EGG TEMPERA

As I figure you are painting abstracts, you could play the matter finish of gouache against the gloss of the oils and come up with some interesting imagery. Curiously enough, it would better that the glossiness was the background element! I did an add design once that was on glossy red stock with a matte design graphic in the same red on top of it. It really looked great.

You are correct, however, that you'd have to paint on the gouache first and then block it out with oils as a background leaving the matte as the foreground shapes.

egg
LW, interesting suggestions. Thanks.

Difficult to achieve balance and not have it look too slick and designed which is the drawback to using any commercial medium in fine art. Gouache is also the best medium for airbrushing because of the high pigmentation and the fine blending one can achieve. I'd try it as studies on cold pressed board (the water in the gouache will ripple 2 or 3 ply papers. You can get 100% cotton board in "blocks" but it's expensive. I think I'd use commercial illustration board, the cheapest you can find but make sure it's heavy enough. I would imagine that gessoed masonite would also work.

AIR BrUSHING using a gouache can be dangerous to the health of your brush. Anytime I used granular colors in the airbrush,Ii always had 2 or 3 brushes hooked up to a multiport compressor so that i could wash out the brushes immediately. also, since airbrushing produces better atmospherics as more and more layers of diff colors are applied, gouache isnt the worst choice.to achieve a micro pointillistic style i still prefer doc martins staining paints for air work, or now, my favorite is the Sennelier paints because of their really fine milling.

wiz- my pellet stove is a really high tech stove that has a fan that blows the heat into the room and , in addition, provides its own convection. Id put one into one of the fireplaces in the house but my wife says they look too sterile. they arent pretty but really do the job for big spaces. i can also load up the side hopper with an entire bag of pellets and thatll keep the room warm for 2 days, so if its very cold, Ill keep a fire going, especially if Ive got some projects going on out there

egg
Oh, FM how I feel for you as I sit here in 65 degree sunny weather in the southwest.

They didn't have that sort of stove back then (the 50's) I don't think but the nostalgia of the cabin overlooking the lake at Crestline and the fact that they burned wood as well as drive corn cobs really makes me think of the great aroma in the room. It smelled something like a popcorn factory burning down (wouldn't that be spectacular!)

Yes, I remember gouache clogging up the airbrush -- you really had to mix the color, used it in the side cup which usually was enough to do one job and if not, you had to run water through the brush and refill the cup. Defintely had to mix a lot of the same color if it was a large area. I used airbrush sparingly in the astronomical and astronautical I did as I didn't want that stencil look that some illustration artists got using it for hardline shapes. It was great for suble highlights.

They didn't have that sort of stove back then (the 50's) I don't think but the nostalgia of the cabin overlooking the lake at Crestline and the fact that they burned wood as well as drive corn cobs really makes me think of the great aroma in the room. It smelled something like a popcorn factory burning down (wouldn't that be spectacular!)

Yes, I remember gouache clogging up the airbrush -- you really had to mix the color, used it in the side cup which usually was enough to do one job and if not, you had to run water through the brush and refill the cup. Defintely had to mix a lot of the same color if it was a large area. I used airbrush sparingly in the astronomical and astronautical I did as I didn't want that stencil look that some illustration artists got using it for hardline shapes. It was great for subtle highlights.

They didn't have that sort of stove back then (the 50's) I don't think but the nostalgia of the cabin overlooking the lake at Crestline and the fact that they burned wood as well as dry corn cobs really makes me think of the great aroma in the room. It smelled something like a popcorn factory burning down (wouldn't that be spectacular!)

Yes, I remember gouache clogging up the airbrush -- you really had to mix the color, use it in the side cup which usually was enough to do one job and if not, you had to run water through the brush and refill the cup. Definitely had to mix a lot of the same color if it was a large area. I used airbrush sparingly in the astronomical and astronautical art I did as I didn't want that stencil look that some illustration artists got using it for hardline shapes. Chesley Bonestell, the great astronomical artists painted only in oils until the end of his career where he began using watercolors. He used no airbrush. I just found it great for subtle highlights.

egg
Much of what you guys are expressing regards technical "tricks" and issues of no immediate use to me now. Airbrush technology is not likely to ever be relevant to my painting. I'm just a sloppy, painterly, throw it on (but dab gently where I want more subtle effects) "expressionist" of sorts. Nevertheless, I never know when I will need what you're giving. My problem is that my printer has been on the blink for many months now, and I'm unable to archive this information (I don't consider something "saved" in the computer truly saved). I would greatly appreciate it if ANYONE in the A2K community would print this thread out, and when convenient pass it on to me...someday.

No problemo -- you can E mail me your address and I'll send it to you ASAP.

[email protected]

The more we get into explaining what gouache will do, the more you're probably going to withdraw from using it. It's a commercial artist's medium for laying out flat color backgrounds but with the advent of the computer and Pantone hues that can be created with a Mac or PC, gouache has gone almost entirely to the wayside. As a painterly, abstract medium, it's pretty much terrible. I'd recommend tempera over gouache any day. If you were doing optical art like Vasarely or Albers, it would work quite well. It won't work well on a canvas substrate as it needs the particular kind of aborbtion that a hot-pressed Strathmore board would offer.
All my commercial art teachers required learning how to work with gouache -- my fine art teachers didn't even mention the word.

We bought an entire display/sales package of gouache for the art store two years ago. I think we've sold 3 tubes of paint so far. I did see one very fine painting done with black, white and gray gouache. I've never tried it. Maybe I should use some tubes. At the present, I just finished reading a book on transparent watercolor, so of course I"m taking it into the acrylics with a fluid painting. I mixed the mediums matt and gloss 2 to 1 and use just a bit of water to get the paint moving. I'm going with layers and have started with lemon yellow. Who knows? It might be "gesso time" by 7:00 tonight. JL-I'd be glad to print out any of the info for you. I keep a binder for the classes I teach. I don't know if my guys would do very well with an air brush, but I copied it anyway. Thanks LW. I would be interested in some new tempera ideas. We use it a great deal because it's cheap and very washable. Some of my guys "fling" as well, but not necessarily toward the paper.

Tempera worked best for me on hot pressed watercolor board with the surface dampened (much like a fresco surface). It is difficult to control as it often wants to "do its own thing" and in heavy impastos will crack. I tried using egg white and it's more transparant glaze and didn't crack. I would have to research it but I still remember that white vinegar will also retard cracking.

('course it smells like you're making a Caesar Salad!)

I love caesar salad. By-the-by, I know this isn't on the subject, but since you're here, LW what is your take on Leroy Neiman? I saw that there is an exhibit of his works at Franklin Bowles in SF. I've never been very excited about his work, but an acquaintance of mine said his work is worth $$$.????????

Someone referred to, "Neiman is to fine art what the ukelele is to the symphony orchestra." It's an example of P. T. Barnum style marketing and by Knoedler & Co. of all people (they represented Willen DeKooning for a time and there's some litigation from the Estate on that relationship as I remember). He was a Playboy illustrator -- like Eyvind Earle who was a Disney animation artist (he was responsible for what has been referred to as chocolate box art for "Sleeping Beauty"). Both their graphics are now way over priced and have little chance of gaining any value except, perhaps as antiques. The serigraphs are commercial silk screen inks and are not that much more stable than giclee inks. So you are likely to see a lot of faded and color altered Neiman's fifty years from now. There are graphics out there for $7,500. to $25,000. There intrinsic value by an accredited appraiser is more like between 30% and 40% of those values. The galleries obviously make 50% of the retail value and another 10% to 20% would go to an art broker if one tried to sell them. It's art created for the affluent, amatuer collector who has no idea what they are spening their money on. They deserve it.

It's what I call "disposable art." Nearly all of it ends up in estates where the inheritors likely do not care for the art and it goes to auction for ten cents on the dollar.

Thanks LW. I really don't care for his stuff. It reminds me of Luongo's paintings, commercial trivia.

Luongo can draw beautifully but can't paint. His agent used to stop by my gallery in Laguna Beach in the late 60's with prints of his drawings and they were good. They were commercial illustration good. He now serves up some painted over giclees which he doesn't even hand paint himself. It's all in the ilk of the art shams that have pervaded the business since the era of Ronald Reagan. Can't imagine why all this fakery suddenly took flight then. I could be all the stupid white guys who became successful and were making money they didn't know what to do with and their equally art knowledge deprived wives went into galleries and still didn't get it that a framed print that's really a reproduction is not worth what they pay for them. This somewhat died out in the 90's and the public was looking for originals by these same painters who were manufacturing them as fast as they could be eaten up. Who knows? P. T. Barnum had the answers.

WIZ- i like your take on Neiman, sounds like its from someone who has done the 'cost analyses" of his market. i alaways wondered what the excitement about Neiman was, even when he was popular in the Americas cup and the TAll SHips of 76. very few artists can pull off pallette knife painting and do it well. most of them come off like that ole 'Do head (Bob Ross) .

Ive dealt with a few galleries and the ones that I do the best in , are thoise that handle it like the business it is. They pick through the artists work, and are merciless in the jurying. I always likened an art gallery to a donut shop. You must sell a lot of donuts to pay your expenses and show a profit. many gallery owners fail to realize that.
there is a relatively new concept around here, where the artist "rents" the wall space from the gallery owner, who is nothing more than a toll collector. I ike when my galleries openly push my work and are active participants in the marketing. Even though I do this as an avocation, I am practicing for a time when I may switch entirely from my practice to something else.


Tell more aboput the vinegar retarding cracking if you have an egg tempera impasto. Is there a fixed amount or just enough to draw the smell of vinegar?

I now have a reason to convince my wife that we should buy some more chickens.