The Cloisters Plein Air

My friends and I are going to The Cloisters on Sunday.
I didn't know where to go painting today, and I realized I haven't been up t Ft Tryon Park in way too long, so I decided to make a weekend of it.

Saturday painting, Sunday going to the museum.

This painting took about 4 hours.

It is 8x10 oil.

I met a lot of really cool people. Someone gave me a flower.  Another person came by and said "You sure picked the right place, it smells great over here!" but what they were smelling was my painting medium which is made with lavender spike oil.  It does smell pretty good.

This was a difficult painting but I think I have improved since Dec 2020 when I did the front of the building. (Which I need to go back and paint again.)

The initial drawing

The park was pretty.

Graphite and Cats

 Here's a quick 2 hour study of a Bouguereau painting, I'm going to leave it unfinished I think.

And the cats were snuggling in Daya's room.
I love when they snuggle.

Studio Cleanup & Other Stuff

 I have been s l o w l y been going through the chaos pile where my couch used to be.  I have old paintings that need to be destroyed and discarded, and I just need to get rid of junk in general.

So I have been working on the storage that's on the top of my studio shelving.

I threw away so much, it feels great.

In the midst of Really Old Stuff From Pratt, I found my Templeton animation cel that I thought missing for good since.... since my first apartment in Astoria!

Front

back

Full cel with production marks!

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Also while going through ancient archives, I found this historical relic handbook:

My mother and aunt were freaked right the hell out about Y2K, the disaster that never was!

Me? I couldn't care less. Like not even a little bit.

They annoyed me by sending me printed websites with paranoid fear-mongering information and also they thought it was fine to add my email to email lists without my consent.

So I got flooded with Y2K spam.

I also think "helping others understand..." if they think differently from you is a really arrogant and condescending mindset. Have your beliefs but stop trying to impose it on others!!

Religions can be like this too with their "think like we do" conversion mindset and this absolutely definitely applies in the case of my family. And if there is a fear bandwagon to jump on... they're right there.

It was very annoying.

I can't get on-board with paranoid hysteria.  I just...couldn't back then and I can't now.

This 72 hour checklist is pretty fantastic...

It lists, among other things, "stress relief" (do they mean alcohol, which is not listed?) and.... a hatchet, which I hope is not the intended stress relief item.

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Oh, ok, some art... I have been working a little in my sketchbook this month, face practice but I havent posted it anywhere.

Tonight I went to the Reuters art session and just did what they were doing since I didn't have something specific going on.

I don't think the photo we worked from is a good reference because it was all airbrushed out but whatever. Some drawing is better than no drawing.

Graphite

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And here are some cats:

Out Painting Again

I guess I didn't get cold enough yesterday because I went back out today.

Oddly, I was a little chillier today but it might have been the wind.
My feet were fine though.

8x10 oil

The black dog at the lower right is named Lulu.  She came to visit me without her people.

I chose this view because of the perspective line of the trees.  I liked it.

I like doing these complex scenes on a small panel; it's really a challenge.

The Clydesdales were on patrol again today.

I was not fast enough with my camera.

Pebbles says F You.

The Obelisk at Central Park

It was very cold today but- I added toe warmers inside my boots and it was enough to keep me from freezing.  I think I may have officially won the battle against the cold.

At least in the 20s thru the teens.
I think I have the gear down.  It is working.
But it does take a LONG time to get ready.

Anyhow, here's today's painting.  It took over three hours today.

The painting has some issues but what I am very happy about is the composition.  
I'm not sure a year ago that I could have done a zoomed-out view as well.  It's something I have had trouble with, getting everything to fit, and I got it down today.

Note how the sky/light was completely different when I started.  This is the light scheme I went with for the whole painting.

The toilet carpet is still a huge win.

There was an INSANE line to get into the Met; I wonder why?  I have never seen it so long.

It was cold but I was completely ok today!

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About an hour into my painting, a cyclist came over.
It was my friend Bitz!
I was so happy to see her and we chatted for a little while.
Like me, she is basically immune to the cold.  We both love cold and snow.

We took a very ridiculous picture to send to Kedrin.

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And yes I cleaned my brushes shortly after I got home.

A Wonderful Cube

This post is all about art supplies, and if you love art supplies it should make you feel very happy.

I like the Chelsea Classical Studio lean medium so much I was intrigued by their other products, except they are expensive.

But they have a sample cube of little sizes of all their products and I got one.

I love it.
I love the packaging, I love the way everything smells, I love the little glass bottles.

To be honest, I'm not very worried about oil paint and toxicity.
I use Gamsol which is toxic but it is also the most refined mineral spirits on the market.  It is odorless and slow-evaporating and does not absorb through the skin.  I'm good with all of that, pls my window is always open.

I think there are way more toxic things people are exposed to that they don't think twice about- but somehow with oils everyone makes a big hairy deal about it which, I think is way overblown.

A little common sense and you're fine.

Gum Turpentine IS super very extremely toxic but is so rarely used these days. 
This is why oils have such a bad rep. Turpentine is not necessary.

Anyhow:

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I got some new oil at Blick the other day when I got the brushes.
Since I use a lot of different mediums, I go through oil very slowly, and I have a really old large glass bottle. But I am running low, so I got a new small bottle.

It doesn't smell right.

I LOVE- and I mean LOVE the smell of linseed oil.  That and lavender are my favorite smells ever.

But my new bottle doesn't have that nice smell.
It ... actually doesn't smell very nice to be honest. Not strong or terrible, but it doesn't have that nice distinctive fragrance I love so much.

My old bottle smells WONDERFUL.

I contacted Gamblin.

They responded in under 2 hours.
There has been no change to the manufacturing process and nothing else has changed either.  It's the same oil they use in their paints.

The only conclusion is that my new oil is.... new.

I already know that the linseed oil in paints is rancid.
But maybe my new bottle is so new it isn't rancid yet??
I hope it gets a nice smell soon.

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My adorable glass bottle of linseed oil in the cube from CCS DOES smell good, like linseed oil should!

Flipped Switch

I have become obsessed.

As in.... I have literally done an immediate 180 shift.

Brush cleaning.
I'm compulsive about it now.
I fully admit to being absolute crap about brush cleaning for... years.
And my brushes showed it.

I have been washing my brushes immediately after painting!

Carey thinks something might be wrong with me.
She's probably right.

I Goop them.
I Ivory Soap them.
I hair condition them.

They come out GORGEOUS and perfect.

You can also wash brushes with Woolite and, of course, The Masters brush cleaner...which I still swear by.

After Painting

 Ken Goshen's band was playing tonight, and one of his friends who I have been working with on website stuff invited me.
Janet and her friend Chris joined too.

I didn't have time after painting to stop home so I went right to Janet's, left my stuff, and off we went.

It was a fun night and the band was really good!
They are called Lost Amsterdam.
It was actually a couple of blocks away from my first apartment.

I support Ken Goshen on Patreon.  He's a really excellent teacher. (He's far left in the picture.)

I was really happy to meet him in-person. Abigail, the model who I have drawn a lot and painted in Central park, was there too.

This whole crowd is about 10 years younger than I am.  They are not my generation but they are still cool people and it's nice to be around other artists. I wish I knew people like this when I was in my 30s. I never found an artist crowd like this when I was at that life stage.  I would have loved it.

But anyhow it was good to go out and I was really happy Janet and Chris came with me.

Central Park Snow Dogs

Today I went out to paint in the snow... of course I did!

I mostly won the battle against the cold but my toes were really in some pain at the end.  I was ok by the time I got out of the park but I need to find another heat source in my boots.

Oil paint gets really, really stiff in the snow.  Usually I just use more solvent but today I tried Chelsea Classical Studio lean medium.

They have been around for a while but I never tried their products until today.
They make everything with lavender spike oil... the old bottle of spike oil I have (not CCS) smells really strongly of camphor and I never use it.  The CCS stuff actually does smell better.  Everyone says "oh it smells like lavender" -which is my favorite scent- but lavender spike oil is different than aromatherapy lavender.

Anyhow, the CCS stuff actually does smell pretty good.  It's a little camphor-ey but also a little lavender-ey.  Plus it is nontoxic so that's good.

It is VERY expensive though- I paid $16 for 2 oz.
But a tiny bit- literally drops- goes a very long way. So this bottle should last a while and it is WONDERFUL for subzero oil painting.

8x10 oil

Snow But Not a Blizzard

We had a good snowfall but it wasn't really a blizzard.
But I *had* go go out in it!

I called my friend Janet who is in the neighborhood to see if she wanted to come out in the sow with me.
She reluctantly agreed.

It was pretty out and we had fun,,, jut Janet got cold and wanted coffee and tiramisu, so off to the bakery we went...

I don't like coffee so I got a Mexican hot chocolate.  It was really good but could have been spicier!

Then we played in the snow some more.

Pre-Blizzard Prep

The cats are in hibernation mode.
Isis thinks she is me.

Furball is such a perfect fur ball!
She is so cute and perfect.

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I washed a LOT of brushes and re-packed my plein air gear.

Tonight I also went to Blick and got .... more brushes.
The Utrecht kind I want to try again with Good Brush Hygiene.

I'll give them another try. I really do like them a lot and I want them to last.

I reduced the amount of brushes in my brush roll, which has been gradually and ridiculously expanding.

Honestly this is still too many.

We are getting a blizzard tomorrow and I do love a good blizzard!
I got blizzard food. :)