Paw Prints

I’d read a guide about brushes (one i cannot find now, but the URLs below are also helpful) and had decided i ought to purchase boar bristle brushes next. I actually have no idea what material my previous bushes have had.

At the Sunnyvale Aaron Brother’s store, i purchased three new brushes, all Princeton brand with navy handles, silver ferrules, and white boar bristle. They were less expensive than some of the other brushes i was inspecting, but they were what i had decided would be useful. (We’ll see.) All at $2.99. The fan is for experimenting; the round to see if with boar’s bristle i find it a more attractive brush. I find myself always turning to the brights.

Fan #6 (2 in wide arc), Bright #4 (3/8″), Round #4 (3/16″ D ferrule)

The bright is very much like the silver handled, silver furruled Artisan (Winsor&Newton) #8 bright i have been using, and just a little shorter than the red handled, silver ferruled Azanta (Winsor&Newton) #4 flat.

I also bought a 3 pack of canvas boards (14×18; $7.49) and a pad of Canson Montval Watercolor paper (15×20; $16.99). I’ll use that water color paper as i have the bristol board. All to encourage me to work larger. (Why??)

I also got a small pad of the Canson Montval watercolor paper (5.5×8.5; $5.29) to use for gouache sketches.

http://www.opusframing.com/library/pdf/choosing_brushes.pdf

http://www.trueart.info/western_brushes.htm

Staedtler Sketch Pens .1 .3 .5 .7 mm, quick dry, permanent, purchased end of July before trip to NC at office supply store. They’re wonderful.

It’s been a very long time since i played with HTML. October of 2003 i really dug in to CSS for a day in order to make some HTML reports for work. And that’s been it.

So, i’m collecting links as i try to make a CDR wedding photo album for L & T.

Font sampler: http://www.codestyle.org/css/font-family/index.shtml — what’s common on Windows, Mac, and Unix platforms. Includes samples. Since i migrated Windows fonts to my Mac, i’m well supported.

Windows fonts: http://www.kayskreations.net/fonts/fonttb.html & http://www.pleasantscounty.net/misc/fonts.html

Free fonts: http://www.abstractfonts.com/fonts/ (Would you ask someone to install a font from a CDR?)

CSS: http://www.htmlhelp.com/reference/css/ — basic reference

CSS: http://www.csszengarden.com/ … http://www.csszengarden.com/?cssfile=/001/001.css&page=1 — inspiration

CSS: http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/Guide/Style.html — link colors. Note that if one leaves the class statements w/o assigning them to the a element, one can create really annoying flashing text.

CSS: http://css.nu/articles/layer-examples.html — box layout

Style switcher: http://www.alistapart.com/articles/alternate/ — VERY COOL

Colors: http://www.visibone.com/colorlab/big.html — you can pick a palette and see how text in the olor colors appears on each swatch.

HTML: http://www.style-sheets.com/html_tutorial/index.asp — up-to-date guide

I painted the back of a pressed board with a number of different undercoats, one for each ruler width.

1, 2: burnt umber *
3: mix of titanium liquid and extra heavy matte gel
4: zinc white
5: stainless steel
6: mars black**
7: light molding paste
8: mix of titanium liquid and extra heavy matte gel
8.5, 9: burnt sienna *
10: clear gloss gel over the green board

** not from Golden
* mixed from the liquid paints — and i must have mixed in a gel. I was aiming for burnt sienna to begin with, but too much green came out in one “drop” — the phthalo green seems much thicker than the other liquid paints. The hansa yellow medium seems absolutely impotent.

I painted over these stripes with the tar gel mixed with magenta (i may have tried mixing it to napthamide maroon). It’s too runny to mix on a palette, so i mixed in a bowl destined to become a cat grass planter. Drooling the paint seemed unrewarding (perhaps because i had not mixed up enough to get a feel for the process), but it did leave solid ridges on the board. It was slighly translucent in puddle form. When painted as a gel glaze it was very translucent. It doesn’t seem to hold brushstrokes the way liquid paint mixed with the glazeing fluid does.

I also mixed up some liquid paints with the glazing liquid: cobalt/cerulean blue (the zinc white, in a heavier body, seems pretty darn opaque), napthamide maroon, and nickle azo yellow (again with the impotent yellow and too much green problem), and then simple mixture of phthalo green and quinacridone magenta with the glazing liquid.

The yellows and the cerulean blue stand out as they cross the dark bands. The purples and greens pop out against the whites. The glazes over the light molding paste are quite pleasant — it’s much more absorbent and the brush strokes disappear.

Bob Ross Gesso, in black and grey, is about half the cost of the Golden Gessos. Liquitex “basics” is even cheaper, but only available in white.

Since i didn’t buy a golden liquid black in my last order, it seems that a liquid black and a tub of white gesso might also provide a satisfactory black gesso.

Liquitex             white 16 oz $7.80
Liquitex "basics" white 16 oz $4.90 Item # 1004850 
Bob Ross           black 16 oz $8.79 Item # 1402258
*
Golden liquid      carbon 4 oz $6.91 Item # 9252010
Golden liquid      bone    1 oz $3.28 Item # 9251794 

I think bone black is blacker, but that carbon black would “go farther”

Bone black: not as opaque (2 on scale of 8), chroma 0.5, gloss 32, tint strength 89, is pantone black.

http://webexhibits.org/pigments/indiv/overview/boneblack.html

Carbon black: more opaque (1 on scale of 8), chroma 0.3, gloss 79, tint strength 57.

http://webexhibits.org/pigments/indiv/overview/charcoal.html

Chroma – Attribute of color used in the Munsell color system to indicate the degree of departure from a gray of the same value. Correlates with the dimension of saturation.

I need a fine mister, i think, although the glazing liquid* looks like it might be useful.

* Misterart.com Item # 9253605 $7 16oz

See the Just Paint article on Acrlyic Glazing Liquid and the technical data.

From the technical note

To slow the drying of paints on glass or plastic palettes, use a small amount of retarder. About three to ten percent of GOLDEN Retarder will keep a mass of paint from forming a skin for up to six hours, depending on the atmosphere. Using excessive quantities of retarder, especially when working in thicker impasto, will leave the paint skin feeling like soft gum, as the glycol may not totally release from the film.

Some people prefer to lightly mist the paint on their palettes. This can be a very effective technique to provide more open time. A simple plant mister, easily obtained at a hardware store, may be filled with water (we recommend distilled or de-ionized) or a 10:1 water/retarder mixture for this purpose. Note again that excessive levels of retarder will result in a weakened paint film that remains sticky. Excessive spraying may cause colors to drip, or to stain the support in an undesirable manner.