I went to Tesia Blackburn‘s Golden lecture at Flax. She’s giving another on 26 June at Riley Street in Santa Rosa; it may be worth going. She basically goes through all of the materials Golden makes, showing the material out of the tube or bottle, mixed with paint, in a dried sample. I found that wonderfully useful for me in figuring out what it is i want my paints to do. She also gives out color charts and body sample charts that are actually painted, and there’s a nice pack of a collection of paints and media to try out. As a beginner — i found it a very useful presentation.
For my own notes, i signed up for the Golden and “the presenting artist’s” mailing lists with the email address beginning ATC1.
More notes on other workshops at the end.
* Mixing mineral pigments (cadmiums, chromiums, cobalts) produces earthy tones; using the synthetic colors in mixing leads to bright, clear colors.
* I should have been experimenting with the soft gel gloss, not the regular gel gloss, to get the translucency i wanted. Also, my earlier experiment probably ran afoul of the mineral pigment issue. [Bought soft gel -- and it's in the sampler pack]
* The liquid paints have as much pigment as the solids. Mix the liquid paints with the mediums to get heavier body. Save $. 1-9 mix of liquid to medium makes a translucent glaze; 3-7 mix gets to be the “equivalent” of the heavy body paints. [three samples of liquid paints are in the sampler pack including one irridescent]
* Tar gel produces wonderful stringy body. Showed marbleized acrylic film (let film dry on glass). [Bought tar gel]
* I liked the liquid paint over the molding paste — molding paste is somewhat more absorbent. [In the sample pack, i think]
Flax is hosting her two day $130 workshop on using Acrylics like Oils — apparently students will work form several “Old Masters” paintings to explore the different techniques. Flax lists the following requirements:
# Three blank canvasses (9″x12″)
# Roll of paper towels
# Water container (1 Qt)
# Apron or smock
# 2-3 plastic palette knives
# Paper plates or disposable acrylic palette pad
# Soft sable or synthetic sable brushes: round #4 & #6; flat #6 & #8
(Robert Simmons makes a good inexpensive synthetic sable brush.)
The same workshop is offered at “SF City – College Fort Mason – (415) 561-1860″ on July 24 & 31 but it’s not clear what the fee would be. (And if that’s really the date, i can’t go to that, either.) Her Golden calendar is also a little behind the flyer she shared at the demo.