Is it all about mixing the paint??

Portal you said some interesting things that I agree with - but NO rules!!!! I don't do rules!

I use a palette knife quite a lot - though i do also mix with brushes but the canvas wears them out quicker than the mixing. I love painting some sections with a palette knife and for outdoors they are brilliant as it is so easy to keep your colours clear and clean.

I think you need a variety of pigments as well - in theory all colours could be mixed from a limited number. Because of flaws in pigments this doesn't match with reality. I like a wide range of primaries and a few like viridian and a wonderful mauve in Old Holland that i would not be without.

I don't use Paynes grey - you can mix it from Prussian blue and Burnt Umber and get subtle variations of bluer or browner.

Hmm. That's a good idea. I think you can tell how partial I am to color, one of my favorite teachers is a colorist. What is this old holland mauve color and where can I find it?

It's difficult to get all the subtle nuances of chroma with just primary colors as pigments tend to grey out and sometimes even start getting rather muddy. It's fun to experiment and using colors right out of the tube is hardly challenging.

I think it is called mauve grey and it is a lovely subtle colour that suits my subjects. Old Holland are wonderful paints - expensive I'm afraid as it is an artists quality. I should think a mail order art supplier would have them? I am in England so can't help with American suppliers - sorry!

I use quite a lot of artists quality oils now because they really are so much better (and being more intense go further) but as a student i just bought the luscious colours that would give me wonderful mixes and used the students quality for the standards. Trial and error there I'm afraid as it depends what subject you are painting and your own particular twist on colour.

I wouldn't like to be without permanent rose - apart from the beautiful purples it makes, it makes wonderful greys when mixed with viridian.

I also like aureolin yellow for its transparency - opaque it is vile!

Artists quality watercolours are essential to me as the students just don't have enough intensity.

I realise not everyone wants the expense of artists materials so this is just a list of personal preferences

Um, I did love my old tube of permanent rose.

I sometimes don't care if my paints are well mixed, and show different colors as they go on the canvas. Or if I do, I mix them well, before or after they are on the canvas. I use cheap brushes (even many of those are expensive) and toss them. They last long enough.

Haven't used prussian blue in a while (hmmm), do use burnt umber...well all the raw and burnt siennas and umbers; one of my favs is indigo. All for the many variations of variations. I virtually never use green, all my greens are mixed.

Veridian green is about the only one I've used and in oils if they are being used transparantly. It does have a luminescence that is difficult to achieve using blue and yellow.

I suggest introducing sap green, as it can do some tricks viridian can't. I like to use sap green, permanent rose, and indian yellow in my flesh tones.

This has been helpful; however, the mud i refer to is usually created by my greedy attempt to keep painting with whatever is left on my palette after 3 hours or so. Thinking, oh, I will quit soon, I choose not to get out more paint, and then pay for it in spades.....

Thank you for the welcome, I too cannot get enough of zinc white , hence my sign in name...... To lighten with a color other than white is a technique I have not yet mastered.

As to the palette - brush argument; I destroy my brushes so quickly and don't mix with a palette knife although I think it is probably a good idea. I also dont clean my brushes after using them but through them in the thinner jar, another kiss of death for the brush.

There was a neat tip from my last class, put a plastic scrubber (for dishes) in the bottom of your jar of thinner, an olive jar or pasta jar is good, and the brushes dont sit in the grime on the bottom and dont bend so much. It helps save them if you are a lazy brush cleaner like me.

One my homely virtues (will list many faults later) is that I am a serious brush cleaner. I haven tried light salad oil, which I think I saw Vivien mention somewhere...

me too! I love washing my brushes. First I soak them in turpentine, and then I wash them twice with hard brush soap, rubbing the bristles in my hands. I love painting, but I also love the end of the work day (when Iv'e done a good job) so cleaning the brushes is my downtime. It's very ritualistic, the symbol for the end of my day.

If you haven't tried oil - do! it is so much easier to clean your brushes and keeps them in much better condition.

Also baby oil for cleaning your hands - well if you are as messy as me and end up covered in paint and often using your fingers as well as the brushes/knife!

A bit of cheap cooking oil on a rag is a really good cleaner whilst painting when you want to continue with the same brush but change colours. I can't cope with keeping separate brushes for darks/lights etc - I need to just grab what i want and paint - organisation isn't me!

I really like my old master's soap b/c it's a conditioning soap that I can leave on the brushes to form them while I'm not using them. Iv'e heard about baby oil, but I'd be careful with vegetable oil, I'm not sure how gracefully it ages so I'd be careful with getting it in my painting.

yes I wouldn't get the oil in the painting - but i wipe the brush well on a rag.

Someone I know (and don't respect) uses vegetable oil to paint with! I wonder what will happen a few years down the line?

she should add vinegar and do lettuce studies. Then she could have a painting salad!

he has developed a broad brush - squiggly squiggly - there's another one done technique instead!

My hands have a bit of the map about them, but not entirely, they are sort of between young and old. How can I say how piquant I think that is for my or any one else's hands??? But cleaning brushes with oil, I am listening.

Is any one else bored with early hands? No, I am kidding, or if not kidding moving on to seeing early hands as photographical pristine gems.

I would advise against cleaning brushes with vegetable oil because I don't want -any- in my painting, so I'd have to clean the oil off of my brushes with soap after cleaning them with oil, and that's an extra step.

Actually, when I was young I used to be frustrated by my pristine, boring hands. They had no wrinkes, just smooth skin, and I was into the verristic style so I looked at them and thought "age!" But now they are quite meaty from work and have moles and wrinkles. I have one mole in the middle top of y hand that's raised and dark, and people always put the stamps/ x's over it when I go to clubs. I think that means they think it's ugly.

I was once playing lady macbeth and used it as my "spot."

art
Speaking of the aesthetic effect of aged hands, I once spent some time with the author, Aldous Huxley (I love to drop that name) and was struck by the beauty of (his) old age. He was a very mature 68 (the year before his death). I was particularly struck by the appearance of his hands. They seemed glassy in appearance, powerfully wrinkled, with long fingers, very refined and graceful. Since that experience I have never feared the appearance of old age. I am now 68.