Misc Stuff

Here's the little Imp commission I'm working on. He's going to be a minimal pinto, so I think I'm going to make his front legs white and also  a patch over his shoulder. I wanted to have at least one leg without white to show the soft shading on his legs, but I wasn't positive that was something that happened with tobianos, even minimal ones. I had to search for a while, but I did find a photo reference of a minimal pinto with only two white legs, so I know it's possible. Here's the other side:

And here are a couple more commissions in different stages of prep:

I also bought a bottle of Lascaux White Acrylics:

I think this is the stuff that I had heard Jaime Baker recommend. I have to say: I love it! It's very opaque and covers in just a few layers. So convenient! It brushes out beautifully and has a matte finish. I'm using it on the base layers of Hazel before I lay in a more "natural" white, not one so blindingly bright as this.

I also got a box of Super Sculpey to play around with. I haven't used it before, but I like the feel of it. I'm going to use it just for fun and to practice manes/tails. 

Grays and Whites

I'm having a problem with my whites. I don't have a consistent white formula that I use while painting, instead I mix a new batch every time I sit down, and most of the time I use a very haphazard method of using a little of this, a mess of that, whatever looks good, etc. I'm looking for a color that is off-white, but not too yellow or blue. It's really hard to find that perfect color.

So I've been experimenting a bit with the whites and grays that I use when I paint in oils. The above are two of my favorite whites. I think I have mentioned Archival Fast-Drying White before, I really like it and use it for almost all of my mixing. For a gray horse, though, I'm trying out Archival's Tinting White. I bought this a while ago and didn't use it because I thought it would take too long to dry. But guess what? It's not too bad! It's slightly off-white, with a pearly sheen, and the consistency is really soft and buttery, which I like. Here's a little comparison of them, with a buff titanium I've been using to show how different that color can be:

I've been adding just a touch of the Buff Titan to the Tinting White, and then a smidgen of a gray mix to use for my grays. 

Now on to the grays. I also have a problem with my grays getting a little too blue for my taste. I used to use Burnt Umber and Mars Black, with a touch of a yellow ochre, but lately I've been mixing equal parts of Raw Umber and Van Dyke Brown plus a touch of Mars Black. Today I made this little chart of different mixes to see what worked best. I was surprised to see that I liked the mix with the two browns and Ivory Black. I usually equate Ivory Black with blue, but it looks pretty good to me. Mars Black is a stronger tinting color than Ivory Black, so maybe that's why.

You can click on the grays for a larger photo.

So, what do you think? Do you have a favorite "recipe"? I would love to hear what other artists use for their whites and grays when they paint in oils.

Brush Mystery

I ordered some brushes from Dick Blick the other day, and today as I sorted through them, I found one that didn't look right. The brush pictured on top is what I thought I was ordering, the Escoda Kolinsky 1208 series brush. The brush on the bottom is what I got.

Now, I know that brush manufacturers change their handles sometimes, so that could be the case, and unfortunately, this brush was the only one that didn't come with the little plastic tube that protects it. It's not frayed, but the brush hairs look like they are a different shape than the brush on the top in this picture.

Blick lists two brushes on their order page, a pointed round and a detailer round. I ordered the detailer round, but now I'm thinking that what I received was the pointed round. To make matters worse, the packing slip lists it as "retouch brush" which isn't mentioned anywhere on the order page.

Here's a closeup of the two brushes. Again, the one on the top is the one I wanted. Do they look the same to you? I wet the bottom one to bring it to a point, and when I did that, it looked very similar to the top one, but still, to my eye the base of the brush hairs on the bottom brush looks a little thicker than the base of the top brush. Blick lists the mm size of the brush, but the smallest unit that shows on any of my rulers is 1mm which is too big.

I called Blick and the CS rep insisted that I got the right brush, but I really don't know. This is a frustrating aspect of ordering things online; if there's a problem there's almost no way to figure out the truth. I went to Escoda's web site, but all of their pictures show a brush that looks like the top brush, and they are based in Spain so I'm not sure what kind of response I will get to any questions I might have.

 I can still use the brush, but next time I have to order I'm going to hesitate to order this brand because I don't know what I'm going to get. 

These brushes are not cheap and I don't want to spend money on something when I'm not positive I'm going to get the right thing.

Warm Greys

Here are a couple of warm grey color that I've been trying out recently. I like both of them.

The one on the left is Sennelier Acrylique Warm Grey, and the one on the right is Old Holland Warm Grey Light oil paint. They're both pretty similar which is good for matching acrylic colors to oils if I need to do that. They are so warm that they're almost brown in color (in fact, both these colors are a mix of browns with white). I've added titanium white as a tint and mars black as a shade on both of these for comparison.

The tints are really nice, great for highlighting, light dapples or to incorporate into the base color for white markings or a grey horse. The darker shades are great for greys again, muzzles, and also for some grullo colors. Out of the tube, these greys would make a great base color for a classic champagne (haven't tried that yet but it looks like it would work), or a dun or brownish grullo color. They're also a good base color for chestnuts, can be mixed with a darker brown, black, etc. for a variety of grayish-brown colors. Very versatile!

The Sennelier acrylic is pretty thick so will need to be watered down before use, and the Old Holland oil is thick also, so you might want to try a medium or thinner to help smooth brushstrokes. I used to hate how thick and hard Old Holland colors were, but I really like this color so I've gotten used to it.

Some Yellow Ochres

I got a couple of new neutral yellows so thought I'd do a little comparison. They really vary from one manufacturer to the next.

W & N yellow ochre seems to be the most neutral, it makes a nice tint and I use it a lot. I like the consistency of it, too.

Rembrandt yellow ochre is new for me, I was surprised at how yellow it was, but it confirmed my thoughts that Rembrandt's colors tend to be kind of garish, in my opinion. It's nice and buttery but has a lot of oil in it, and is somewhat transparent with low tinting strength.

Old Holland Mars Yellow is pretty yellow, too, it's actually more yellow than it looks in this photo. It's opaque and dries fairly quickly, which would make it useful for base coats. I don't like the consistency of it, very stiff.

W & N Raw Sienna is another neutral yellow that I use a lot, especially in mixes with white. I use it a lot in hoof colors. It looks slightly greenish out of the tube, so I wouldn't mix it with any blue-ish color like ivory black or payne's gray because you might get a green color.

Old Holland Gold Ochre is another really stiff paint, and it's pretty yellow. It makes nice subtle mixes, though, so I like it. I use it often in combination with raw sienna and burnt sienna.

I got the Schmincke Norma Gold Ochre to compare it to Old Holland. What a difference! They're like two different colors. The Schmincke is a burnt yellow, closer to Raw Sienna. It makes a very pretty toasty color when mixed with white. I'm still getting used to the color of this one but I do like it. I have been very impressed with the quality of Schmincke Norma paints. They have a great consistency, not too stiff but not oily, and the colors are very rich. The downside is that they're expensive and the tube is only 35ml, compared to 37ml for W & N and 40ml for Rembrandt.

Update

Okay, back to blogging! I've been spending lots of time on the dappling for Alvaro and Mercurio, as well as detailing on the Paige Patty reiner, but I still want to wait before showing them again. I thought I would show a couple of detail shots of the dapples. Mercurio is more of a sooty buckskin color and Alvaro has more caramel tones. I'd say I'm about 85% done on Avaro and the reiner, and probably 65% on Mercurio. When I get down to the more detailed parts of any painting I slow down considerably, to the point where it sometimes feels like I'm making no progress.

Hmm, what else? Here's a (blurry) shot of all the mini sales pieces I plan on painting this year. I really want to be able to finish all of these this year.

And here is a new oil paint that I tried out that I really like:

It's called "Modigliani ochre" and is a really nice dull flesh-like color. It's a mix of red iron oxide, brown ochre and zinc white. Here's a little swatch of it:

It's not as warm as it looks on my screen, I'm very happy with it as a starting point for flesh tone mixes.

Somebody wants to be a model!

A Naples Yellow Comparison

Naples yellow is one of those great "horse-y" colors, but I have found that it really varies from one manufacturer to another. Each company seems to use different mixtures of pigments to make their color, and it can range from a bright yellow to a subtle neutral. I've been cycling through tubes to see what manufacturer I like best, so here's a few that I've tried lately.

I like Rembrandt paints in general because they are very smooth and relatively cheap (plus their tube is 40ml vs 37ml for most standard tubes). However, some of their colors tend to be garish, and also they tend to use more oil so I have started steering away from them a little bit.

The first color on the left is Rembrandt Naples Yellow Light. As you can see, the tube is almost full because I didn't like this color. It's too light for my taste, and it almost has a greenish cast to it. The color to the right of it is Naples Yellow Deep. This one is better, and I have used it on models, but it's still too yellow and falls into the garish category for me. It can always be modulated by another color, but I'd rather not take the extra time when one color will do.

Next is Sennelier Naples Yellow Deep. I really like this color and use it all the time. It's a nice neutral yellow, and the consistency is buttery without too much oil. I don't use a lot of Sennelier colors because I had a really bad experience with a stringy tube of paint from them once, but this is one color that I will definitely buy again.

Finally, there is Winsor & Newton Naples Yellow. This is slightly more yellow than the Sennelier, but it's still a very nice color. The problem I have with it is that it has lead carbonate in it. I didn't realize this when I ordered it online. I don't like using paint with lead in it, not because of the toxicity so much, but because the lead makes the paint heavy and difficult to brush out. It's a weird feeling and doesn't work well with the lighter synthetic brushes, it needs a good stiff brush to work best.

There are still a few other brands left that I'd like to try, but I need to use up the Sennelier first. It lasts a long time!

Brush Review

Here are a couple more brushes I found that I really like.

This is the Black Gold by Dynasty 20/0 filbert brush, I didn't even know they made these. Filberts are oval shaped and are good, all-purpose brushes. When they're new, they have a dull point to them, and as you use them they spread out and become good blenders. As you can see, this one is well-used and paint has dried into the ferrule. This brush is great for painting small areas on minis, painting around spots on blankets, and small detail areas on larger pieces. I just love this brand of brush, I buy Black Golds all the time. You can get them at Dick Blick and the price is right at $2.80 a piece.

These are Silverwhite 1503S filberts. I like the long handle Silverwhites, too, but these short handles are a little smaller and easier to handle on small models. These were pretty pointy when I got them. I really like this brand also, the white nylon brushes are very nice for scrubbing color in, and I can also use larger sizes for glazing. I happen to be partial to the filbert shape because it seems to last longer for me. I don't take care of my brushes very well, and flats and brights tend to get hard at the base pretty quickly (for me). Anway, these are excellent all-purpose brushes for either oils or acrylics. They're also pretty cheap at Dick Blick.

I've been lax about posting photo updates, but I should have something next week.

A Comparison of Whites

I've collected a bunch of white oil paints over the years, and recently I read that certain whites dry more slowly than others. Apparently titanium white is one of the slowest-drying whites. So I made a little chart of the whites that I have and dated them to see how long they really do take to dry. The results were pretty shocking.

Winsor & Newton's Foundation White is made of lead carbonate and zinc white. Needless to say, I don't use this paint on model horses. I bought it just to see what it was like because it's supposed to be the most stable and reliable white for underpainting on canvas. It's very heavy in the tube and very, very warm, almost yellow. It has very weak tinting strength. But boy, does it dry fast! Within hours. It's very dry to the touch within a day. Too bad it's poisonous, because this would be ideal for mixing colors on a model.

W&N's Flake White Hue and Titanium White took over a month to dry. They both have nice, creamy consistencies, but the dry time is completely unacceptable.

Gamblin Tit/Zinc White is the white that I use when painting my flat artwork. I love the consistency of it. It took almost as long to dry as the two listed above, though.

Rembrandt Titanium White is what I have been using for my model horses, and I was disappointed to find that it took almost a month to dry, also. I don't paint my final white markings with oils, but I do use white when mixing and during initial lay-in, so I thought I'd look for something else.

I think I have finally found an acceptable white, Winsor & Newton Underpainting White. It's Titanium White with a small amount of zinc, and the tech at W&N told me that there is a slight grain added for better adhesion, and a metallic drier added to make it dry faster. They will never tell me the exact ingredients or proportions of anything, but this is what the tech recommended to me after I explained the way that I paint.

Underpainting White has kind of a weird consistency to it (probably the grain that the tech mentioned) that took a little getting used to, but it does indeed dry much faster than regular Titanium White. On my sample, it was dry within a couple of days, much better than a month! It is a little more gray than the other whites, but that's no problem for me because I always mix different colors into my white anyway, and like I said I don't use it as the final coat. So hopefully this will speed up my painting process a little more.

I hope this was helpful!

Details, Details

 

I've been working on a lot of little details over the last week, lots of blanket work on Ravenhill but also some detailing on his head and hooves, so here's a little peek at that:

I've also been working on Lajjina's dapples, moving them about a little and changing their size, etc. I still have quite a bit of work to do on them at this point

And here is a shot of my new favorite detail brush, the Escoda 1210 Kolinsky sable, size 5/0. This is a pretty pricey brush (about $5 at dickblick), but the one I bought lasted a long time and held its point really well. I only used it for oils, not acrylics. I wore it down to a little nub! I also bought their higher-end brush, the 1212 Kolinsky Tajmyr, but have not tried that yet.

Production has slowed to a crawl while I work on a lot of these little details. Normally I can touch 4-6 horses a day, but when I'm doing work like this it slows to 1-2 horses.


I know Breyerfest and NAN are just around the corner, I wish all that are going good luck and will be watching the results online :-)

Product Comparison

  Today I thought I would do a little comparison of some of the mediums that can be used with oil paint. These are all alkyd resin-based mediums. They have a moderate drying effect on oil paints. As you can see they all carry a health warning label and need to be used with adequate ventilation, some of them are pretty smelly. A small amount can be mixed directly into the paint, or you can dip your brush into the medium and then into the paint (I always wipe off the brush after dipping into the medium and before dipping into the paint so that I don't use too much of it.) I always get the smallest bottles because the larger bottles dry out after opening, and it lasts a really long time.

Liquin is my favorite medium. I used to hate it because it smells pretty bad, but I really like the consistency of it. It's kind of a gel, and it dries to a soft, semi-matte surface. I think this is one of those love/hate mediums: people either love it or hate it. I feel like I can control it really easily.

Liquin Fine Detail is really watery. I don't like it. It's too easy for me to get too much into the paint, and I have also found that it stays tacky for a long time before it dries.

Weber Rapidry is another really watery medium. It does dry really fast, though. I have used it a couple of times just to put on a base coat, but it's too hard to control these liquid mediums. Weber has videos on their web site that show you what all the mediums are used for, it's definitely worth watching.

I like this medium. It's a soft gel that dries to a fairly matte surface. It's a little slower-drying than Liquin. I was told by a Daniel Smith technical person that this medium uses pure turpentine in it (rather than Odorless Mineral Spirits) but I can't even smell it. In fact, this is the least smelly medium, IMO.

I love Gamblin paint, but I don't like their Galkyd medium. It's really sticky. It has almost a honey consistency to it, sort of halfway between a gel and a liquid. It's really gross.

Neo Megilp would be my all-time favorite medium except that it dries slowly. As an example, Liquin may be dry to the touch in 24 hours or so, but Neo Megilp will take about 3 days to dry. I love the consistency of it, it's a soft gel that dries to a nice matte finish, and it's just a dream to work with, but I never use it on models because of the slow dry time. If they could just make this medium exactly like it is, but with Liquin's dry time, I think it would be the perfect medium.

And that's all I've got laying around. All mediums should be used in small amounts, but they do help to dry oil paints a little bit faster, and they also make the paint a little more transparent so you can create nice glaze effects.

Brush Review

I thought I would do a brush review this week instead of boring you all with pictures of the same three horses. This is the Robert Simmons Expression detail spotter, size 15/0. I bought this to try it out and see if it held up to my favorite Loew-Cornells that I reviewed previously. The Expression brush was much cheaper, so I was really hoping that I would like it. Unfortunately, I didn't.

The problem? My hand size! I have very small hands. They're almost freakishly small for an adult, but the Expression brush has a huge handle. It has a long taper down to the brush, and the part where my hand rests is gigantic and unwieldy. It makes the brush feel unstable in my hand, and I have to grip close to the ferrule to use it. It seems to be made for someone with really large hands. It's not comfortable at all. Here's a photo of my hand holding the Expression:

and my hand holding the Loew-Cornell:

See what I mean about the size? The Loew-Cornell is just much more comfortable and easy to handle.

The Expression brush tip itself is just fine, in fact I consider these two brush tips to be very comparable, so if you have huge hands then you might find the Expression right up your alley, especially for the price. I paid $2.64 for it at Dick Blick.

Brush Review

Here's another one of my favorite detail brushes, the Black Gold by Dynasty. I love the size 3/0, but sometimes I get 10/0 also. This brush has a thin handle but it's the perfect length for my hand so it remains comfortable. The brush head itself is the perfect length and the bristles are not too floppy. I like a slight give in my brushes, not too soft.

This brush holds its point for a pretty long time, even when I'm using watered-down acrylics, which always seep up into the ferrule. When that happens, I usually just let the paint dry up there by the base of the hairs, and that kind of cements the brush into its point for a couple more uses before it starts to fray. Then I can use it as a stiff scumbling brush.

I use this brush for detail work, and once it starts to fray, I will paint minis with it, or use it to scumble details in hard-to-reach areas of larger models. This brush and the La Corneille 18/0 spotter are the two brushes I use the most. This one happens to be very reasonably priced, too. The last time I got it at Dick Blick it was $2.35. I have noticed that this brush is a little hard to find, and a lot of places only sell Black Gold brushes as part of a set. In fact, I think that Dick Blick's site shows sets first, and you have to scroll down or do a search to find the individual brushes. I hope they continue to offer this one individually.

I have tried out a couple of new brushes and hope to offer reviews of them soon, too. I really liked one and really hated the other one.

Brush Review

I don't have any photos to show today, so I thought I would give a product review. I'd like to go through some of my materials and share what I think about them and how I use them.

First up is this miniature brush, the Loew Cornell 7650 series Spotter brush, size 18/0. I love this brush! It is a workhorse in my studio. It's very small, but has a thicker handle that fits my hand perfectly and is very comfortable to hold. I use it for fine details in both oils and acrylics, and once it starts to fray, it's great for dry-brushing tiny details in acrylics, and also for glazing and scumbling in oils. I literally wear these down to nothing before I throw them out.

There are two downsides to this brush. Number one, the point frays almost immediately. I mean, within two times using it. This could be because of the way I use it though; I'm very hard on my brushes and tend to "peck" at the surface and start rubbing with it before I should. I'm also pretty bad about letting paint get too close or even into the ferrule and then not rinsing it out right away.

Number two is the cost, it is $4-something which is very expensive for a brush that loses it's point almost immediately. So for that reason alone I am currently looking at cheaper alternatives. It's really hard for me not to buy this one, though, it's like a favorite toy or blanket that you don't want to give up.

I have found these brushes at Michael's, and I currently order them through Dick Blick (they're listed as "La Corneille Miniature Brushes). I'm not affiliated with the manufacturer or the stores, this is just for informational purposes.