Art Supply of the Week - Drawing Supplies for Painters

Depending on the materials and process I will be using for a painting I choose different drawing implements.

Preparatory drawing for the painting entitled Allure. 

Drawing Transfers

For paintings where it is necessary to complete the drawing on paper first then transfer it to the painting surface I use a Staedler Drafting mechanical pencil and 2B refills. This pencil is wonderful for quickly creating a detailed drawing. The cylindrical sharpener efficiently and cleanly achieves an incredibly sharp lead point. 

For those of you who enjoy the traditional wood pencils, Tombow Mono Professional Drawing pencils are incredible and smooth throughout the softest and darkest lead to the harder lead lines. The 2B is one of my favorite drawing pencils.

Once I'm satisfied with my drawing I position it over my painting surface. I tape it down and slide a paper that has been prepared with soft charcoal between the painting and the drawing. I then go over all my lines with a mechanical pencil, being careful to revisit all parts of the drawing. I use a small square of foam board to keep my hand from pressing on the drawing and transferring unwanted excess charcoal to the painting's surface. Alternatively, some artists use colored ballpoint pens so that it is easier to discern where the drawing has been transferred and some also photocopy the drawing to preserve the original drawing.

Staedtler Mars Technico Lead Holder (Blick), 2B refills, Staedtler Mars Lead Pointer and kneaded eraser

Implements for Drawing on the Painting's Surface

When it is imperative that the drawing be as accurate as possible it is best to draw on the painting surface. For commissioned portraiture I prefer to draw directly on the ground using Nitram Académie Fusains HB charcoal sticks. I sharpen the charcoal sticks into a point, pictured below, by rotating the end on 400 grit sandpaper. The nitram charcoal is very forgiving and if you need to adjust a line in your drawing it is as simple as wiping it away with a paper towel. Once my lines are exactly as they need to be, I go over them with a 2B Wolff's charcoal pencil and carefully remove all the excess charcoal by dabbing it with a kneaded eraser. This process keeps my ground from becoming dirty or marred in the process of drawing, while retaining the most accuracy in the drawing. 

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Tombow Mono Drawing Pencils, KUM Sharpener/Lead Pointer and HB Nitram Académie Fusain Charcoal Sticks

My favorite erasers: General's kneaded eraser, Prismacolor's colored pencil eraser and Vanish 4 in 1 eraser that really removes those hard to erase lines.

Art Supply of the Week - Traditional Landscape Palette

A simplistic and easy to use palette for landscape colors that yields beautiful results.

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Above from Left to Right: Rublev Oxide Black, Michael Harding Cerulean Blue, Raw Umber, Viridian, Transparent Oxide Red, Cadmium Yellow (Medium) and Rublev Lead White #2 with Vasari Titanium White.

• Greens:
  • One can achieve an incredible variety of greens by using different proportions of Viridian, Transparent Oxide Red and Cadmium Yellow and when appropriate the white. Above is an extremely small subset of the different possibilities.
• Browns:
  • The same goes for browns as an incredible variety of hues falling into the brown category can be achieved with different proportions of Viridian, Transparent Oxide Red and Cadmium Yellow and when appropriate the white. I sometimes also use burnt umber depending on the subject.

Creating my browns and greens in this manner yields landscape colors that are very harmonious to one another and are easily replicated when necessary. While one can certainly make green from blue + yellow or yellow + black there is something intangibly beautiful about the Viridian + Transparent Oxide Red + Cadmium Yellow color combination suggested above.

• Sky and Clouds:
  • A combination of Cerulean Blue, Oxide black and white. When I need a bit of low chroma purple for the underside of the clouds I add in a touch of terra rosa.
• Horizon:
  • The area of sky just above the horizon, in the vast majority of cases, should be very light and near white in value. For this color I take the mixture for the sky and add quite a bit of white. You may also need to add red or another color depending on the geographical location and time of day (or to account for smog). One example of this would be a sunset.
• Mountains:
  • For the blue undertones I used Cerulean Blue, Oxide Black, Transparent Oxide Red and White and Raw Umber.
  • For the green undertones I used Viridian, Transparent Oxide Red, Oxide Black, White and Raw Umber. As the mountains recede it is important to also add in some of your blue mixture to the green as well as the below adjustments for distance and atmosphere below.
  • As the mountains recede into the distance I combined the two mixtures above with an increasingly greater proportion of the high value, low chroma sky color I mixed for the horizon. 
     
• Underpainting:
  • For landscape it is important to complete an underpainting. This underpainting gives a unifying basis for the painting and also allows for the initial establishment of the value structure of the painting. With this underpainting, it is possible to leave some of it peeking through the top layers of paint for a nice effect and additional color variety. Through years of experimentation I found the below underpainting combination to be my absolute favorite. It gives life to the blues of the sky and supports the greens in a very harmonious way.
  • For the underpainting of the below painting I used Italian Raw Sienna, Burnt Umber and Raw Umber. See the blog post that covers this topic more thoroughly here: My Process

What about sunsets and flowers? Simply add the necessary colors such as cadmium red, Quinacridone Rose, Cobalt Violet and or Cadmium Yellow light to expand your color range for these types of subjects. 

What about seascapes? This palette works like a dream for this subject matter as well - beach and water included.

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Feeding Love 54"x90" Oil on Aluminum Panel

Art Supply of the Week - Detail Brushes

My Favorite Detail Brushes

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It's no secret I love using a variety of brushes. Here are some of my favorite brushes that I use for detail work.

For the smallest of teeny tiny details and my signature I use the Winsor & Newton Scepter Gold II. They hold up very well. For general use I prefer the larger 0 and 1 over the 0000 but sometimes you just need a super tiny brush.

The Escoda Prado rounds (size 1-6) are wonderful general detail brushes and maintain a nice point even after much use. 

My favorite brushes for painting facial details, ears and fingers are the Escoda Optimo filbert (size 2), Isabay Mongoose (size 0-3)  and Vermeer rounds (size 2-8). The Vermeer brushes do not hold up anywhere near as well as the other two by a long shot. In fact, they wear out so fast that I wouldn't normally accept that kind of short life from a brush but there really isn't anything else that I have found that is exactly like them. I use the Vermeer rounds for skin and anytime I need lost edges such as at the hairline and also brow. I wouldn't go below size 2 on the Vermeer.

Art Supply of the Week - Skin Tone Palette

My Favorite Skin Tone Palette

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My skin tone palette varies slightly based on the subject's skin tones and the reflected light situation.  However, most of the time I use the above core palette of colors. I find that the wonderful simplicity of this palette yields astoundingly beautiful skin tones. This palette provides wonderfully delicate tones of pink, yellow-orange, green and purple. I've experimented quite a lot with skin tone palettes over the years and this palette is by and far my go to favorite. 

Rublev Italian Raw Sienna
Vasari Terra Rosa
Williamsburg Cadmium Red Deep
Michael Harding Raw Umber
Michael Harding Burnt Umber (used mostly for hair and underpainting)
Rublev Lead White #2 mixed with Vasari Titanium White
Rublev Oxide Black

• Yellow-Orange: The reds + raw sienna + raw umber + white in different proportions yield most of the yellow-orange skin tones I use.

• Pinks: The reds (mostly terra rosa plus a small percentage of the cadmium red deep) + white give me nice pink flesh tones for the cheeks, fingers, nose, lips, ears, elbows, knees etc. When I need a pink that is more orange-red in hue I use a greater proportion of the terra rosa. When I need a pink that is red-purple in hue I add a little more of the cadmium red deep.

• Greens: Raw umber + the reds + white provides the green undertones important for setting off the pinks in the skin.

• Purple: Oxide black + the reds + white yields a nice purple tint. I adjust the intensity of this purple with raw sienna.

• Browns: Oxide black + the reds + Raw Sienna results in a nice dark brown, with or without white depending on the desired value. The mixture is similar to burnt umber but more advantageous in hue and is perfect for shadow colors.

Before I start painting, I pre-mix the above combinations in medium to light values and one pile, pictured below, of my pre-mixed shadow color. I find that having large piles of paint in front of me encourages me to not be miserly with my paint application. This enables me to bring the painting to a nice level of finish with the first layer. The second layer goes very quickly as I only have to make some small adjustments if any. This second layer usually entails revisiting the highlights and translucent shadows.

Why I mix the two whites together:  Lead white is one of the strongest pigments out there. The lead keeps the paint film flexible for over 100 years, whereas the titanium white becomes brittle much much faster. In 50 years the titanium is as brittle as 150 year old lead white. However, given its benefits, I find that the lead tends to yellow a bit more than the titanium, so I add about 30-40% titanium white to my lead white. I like the working consistency of the two together while also maintaining the benefits of both pigments.

Other pigments I have used on occasion for skin tones include Vasari cobalt blue and Michael Harding viridian.

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That same skin tone palette at the end of the painting session.

Art Supply of the Week - Palette Knives

My Favorite Palette Knives

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 #20 & #44: Blick Palette Knives made by RGM, Red: an older version equivalent to the Blick made by RGM #5

My favorite palette knives are actually considered painting knives. I use them mainly for mixing paint and cleaning off my palette at the end of the day. Once and a while I have used them for painting when the need for more texture arose and they performed beautifully. All are made in Italy by a company called RGM and are nice and nimble and flexible. The one in the center is the newest version of RGM's palette knives.

I like a variety of sizes for different tasks. The larger ones are more useful for mixing large piles of paint and scraping down my palette. The smallest is useful for work that requires more finesse such as scraping down little unwanted brush stroke ridges on the paintings surface or scooping out that last little drop of paint from a spent tube.