3,679 Miles Later... No more Facebook!

For the last two weeks I have been on an unusual trip, the purpose of which was to be an Awards Judge for two different events.  The first one was the EnPleinAir Texas painting event in San Angelo, TX.  The second was the Oil Painters of America (OPA) Western Regional Exhibition in Scottsdale, AZ.  Both events also requested that I perform public demonstrations of painting as well as the selection of awards for them.  As enjoyable as it was, let's just say it was both a nerve wracking and grueling experience.  I can safely say that the quality of artwork being painted in these events these days is increasingly sophisticated and expertly rendered.  The best pieces also had 'Soul', had that unspoken quality that took them beyond just being painted well.  It really was an "honor" to be asked to do this.  It is a weighty responsibility to take on.  How do we judge one over the other?  I'm going to save that thought for a future blog post.  But I have to thank those involved in both events for putting their trust in my ability to make good choices, their faith in me to see what I considered to be the best choices.  As I told everyone at both events, degrees of difference (thousands of a second in horse racing) were what separated one from others in many cases.  The good news for everyone is... the Art World that I am a part of, is continuing to push at the edges of what is the norm.  Painters are looking harder to see beyond the normal approach to the subject matter in many cases.  The practiced skill of many of these painters is growing fast, making the results interesting and exciting to see.  It has been a real treat to be with them all.
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I've done it, deactivated my Facebook account!  Yesterday, while driving the last 4 hours on my way home, I decided that there is more to life... period.  You all know the reasons, we all feel them, we hear and read news stories about them, we talk about them with friends, then go back and log onto our Facebook feed. 

My problem is that even though I've become acquainted with many, many people on Facebook, and some have become friends, Very good friends, for the most part it's the same old same old... same old people who I find myself interacting with, same old people coming out of the woodwork like marauding sharks when something is expressed that doesn't agree with their own world view, same old back up when it does.    Much of it is entertaining, some if it discouraging, all of it a time sucker!

Lately, I don't have to tell anyone how volatile and vile that place has been.

That is not why I decided to deactivate.  The rhetoric was part of the reason.  It wasn't inspiring or uplifting anymore, in my view.  Much of the flow down the stream on my newsfeed was false, false information, made up even.  Or it was trivial garbage... THAT I WOULD SPEND TIME VIEWING!!!  When you begin to feel a pall of disgust about something that you are involved in, it's time to reconsider the activity.

My demo at the Oil Painters of America Western Regional Exhibition last weekend at Marshall Gallery in Scottsdale, AZ. It is an oil on canvas, 18x36, and was painted up from the previously posted painting, "Ditches and Dust".

I already blogged some about this, so I won't beat it to death.  But one change of mind here... I am going to begin using Instagram (marcrhanson) for "pocket viewing" as I call it, and perceive the reason and habit of it and Facebook.  I have my account straightened out now so that I can use it properly, and will be for sharing artwork.  That's what I realized is the good part, a quick place to share art.  I don't want to leave the wonderful world of what my artistic comrades  are up to, that's 'I'nspiration that I need.

There is a great sense of accomplishment that comes from showing our work to others.  If we go day in and out and don't put the paintings out there, then who are we communicating with?  The making of Art is a communicative act, communication is a dual action.  It takes more than one person.  Between this blog, my Newsletters, email, and Instagram (and yes, I am checking out Pinterest too), I think I will be able to stay out of the wilderness  and communicate with the sharing of art.

I'm looking forward to more reading, writing, home work (repairs), fly tying, archery, fishing, meeting of the neighbors, enjoying a cup of coffee without worrying about frying the computer with it, more time in a day... that's a big one... MORE PAINTING without feeling like if I don't get it up on Facebook, it won't be real.  It wasn't really that bad... really... I don't think?  See you here on the blog and Instagram -close-

Thoughts on painting surfaces.

 'Snow Light' 

14x18 - Oil and wax on canvas mounted on a cradled panel

I painted this one from a small sketch that I painted last February.  I liked the subtle, almost monochromatic quality to the color that I saw that afternoon.  The colors used to paint this one were Titanium white, Naples yellow light, ultramarine blue and Indian red. To enhance the translucency of the light effect, I used Gamblin's Cold Wax Medium, and loved it.

I'm not sure if it's a fault or if it may be benefit to me some day, but I seem to have an ongoing desire to try out new surfaces to paint on.  I'm constantly challenged, never satisfied with any one linen, canvas, paper or board.  Sometimes I tell myself that if I had been alive 200 or 300 years ago, I would have been an explorer of continents, as a result of looking for new materials to paint on.  With the limited resources available to civilization at that time, I am pretty sure I would have been the anciest person in the village, and probably one of the first to say "I'm going to see if there's some ________________ on the other side of that horizon!".

All of that is to say that lately, I've been enjoying painting on cotton (not entirely due to it's affordability, but that is a factor) versus linen.  A little secret... I spent the entire summer painting on pre-stretched cotton canvas with an acrylic emulsion primer, that I purchased at a deep discount in one of the local 'hobby' stores.  I just couldn't turn down a 2-pack of 16x20's for $7.99!  They have a good tight stretch, I LOVE the weave, and also love the way the primer on them takes the paint.  They're manufactured in Vietnam, and they do it right over there.  I burned through a truck load of these things in 11x14 and 16x20 sizes.  My method was to give them a coat of an acrylic wash of cerulean blue and burnt sienna as a tone, and then go to work painting on them.

However, I also know that to be the most archival, we are better off painting on fabric mounted to, or on a primed inflexible substrate like MDF, Gatorboard, Dibond, or other treated wood surface.  That sort of bums me out.  I like the give of the stretched canvas or linen.  I feel the sensitivity of the paint through the brush more than I do when painting on a hard surface or on linen or canvas mounted on a hard surface.  But I'm trying to adapt.

Since I enjoyed painting on those acrylic primed, pre-stretched canvases all summer, I am continuing to explore that idea and found some very nice 12 oz cotton canvas, unprimed, at my local Meininger's Art Supply store in Boulder, CO.  It has a weave that is not the normal, very uniform weave of cotton canvas.  It's a little more erratic looking, more 'linen like', a medium texture surface that looked like it would be nice to paint on.

My other favorite painting surface of late is the cradled panel, usually with a Baltic birch ply wood surface.  So here's my procedure for making a painting substrate from the raw cotton canvas and the cradled birch panel.

Materials used - Raw canvas or linen, Lamin-all adhesive, a cradled panel, a 4" medium nap roller & tray, Gamblin's PVA, an acrylic emulsion primer (aka acrylic gesso), brush to apply gesso and PVA, a hard plastic brayer (6" wide) and some sand paper.

Procedure - I cut the canvas with about 2" extra all around to help prevent it shrinking to a smaller dimension than the edge of the board when it gets wet from the PVA and primer, and to make it easier to trim to a nice, clean edge.  (seen in the photos above) Using the 4" roller, I roll on a generous coat of the Lamin-All glue, being sure to cover the edges especially well.  Lamin-All is a 'heat re-activated glue', meaning that it can be applied to the board, allowed to dry, then have the canvas laid onto it and heated in a dry mount press which will adhere the canvas to the board, because the heat activates the glue again.  Since I don't have a dry mount press, I use it as a 'wet mount' glue.  I prefer it to others ( like Lineco (an acid free book binding glue) or Miracle Muck), because it dries VERY fast.  Which means I don't have to cover and weight these panels.

While the glue is still wet (it will dry fast in open air) I lay the canvas onto the cradled panel, being sure to get the weave of the canvas square with the edge of the panel.  I use my hands to lightly work it into the glue, from the center out, then use the plastic brayer to work it down into the glue better, so that it's well adhered.  Work the edges down so that they are glued solidly.  The Lamin-All dries fast enough, and the canvas is heavy enough, so that weighting isn't even necessary.  I don't personally have the space to cover them all and weight them, so I have to do it this way.  I check on them every 10-15 minutes, run over them again with the brayer to be sure that the canvas is adhering well, and that seems to work fine.  Then let them set over night.  The Lamin-All dries fast, but I like to be sure that it's completely cured before I size and prime the canvas.

The next day I begin the priming process.  First I brush a coat of the PVA size onto the canvas, being liberal with it.  That does a couple of things.  One is that it seals the absorption of the canvas some so that when I go to apply the primer, it takes less primer.  Secondly, the PVA soaks into the threads of the cotton, offering greater protection.   Once that's dry, and it doesn't take too long, I begin to prime.  That's pretty simple, use a wide, stiff brush (the cheap hardware store hog bristle stain brushes work great), and apply a thin coat of the acrylic primer.  Once that's dry, I lightly sand it, and apply 3 more coats, sanding in-between each coat.  Easy enough...

In a few hours, when the primer is good and dry, I lay the panels with attached canvas onto a cutting board, canvas side down, and using a new blade in a mat knife or carpet knife, I trim the excess canvas off tight to the edge.  I will be framing some of these if not all, in floater frames.  That being so, I try to get a very nice, clean edge when trimming the canvas off.  I don't want tag threads or gouges into the edge of the cradled panel.  A little cautionary care here, and it works out great!

I find that this is a pretty absorbent surface, depending on the acrylic primer that I pick to use.  A little more sanding, and then a layer applied with a straight edge, like a piece of mat board, to fill in some of the dips in the canvas weave, and I'm done.

The canvas I purchased cost $8.28 a yard.  The cradled panels have to either be purchased (Cheap Joe's has some good ones for a very reasonable cost), or made.  I don't like table saws (I've known a few life long, skilled woodworkers lose appendages or be seriously injured on them), so I either have to make them with less convenient equipment (Skil saw and miter box) or purchase pre-made.  One thing that I'm about to do, is see if there's a local cabinet shop that will make them for me, or make the components for me so that I can finish them, and save some $$$.

Cost- The 14x18 cradled panel for this painting is $7.19 from Cheap Joe's. I have about $1.00 in the canvas, $1.00 in primer and PVA?  Under $10.00 is a good guesstimate.  The big picture is, I have a surface that is exactly ( for now ) how I like it!  That makes the time to make it worth that money, and more.

March 20, 2014... Acrylic studio paintings.

Happy Spring!  It's greening up here, the gardeners showed up today to take inventory and begin the season.  The winds are up, something that I now know is a near constant this time of year, east of the Front Range in Colorado.  A person can almost tell the time of the day by the winds.  They nearly always kick in right at 12:00 noon.  Painter and friend, Dave Santillanes, a native of the area, told me that last week.  I've been paying attention and Dave is right, noon it is!

Why am I painting winter then?  I'm taking a little break from getting all of the paintings that I sold during February ready to ship.  I have all of these very fresh studies in the studio, and the memory of painting them, that I am still in the middle of churning through from last month.  The painting urge hasn't let up, I'm giving it it's needed fix.  There is nothing better than having fresh studies and the memory of the experience to paint from in the studio... except painting them outside!  This weekend is going to be devoted entirely to packing and shipping all of the art sold.  Thanks again to everyone who purchased a painting, or two, or three.  I'm grateful for that support.  

To further complicate my life, I've been painting with Golden Open acrylics in the studio.  I'm not  sure why, except that I like the solvent free aspect of them, the ability to stop and start at any time on a painting, not having to wait for it to dry or stay wet if need be.  I  think that I'm also overdosing a little bit on solvents and driers like Liquin.  

I'm not complaining, but I've noticed that when I'm using a lot of either of those type of ingredients in my oil painting, which I do often now so that I can better control the drying time, I have some issues with congestion, slight headaches and watery eyes.  My plan is to use the acrylics for awhile to see if that clears up.  So far, I'm already able to see an improvement.  If I don't go nuts trying to get a grip on the acrylic monster, I think it might be a good move.  

Working with them is more like what I like about working with pastels... I can lay down paint/pastel, and very quickly work over it.  Immediately with pastel, almost immediately with acrylics.  Glazes, scumbling, are all great  techniques that I like to use in oil painting too.  My patience is getting shorter though, it takes too long for the oils to be ready for me to do that like I want to.  If I had an area to 'rack up' paintings while they dry for these techniques with the oil paints, I could see working on a number of paintings in stages at a time.  I don't.  If I have 4 paintings done, it's crowded in here, and there's no where to add a rack.  

With the acrylics, the drying times of these newer 'Open' acrylics, work right along with me.  I paint pretty fast normally.  The acrylics are almost begging for the painter to do that with them.  So, they and I, seem to be working pretty well together.  Taming the monster that they are, is really getting used to a process of painting with them on their terms.  Once I do that, I love what they have to offer.  Stay tuned...

What I'm posting here are two paintings painted from the two studies I'm also posting.  That's not always a great idea, but for interest, that's what I'm doing.  Don't think that I am trying to exactly copy the studies, I'm not.  The studio paintings evolve from the studies, as you can see, and are usually more complex.  That's the case with both of these.  Field studies are the soul of the experience, the journal of your time, and are why I paint outside.  The studio painting is a further exploration of that memory and experience.  I like both.  Since the grass is greening up, and the snow is long gone, the only way to explore either of these ideas is to do it in the studio from the studies.  I didn't take any photographs in February of the locations I painted, with a couple of exceptions.  So if I'm going to paint up any of the February paintings, it will have to be done only using those paintings as reference, or the photos of them once they're out of my studio.  

Both of the larger paintings are painted on acrylic primed linen.  "Freeze in the Air" is painted on a Frederix linen called 'Antwerp'.  It's one that I've used a lot of over the years, but it's really pricey.   I mounted it on a cradled birch panel, after first putting down two coats of GAC 100 (A Golden Product) to seal the wood, preventing acid migration into the surface of the acrylic paint.  It's a problem with oils and acrylics, but more of a concern with acrylics.  The moisture in can leach out the impurities from the underlying wood as it dries, pulling them towards the wet paint.  That can cause discoloration in the paint film.  GAC 100 seals the wood, providing a barrier between it an the painting.  I glued down the Antwerp using Lamin-All glue.  

The other painting, "Frozen Hollow", was painted on a stretched Utrecht linen (Type 66J) that I've had for many years.  I used to make my own lead primed panels and stretched supports, with RSG and this linen.  For this painting, I stretched it on some heavy duty bars that I first sealed the edges of with the GAC 100, then sized it with one coat of GAC 400, followed by 2 coats of GAC 100.  The GAC 400 is for stiffening fabric, which is nice because without using rabbit skin glue (RSG), it's hard to get that drum tight stretch on linen.  The GAC 400 helps to replicate that somewhat.  Following a light sanding, I applied 4 coats of acrylic dispersion primer (mistakenly called acrylic gesso, it's not gesso), with light sanding in between coats.  

This was a test of sorts... I learned that I prefer the linen mounted on board, and will continue that way when painting with the acrylics.  It's nice to be able to 'lean into' the painting with p.knives and brushes when it's on the board. Can't do that with the stretched linen.  Plus, the whole process of stretching and prepping the linen from the raw state was time consuming and it didn't give me any particular advantage.  I didn't like painting on it as much as I did the glued down linen. I may continue to use the raw linen (hell of a lot less expensive than pre-primed even though it's acrylic priming) and prime it myself. I didn't notice much difference at all, painting on pre-primed vs my priming it.  I used Golden 'Gesso'.  That 's what they call it, it's acrylic primer. 

Thanks for looking in!

"Freezing Fog #2"

Oil - 8x10

"Frozen Hollow"

Acrylic - 20x24

©Marc R. Hanson 2014

"Freezing Fog #3"

Oil - 8x10

"Freeze in the Air"

Acrylic - 18x24

©Marc R. Hanson 2014

Coming soon... A Leap Into February... a painting marathon!

All of the paintings, 112 in total, will be published here on the blog.  If you'd like to see the daily activities and art, please follow my blog by signing up with the email link to the right of this post.
Details to follow in mid January...