NEW ART PROJECTS GOIN ON?

much in the same temperment viv. Im looking down the road at some aWS type shows.9Im still working on my signatory mandated shows, I need more cuz i keep losing credit by not doing enough shows a year , mostly because of my other work)
Today was gonna be a plein air (although in the truck) painting day, however the tryptich Ive started needs a moodier day. its like -3 and its really bright.
So, just gonna pile firewood and work in the shop and wait for the big fooball game tomorrow.
Is a long dark season between Christmas and spring. However, I can feel the days getting slightly longer

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what are aws shows???? American watercolour society????? something like that?

do you belong to any groups?

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Asherman wrote:

If you can get in, go for the Rhode Island School of Design (RSDI). This would be my choice, if I were to be looking for another degree and/or one in the fine arts.

My niece is currently attending the DaVinci School in Florence, Italy. She loves it, and is doing very well. I think by the end of this year it will have cost us about $25,000. Though she is a fine young painter, she is studying art restoration. We think that is a wise choice as it will provide an excellent income inside the art world, and still allow her to pursue her own creative vision.

She's been tapped to do restoration work in Nepal this summer, all expenses paid plus a salary. When she returns, she has a job with a florentine art restoration outfit.

I'm more interested in representational oil painting than design, but Iv'e heard good things about the school and will be sure to look into it, thank you.

Wow, how exciting!!!
She must be a very interesting person. How kind of you to help fund her degree! It must be very exciting to see famous paintings with their clothes off Smile

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Viv - what you said about the acryllics looking good -under- the oil (with the acryllic showing through) got me all revvved up, I'm going to have to try that. I'll bet you could get some really interesting color variation.

I hope you do get into the London galleries - from what I can tell online, your work seems like it would sell and be in galleries. What's the trend in the london art scene right now? In America we are obsessed with things like the venice bienniale and very modern work that is duchamp/pop derrivitave and heavy-handed social commentary. Of course, that is the stuff that's getting into museums and being labeled "high end." And what many art students value and try to emulate. But of course that's not the only art in America - in about every town I have been to there are watercolor societies and landscape painters.

Farmerman - that sounds so romantic. Firewood, football games, and painting...

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truth
Yeah, Farmerman. Kiss me.

Seriously, I too am curious about oil over acrylics. What has been said on these threads about water-soluble oils? I just don't want to mess with the dangers of turpentine. Has anyone comment on the substitute, turpenoid (?). I want to avoid the smells for my wife's sake, not mine, and the dangers of ingestion.

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Re: truth

JLNobody wrote:

Yeah, Farmerman. Kiss me.

Seriously, I too am curious about oil over acrylics. What has been said on these threads about water-soluble oils? I just don't want to mess with the dangers of turpentine. Has anyone comment on the substitute, turpenoid (?). I want to avoid the smells for my wife's sake, not mine, and the dangers of ingestion.

Romantic -era-
not of coupledom romance.

don't be fooled, turpenoid and odorless turpentine is just as bad for you, you just can't smell it (which may be worse, b/c you won't know if it's in the air.) Iv'e heard of all kinds of different thinners, but I would reccomend just getting really good ventilation or wearing a mask.

Iv'e tried water soluble oils - they are easier to wash off of the brush, but I wouldn't thin them with water.

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truth
Portal Star, but the water solubles are safer? They do not require turpentine or its equivalents?

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JL, I asked the question the other day9prev page) and later looked up that water soluble oils are just normal oils fluffed with a specific class of detergents . The detergent/oil emulsions make the water solubleness. So you really dont need saolventsHowever, vivien posted that some of her friends dont like the water soluble ones because of the insipid and thin colors. That alone turned me off.
I never liked acrylics because they made the world look flat also, and I didnt like the ketone mix in there.

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truth
Farmer, I like the ease of acrylics, and the colors are satisfactory TO ME, and they are relatively safe (except for cadmiums. What, then, do you do to protect yourself when using oils?
I've got to get more familiar with Gamblin products and advice.

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You wear gloves, ALWAYS wear gloves because paint toxins can be absorbed by skin. I used to paint in a closet with the door closed and get the paint all over me a BAD idea.

It is true, acryllics are better for you. I am not satisfied with the way they handle or their colors, but I haven't used them in depth. I guess I use oils because I am used to oils and like the way they handle - it goes well with how I like to work. Acryllics dry suprisingly fast without a medium to slow them. The texture the water soluble oils made when I washed them with water was not at all to my liking, so I can't imagine thinning them with water - I also heard there are issues with the archival quality of them.

You also need good ventillation (circulating air - either outside or ideally have a ventillation system in your studio that pulls air out and puts new air in.

I like to use a gas mask when I work with a lot of alkyd, because I am particularly sensitive to its fumes.

Art supplies can be very harmful. There is an art hazards and preventions book out there, someone mentioned it on these forums before - what was it again?

Basically, all art supplies are pigments with some kind of binder. Many of the pigments themselves are harmful, but oil painting tends to be particularly full of harmful ingredients. The way I see it is, most of the things in oil paint are aiming for being archival, and things that are archival are often toxic to humans.

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This one's for farmerman.

http://sc.groups.msn.com/tn/9A/10/theravensrealm/ef/1c44.jpg

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truth
Thanks, Portal Star. Very helpful.

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jln - there is a citrus based thinner that you can use - I've never used it but art magazines praise it.

As I've said before - i use cooking oil (the cheapest) to clean brushes and baby oil to clean me - so no turps or thinners there to upset your wife!

Do have a go with oils. I'm sure you'd like them.

Portal i think you'll enjoy the oils over acrylics. I look forward to hearing how you get on.

Thanks for the kind remarks about my work.

Gillian Ayres, a contemporary painter who uses thick thick impasto, paints with her hands a lot - and survives! maybe there is too much concern about toxicity - Monet lived to a ripe old age as did Picasso! (i know Cadmium is nasty and lead white was)

A wide range of art work sells - there is a big art fair on next week in Islington (London) where major galleries from all over Britain have stands. I don't think I'll get there this year, which is a real shame as i normally go every year.

london art fair

it shows every conceivable kind of art going on at the moment so is a fascinating show to go to. It is really impossible to say what sells at the moment as in London the range is vast - from Damien Hurst and the Chapman brothers through photorealism, abstract, political comment, powerful drawings like Lucian Freud's, subtle colourist paintings like Rose Hilton's .... the list is endless!

Away from London I suppose landscapes would probably be the best selling , along with abstracts and life but it would vary according to the area.

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hey JL, I dont wanna start nothin here , but if you like acrylics you go fella. All art supplies have some toxic effects. I cant find that thread I started last year exactly on that topic , but still, the blue pigments are cyanide based, greens are pthalo and nickel
, cadmium is still used, so the habit of licking ones brushes like van Gogh , could bring on acute toxic reactions.
Acrylics use ketones, thats why they dry so fast and are water soluble. you can get high breathing enough acrylic pigment.

My wifes art degrees were in print and fibre and the University printing studios were like a body shop with huge fans all over the place. when they switched from mineral oils to soybean based pigments , the toxic reactions were lessened. However until trhat point, as portal star mentiones, anytime a student was running an edition of prints, they were all wearing vOC masks and gloves up to their elbows and huge heavy aprons. Looked like a clean room at a nuclear facility.

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truth
Thanks guys. I have been using long rubber gloves when cleaning brushes, but otherwise I like to occasionally use my fingers for some effects, and sometimes to apply paint with cheese cloth and sponge thereby getting some paint on my fingers, but I wash my hands frequently. Maybe the alcohol I drink (in moderation) sometimes when painting helps. Laughing

But when I try oils--and I will--I appreciate the information I'm getting here. Nothing like experience, except perhaps sharing it.

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I spray my hands with Non-stick cooking spray before working ... when I remember to do it. Once I start work and my focus is centered on the painting, I'm mostly unaware of stuff. Paint, oil or turp gets on the floor, I'll walk through it until I'm finished for the day before thinking about cleaning it up. My smock generally keeps my shirts clean, but I have a closet full of pants that have more colors than Benjamin's robe. I have an old baret to keep my hair out of the paint, or the paint out of the hair as the case might be. I like to wear sandals while working, but Natalie is afraid I'll screw up the linens, so I have to wear shoes now. I've been known to hold a paint smeared brush between my teeth. Rather than stop for lunch, I'll eat a sandwich at the easel. Sometimes, I'll wipe my hands first, but not always. My coffee goes cold in the cup, so I've moved a microwave out to the studio for fast hot drinks while I'm considering the next step(s).

Damn, the Feds or State might shut me down for all the unsafe practices I follow when working. I suppose I'm not long for this world with all the paint and chemicals I muck about with. Oh well, if it hasn't killed me in the last forty years I suppose I might last another few.

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sounds familiar! i am terrible for wiping my paint covered hands down my shirt instead of on a rag - so i have loads of shirts like Josephs coat.

I can totally forget to eat if I'm absorbed and suddenly get exhausted and realise that it is late afternoon and I didn't have breakfast! 'cos i made the mistake of looking at the painting to see what was needed ...and 'I'll just do this bit and then have breakfast and tidy up ....' 4pm, nothing done and I'm starving and exhausted!

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Thanks for not laughing too hard at my faux pas.

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truth
Asherman, in your judgement how effective a protection is the non-stick cooking spray for the hands? Do you recommend any particular brand? Is the spray easy to wash off?
Great idea. Has anybody got similar ideas?
I find the wearing of gloves far too cumbersome, no matter how prophylactic it might be.

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Vivien wrote:

sounds familiar! i am terrible for wiping my paint covered hands down my shirt instead of on a rag - so i have loads of shirts like Josephs coat.

I can totally forget to eat if I'm absorbed and suddenly get exhausted and realise that it is late afternoon and I didn't have breakfast! 'cos i made the mistake of looking at the painting to see what was needed ...and 'I'll just do this bit and then have breakfast and tidy up ....' 4pm, nothing done and I'm starving and exhausted!

It's funny, I have two sides of my closet - clothing with paint on it, and clothing without paint on it. I only wear the ones that have been ruined already on days when I paint, and vice versa. My sweet boyfriend got me an all-over-body skydiving suit to paint in for christmas, and if it's not too hot I'll wear that in the studio Smile

.

I have had this conversation before, but I wouldn't reccomend using cooking oils or anything like that around paint because they are degradable. I wouldn't want any of it getting into my painting, but I am picky like that.

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truth
Good point, Portal Star. I certainly--for that reason--would not paint with my fingers while they are coated in cooking oil.
BTW. I've ruined so much clothing with acrylics (which are impossible to get off once they've dried), that they have become my painting clothes. But I like to go into my studio continuously throughout the day and make small adjustments. So instead of changing clothes every time I want to do that, I've bought a full-length kitchen apron, which I have hanging ona nail in the studio. It's very easy to put it on and take off.

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