Moon and Clouds

Moon and Clouds

Oil on canvas panel, 8 x 10 inches, 2015.

I did this a few months back when we had a super moon eclipse.  I didn't get to see the moon or the eclipse as it seems like the sky is never clear when you want it to be here in NJ :( but a night of vain hope made me feel like painting some sort of nocturne.  Sometimes I look at the crystalline beauty of the night sky and get tempted to just give up painting anything else.  But I enjoy the daylight too much for that.  

I used a limited palette.  If I recall I only used lead white, phthalo blue, Armenian mummy (a Natural Pigments color), and Cyprus raw umber light.  I might have also used French ultramarine, but I don't remember -- it's good to have both a red-blue and a green-blue.

This was the painting I tried using the Ridner medium in a layered approach.  It excels used thick or thin and its powers synergize marvelously with lead white (lead white's textural powers are special on their own but almost always gain greater force when augmented with a resin medium).  I see great potential for this having been Church's medium.  

But there are still a few flaws.  For one thing it did not perform as well thinned with turpentine as I expected.  We know the Hudson River School artists generally used turpentine as an as-needed dipper cup medium, and there are areas in their paintings that show extremely thinned passages.  Church, in particular, has an ink-like effect you more commonly see in aqueous media where the edges of the brushstroke are thicker than the center because the very fluid stroke pooled then collapsed upon itself rapidly as the solvent evaporated quickly.  You see this effect throughout Church's oeuvre in limited areas, like in some of the detailing of the rocks in the Heart of the Andes, but by his late career the effect is rampant (see any of his European paintings like the Aegean Sea, which I have seen, or Tropical Scenery in the Brooklyn Museum, which I have not seen though the Google Art Project image seems to show this effect).  I suspect abuse of this technique is part of the reason his late paintings seem to be in such bad shape, though we know he blatantly violated fat-over-lean in the oily underdrawing of El Rio de Luz (how a veteran painter could make that mistake, I don't know), so there could be other reasons for the condition of later paintings, and, like I said, he seems to have utilized extremely-solvent-thinned paint in areas of earlier paintings that are in good shape.  

Anyway, with my Ridner medium paint (half and half with the colors), when I thinned it enough to produce the ink-like effect, it worked, but the paint film was too weak upon drying and was easily damaged by overpainting (and would not have bore a final varnishing if left alone).  Apparently the wax weakens the film that would otherwise be much stronger were it just oil paint and oil copal varnish.  But I think I know what the problem is.  The historical Ridner medium would have had lead and umber dryers in the oil, and likely lead in the copal varnish (plus materials suppliers "colormen" might have had dryers pre-added to the colors).  Church also ordered large amounts of Siccatif Courtrai, a powerful dryer, though he may have only used it for sketches.  I made my Ridner medium without lead as I originally tried it as a sketch box medium, and I try to keep poison colors out of the sketch box as things are cumbersome out in the field without a sink to remedy mishaps.  The drying power of the lead should counteract the slow drying of the wax and also help render things more adhesive.  And if that's not enough, then there is still one more option.  I prefer walnut oil and have made my Ridner medium with it.  However linseed oil possesses a slightly stronger film strength (with a number of undesirable trade-offs, in my opinion, like susceptibility to wrinkling), and we have evidence that suggests most HRS artists were probably using linseed oil as their paint binder.  So we shall see what happens.

Secret Technique #1 Just Add Water

One major way I differ from my heroes in the Hudson River School is that I am greatly interested in technique.  All the HRS artists downplayed technique and stressed hard work and study from nature in the few documents we have that clue us in to their aesthetics, BUT that doesn't mean they did not invent or use their own techniques to depict nature in ways they deemed appropriate.  Anyone looking at Cole, Church, Cropsey, or Gifford can see that there was much more at play in brushwork and other effects than just pure oil and pigment and direct painting.  They tended to believe technique should be subservient to subject, and that the treatment should match the subject.  But that is another story...

Anyway, I have read dozens and dozens (probably more like hundreds if you count articles and excerpts) of books on art history, art conservation, and technique.  I would like to share some little-known things I have found that I think would be helpful to today's artists.  I'm much too young to be willing to give up all my secrets, but I think what I offer will be appreciated.  At the very least, you shall get a better idea of the sort of artist that I am.

So, Secret Technique #1, Just Add Water

The big issue for artists who grind their own paint without additives is that the colors don't always keep good consistency in the tube.  Well, for certain colors there is a way to amend that.

To the right is some yellow ochre I ground up.  Note how the big pile slumps slightly.  It is rounded and has some gloss.  In most cases this is a good consistency for me if used presently (I usually add varnish mediums when it makes it to the palette), though I have experienced yellow ochre get unpleasantly longer in consistency than I have ground it if not used up a short time after grinding.  In case you are wondering, this is made with about 40-50 grams of yellow ochre pigment.  I don't know how much oil, as I just eyeball things while making paint.

Here I have a few drops of water.  Any type clean enough to drink will do (and even saliva will work in a pinch if in the field -- though I don't know why you wouldn't bring water with you).

See the water on the oil paint in the middle of the pile.  It will not combine readily and must be forced into union with the knife.  You must be quick, but it's nowhere near difficult.  Add it to a pile like I have here.  If you add it to a large, flat expanse of color (like after it is spread out by a muller), the water is liable to rapidly shoot itself to the edge of the paint and perhaps off the slab (I have seen it happen), which is really fun to watch but not good for our purposes.

Behold!  See how much the paint has shortened in consistency after the water is coerced in.  Note the sharper peaks and higher pile.  It also loses some gloss.  It is as stiff as it looks, good to tube if meant to be kept for much later, especially if meant to be used outdoors in the heat and cumbersome situations.  

You can add more water to get the paint stiffer.  It is possible to make the paint immobile, and more water will further matte out the paint.  If you added too much water, spread out the paint thinly and leave it for a while.  The effect goes away when the water evaporates.  The water trick works with some other earth colors (if I recall, it works with raw sienna, but not burnt sienna), it does NOT work with the Mars colors.  But the best part is that it works with Ultramarine, the color all who grind their own paint complain bitterly about due to its otherwise unavoidable, watery ropiness that only gets worse when stored in a tube for any long period of time. So what are the problems with this secret?  The most it can do is help for storage or temporarily amend the consistency on the palette.  When the water evaporates, the effect is gone.  So if you stiffen up some ultramarine, that does not mean you can use it as an impasto -- I have tried for the purpose of experimenting -- it will slump on the painting support and potentially run if applied too thickly (you must add a medium to impaste something like ultramarine).  

I also imagine a more cautious person might object that the water can cause problems in the paint film.  It's such a small amount you add, and the water will evaporate out before the paint dries, so I see no reason to fear.  Besides, if your pigment clumped together into balls due to exposure to humidity, you're liable to get the effects of the water trick without adding water.  I thought Gamblin's ultramarine pigment must have been impure for years before I knew about the water trick because it made a good-consistency paint (their pigment was pure but it was balled together from humidity when I received it).  Besides, I learned this technique from no less an authority than Gilbert Stuart, a technically-conservative artist who regarded all fancy techniques and mediums, beyond occasional megilp use, as mere trickery.  

In John W. McCoubrey's Sources & Documents in American Art 1700-1960, on p. 24 we have the quote.  Gilbert Stuart told Matthew Jouett "To take out the oil from (yellow paint) stone ochre when it works ropy with your palette knife and a little water work it about on your palette and it will soon lose its clamminess and work short and agreeably."  Stone ochre or stone yellow was the archaic term for yellow ochre.  Of course, Stuart is incorrect about the oil being taken out, but we get his point.  A little water stiffens yellow ochre.  

Jasper Francis Cropsey also used the water trick for grinding ultramarine.  You can read about it in one of Alexander Katlan's two volumes on American Artists' Materials Suppliers Directory (my photocopies are buried right now, so I can't recall which one and on what page -- though it was the one that also had a chapter on Cole).  Cropsey sold ultramarine on the side and according to his account book, Church and Kensett had purchased some from him (this can be found on p. 78 of Talbot's dissertation on Cropsey).  So understand many great artists utilized the water trick I have related to you.

I know I was happy when I found a way to keep my ultramarine from puddling in the tube.  I hope you all find this useful.  I can't say if my future hints will be as helpful, but it's something.

Three Small Paintings

Sunrise

Sunset

Light in the Darkness

There was a fourth, too, a moonrise, but that wound up with relatives.  All of these are old, but I figure I might as well post them to build up posts while I have the images on my computer.  People are sometimes interested to see how an artist's skill progresses over time.  Sunrise was the first picture I used handground oils in, and that had to be from maybe eight years ago.  Sunset was an experiment with megilp a year or so later.  Light in the Darkness was much later and done with Groves' Cole's Copal.  You can see the potential religious interpretation in that one: "when I fall, I shall arise; when I sit in darkness, the Lord shall be a light unto me." Some lights are best seen in the dark.  All ended up being pendants to each other and are each oil on panel, and 6 by 6 inches.  I try to not paint a sunset without also painting a sunrise.  

Autumn 2015

Autumn 2015

8 x 10, Oil on canvas panel, completed 10/2015.

This year I wanted to study the season well as it may be my last in NJ.  I found out the hard way my fingers don't move the way I want them to below 60 degrees F, so I only got one small oil sketch with my box.  I didn't have my box perfected, nor time to sketch outdoors frequently outside of summer, until this year.  This finished painting instead was composed from memory, putting to use my observations.  I am very pleased with the brushwork, although I admit it could be a bit more realistic.  I sometimes get carried away with color.  With that said, I prefer a bright, cheerful autumn to a somber one.

I used the J. P. Ridner medium (4/9 copal varnish, 4/9 oil, 1/9 beeswax) for this.  The Ridner medium may have been the medium Frederic Edwin Church used.  It seems quite likely to me this is what he used for oil sketches.  The effect I got in the branches in the large tree on the left can be seen in a number of his sketches in the Cooper-Hewitt.  There are obstacles to this theory, though.  The Ridner medium is heat sensitive and works best at room temperature (the paint puddles but does not run on a hot day), as at room temperature it behaves similarly to megilp (it was used historically as a superior substitute for megilp).  I get the best Church-like brushwork when I work on an oil primed board given a thin oil-out (best if the oil is cut half and half with turpentine), and the temperature in the 70s. The proportion of the medium in the colors could be altered to adapt to the weather, and the resin concentration in the varnish also has an effect.  So I need to experiment more.  The Ridner medium performs marvelously when used thinly without an oil-out, as well, as Church would have used it in studio pictures.  And there is good reason to believe Cropsey was also using it in his earlier paintings. But I'll post my theories on Hudson River School technique in greater elaboration sometime in a future post.  You can find the original recipe for the Ridner medium as an improved formulation of megilp with copal in Ridner's Artist's Chromatic Handbook which can be had for free in the Internet Archive at https://archive.org/details/artistschromatic00ridn .  The proportions I give are what he means (we artists have never been very quick with math).  

Isaiah

Isaiah

"I said, Behold me, behold me, unto a nation that was not called by my name."

"I have spread out my hands all the day unto a rebellious people, which walketh in a way that was not good, after their own thoughts; A people that provoketh me to anger continually to my face; that sacrificeth in gardens, and burneth incense upon altars of brick; Which remain among the graves, and lodge in the monuments, which eat swine's flesh, and broth of abominable things is in their vessels;

Which say, Stand by thyself, come not near to me; for I am holier than thou. These are a smoke in my nose, a fire that burneth all the day."

I think this good for my first image post.  With this blog I would at the very least like to attempt to encourage my brother and sister Christians and glorify the Lord with my biblical paintings.  If these paintings can do that sort of good but once even, then it was all worth it.  Besides, there's a rich history of literature and biblical verses being appended to artworks.  A proper juxtaposition can make both more powerful in effect.  

So about the painting:  It has many layers though it is only 8 by 10 inches.  I usually end up working small, but I get the amount of detail I like.  I wanted that dreamy, fantastic quality people like me get when they read about antiquity, hence I have the fuzzy clouds, relatively soft contour in the distance, and pastel colors.  As you can see, I am not a pure realist.  

I have inherited the rapport Romantic artists have with the great Prophets of old, lonely souls wandering the wilderness seeking after God.  So I have painted Isaiah.  The intention is always to illustrate the feeling as well as the words.  Isaiah attempts to evangelize some wicked person who would rather remain in the desert of death than come to the lush wilderness of salvation where the Prophet stands.  I have had the wicked person cut down a tree and carve an idol.  The saw is visible to further tie in with the subject, as tradition holds that Isaiah was martyred by being sawn in half.  You may easily detect the rest of the ways the painting matches the verses without me having to explain.  Few things are so thoroughly romantic as graveyards, and I was tempted to sign my name on one of the stones but felt that might be tempting fate...

You may notice a slight flaw under the vertical cloud.  While underpainting the panel I had an incident that required me to scrape it down and my knife gouged out a few lines in that area revealing the pink underlayer (I usually do not paint directly).  Well, I'm one of those artists who makes the best of mistakes, so I used it as a placement guide for the clouds.  I think it adds flow to the composition.

Anyway, I hope you are edified and encouraged.  God bless!

A. De Monte Fine Art

My name is Anthony De Monte and I am a Christian-American landscape painter in my twenties.  I believe there is a great artistic, emotional, and symbolic potential in the landscape and hence I paint it with greater purpose than just straight realism.  The Hudson River School has been my greatest influence and I suppose my stylistic ambition is to combine the conception of Thomas Cole with the skill of Frederic Edwin Church.  To achieve the best quality, I use both traditional and modern colors, tools, and techniques, and I hand grind my paints.  I have been working in oils since I was fourteen and I have been making artworks as long as I can remember.  Everything I do is informed by observation from life, even my imaginary compositions.  So I frequently make oil sketches outdoors with my sketch box, and I also go through life with my eyes and heart open.  Strong emotion is just as appropriate a source material as a sketch from nature.  An artist can learn much from life even without transcribing it into a sketch, and an artist should be open-minded.  Any art that delights or edifies or stirs the soul is good art to me.

I have decided that my main intention for this blog will be to share my Christian paintings as they were painted for the glory of God and for the encouragement and inspiration of my fellow Christians.  I want those pictures to be seen by as many people as possible.  I also intend to share some experimental works and some information on technique I have uncovered in my research.  You will perhaps get an idea of the sort of artist I am along the way.

I apologize as I cannot be counted on to update regularly.  I hope you enjoy nonetheless!