Indirect Painting -- getting a start on it

Today, I moved on modelling the white pot, laid down some fresh green on the leaves, and then got a start on something new with the cloth: Indirect Painting.

Background: Some colours are so bright and intense that there's no way to mix the paint to achieve realistic highlights. If you merely mix white and red to achieve a lighter red, pink will result. The same thing will happen with some bright greens, blues, and violets. In my still life exercise here, I have a bright red cloth (almost pure cadmium red) with a large roll in it. I tried modelling the lightest part of the roll with cadmium orange and yellow mixed in with the red, but even that didn't brighten up the area in the way I wanted... So that's why indirect painting has to be done.

Here's the general idea: To achieve highlights, a coat of white is put down first over the original local colour (cadmium red). When the white dries, glazes of red are reapplied and the white shines through, not as pink but as a lighter red.

To begin, the original layer of red must be completely dry so that the fresh white doesn't combine with it to make pink. A small test confirms this. Next, pure white is added in all areas where the cloth is a lighter red than its local colour, in my case pure cadmium red, a perfect 5 on the value scale of 0 to 9. Where the red cloth is at its lightest, I applied the white paint at its full intensity. (Note: Juan recommended mixing some calcium carbonate to my flake white to ensure it would be as opaque as possible). As I move from the lightest red to the local colour red, I thin out and blend the white paint towards the pure red.

Two brushes are needed: one to lay down the pure white, and one absolutely clean brush to blend it out and lift it off as your move to the darker reds... (The mantra I think is: brush in, brush out)

In my picture below, the whitest whites are where the cloth shows off the lightest reds...

In two weeks' time, this white will be dry. Then I'll begin adding glazes of red on top. There no harm in having the white too white; I can always darken later. But the reverse is not true: If after applying the red glazes I find that the highlights are not bright enough because the white underneath was not opaque enough, then tough luck. It's too late to fix it.

Varnishing, Part 2

Varnishing is a controversial subject -- it seems to fire up emotions among the painters I've asked. Everyone has had a bad experience and a different theory as to why. Remedies also vary.

After applying three coats of varnish on the Juliano painting and not liking the results, I stripped it off one evening with mineral spirits using makeup pads (note: use odorless mineral spirits next time, and sponges not cotton pads, which leave hairs behind). Then I applied two fresh coats of varnish and it suddenly took much better to the canvas. The oil wasn't repelling it. Hypothesis: removing the mineral spirits left tiny scratches on the surface of the paint layer, giving the varnish something to hold on to. The results are good.

I also varnished the Patroclus painting, shown below. The first coat was almost perfect, only a tiny fraction of the varnish was repelled. The second coat, which I put on last night, looks good but now emphasizes some of the hairs and particles that settled between coats. Perhaps next time I'll stop at one layer of varnish.

I'm also considering building a varnishing cover to protect that painting from dust and hair. Two artists at the school have built one that's connected to their home dryer's ventilation system. A fan on the cover pulls in air through filters on the sides and blows it out through the dryer's vent.

With all of the photos I've taken of this painting, the automatic digital camera never picks up the warm colours of the skin. It seems to focus on the white of the shoulder and wash out everything else. I'm hoping a new SLR camera will help me solve that in the future.

Still Life continues...

The last two weeks, I've been working right to left, with a focus on the right half of the tea pot and cloth. I now need to finish reshaping the spout -- pushing it up and lengthening it -- and pushing in the pot's top left side. Next step will be to improve on the pot's colour (there should be more brown around the spout and less green; plus more purple on the top right side and less grey). Finally, I'll move onto the leaves, which still have their thin layer of dead colour. Things are moving along...

Varnishing -- first attempt

A layer of varnish is supposed to help protect a painting from dirt, dust and air pollution, as well as mechanical damage (like scratching). It also restores a painting’s original brilliant colours (oil paint tends to become dull and discoloured over time). Varnish also homogenizes (evens out) the final appearance of a painting.

After waiting nearly two years, I was ready to give varnishing a try with my first oil painting, the monochrome Juliano painting. Last Sunday, I mixed the Gamvar varnish (which is a component system consisting of solvent and synthetic resin crystals that mimic old fashioned resin from trees) and then gave the painting two coats this week with a gentle edger foam brush. I took the picture below just after I finished the second layer...

The paint certainly comes alive but I immediately noticed one problem: In some areas, the varnish seems to be repelled. I've highlighted a sample area below in red. Enlarge the picture and you'll see some patches where the varnish has not been absorbed. 

It's a known problem with  varnish. The general consensus is that some areas may contain excessive oil from the last layers of paint applied in the Second Painting phase. It's in this phase that the pure pigment is mixed with oil (linseed oil) to create smooth glasses. Dark areas of a painting tend to be worked over more than the lighter areas and so there's a risk that they'll react differently to varnish (or vice versa).

Today, I tried to fill in some of the pockets with a brush, but that didn't work well, so I've applied a third coat across the entire painting. Fortunately, more varnish has soaked in now and the pockets are less prominent. At the same time, however, the third layer seems to emphasize any flaws in the canvas, such as bumps and knots in weave of the canvas.  A good frame will make a difference though.