two or three manageable sizes (to fit into the back of my car). Sometimes the "big box" stores charge for more than two cuts and they aren't always as accurate as I hope they could be. But, then, neither am I! :-)

When I do not plan to make "canvas panels" (see below), I put on two or three coats of gesso (usually tinted) on the large pieces when I get them home. I use a foam "rubber" paint rollers to apply the gesso. After the gesso has dried I use a clamped straight edge and a fine-toothed jigsaw or a fine-toothed circular saw to cut the large Masonite panels to the sizes I want. There is some "waste" on two of the drawings but those could be used for small (REALLY small) studies?

"Canvas Panels"
Before I apply gesso to the Masonite, and I feel like having some "canvas panels" to paint on, I glue canvas to the panels after they are cut to size. I apply tinted gesso after the glue has dried and the fabric has been trimmed. There are articles on the web that explain the process better than I can. These are the first three I saw after I Googled "how to make canvas panels". There are MANY more articles out there!

http://www.learn-to-draw-and-paint.com/canvas-myo.html
http://www.sheilaevans.net/2008/12/03/making-canvas-panels/
http://myfrencheasel.blogspot.com/2007/12/making-mdf-canvas-panels.html

I hope this helps somebody cut the cost of their painting supplies.

Ken B.

30 Panels #5

15 each 9"x12"
15 each 12"x16"
WASTE - 3 each 3"x12"

24 Panels #4
24 each 12"x16"
NO WASTE

 


 31 Panels
16 each 9"x12"
15 each 12"x16"
NO WASTE

18 Panels
9 each 12"x20"
9 each 12"x16"
NO WASTE

10 Panels

each 18"x24"

WASTE - 2 each 6"x24"