I have now been puttering around with a small selection of two kinds of paints in the dressing room while waiting for the painting studio to get its improvements. I have offered to help but I am not required, yet. So I have been drawing and colouring. I started a new drawing a couple of days ago and I do not know if it is any good, i.e. if I like it. I have been painting on ridiculously small canvasses. The largest one is about forty-two by twenty-nine centimetres (the one above) and the smallest about forty by thirty-five centimetres. So, in a smaller room, on a small easel, on a small canvas, using small brushes and small paint tubes, I feel like I cannot move. That is why I have been drawing and colouring - I do that on a table and it is as small (A3) as it usually is. I have two two metres by one metre fifty canvasses waiting for me in the studio - both half-way finished.
I had planned on using this out-of-the-studio time to write, but being the contrary-mary that I am, that has not worked at all. I have reached a point in the book where research about one of the people, remember they are actual people who lived, shows that she married the son of her mother's sister, so her first cousin. I checked if they had children. They did. I checked if they lived. They did. So, I know that marrying first cousins was and is illegal in France and have to figure out why they were allowed to marry. I am toying with the idea that perhaps she (or he) was a foundling (is that a word for a child that was abandoned and found?) because I have come across quite a few families of five or six children where two or three of them were from the hospice (the place where abandoned children were found). This was noted in more recent census reports (later than 1860's), but I have not seen it in the earlier ones and therefore could possibly, perhaps, maybe be an explanation. Little Simon appeared in Antoine's family in 1774 - not sure how I know - but he was not their son. Further research showed that he was one of Antoine's nephews.... I will not go into how long it took me to find that bit of information out!! End of shortish off-topic meandering.
About the two kinds of paints, I may have mentioned this before but just in case I have not, I will explain. When we first moved here, I found out that the nearest art shop that sold stuff I normally use was an hour and a half away, in Lyon. I love going there but it is quite a trip. I ordered online a couple of times, but that takes forever. I found an arts and crafts-bookstore near where we do the weekly food shopping sortie and also found out they do not sell any of the paints I use (Norma, Mussini, Sennelier, Oudt Holland, Georgian - I used different ones because I prefer some colours in some of these brands; for instance, I do not like burnt sienna from Schminke but the carmine from Mussini is the amazing). On one of my orders from Boesner, I ordered some Green for Oil thinner, not realising it would not mix well with any of the paints I have. I did my research and found out that it is made for use with Sennelier's Rive Gauche oils. So, in a complete breakdown in logic, rather than just putting the thinner aside until I forgot about it, I went to the nearest arts and crafts shop mentioned above and saw they had gift boxes of the stuff. I did not want most of the colours in the box so asked about the ones I did want. I was informed that I could order them online and have them delivered within a few days to the shop. Within a few days, wow, that was better than the few weeks from the other shop. So, I ordered my basic palette selection of burnt sienna, burnt umber, ultramarine, cerulean blue, alizarin crimson, cadmium red, cadmium yellow and white. Only 40ml tubes, which make me feel like I should not squeeze out more than a tiny amount every time. I also ordered some medium since I would not be able to use my normal mix of linseed and turps.
I went to pick up the paints and immediately tried them out. They have a nice consistency - it is Sennelier, after all! - and I found they worked well in a sort of glaze approach. As I work on five, six, seven paintings at the same time, it had to happen that I would inadvertently work on a Rive Gauche painting with the other paints or vice versa. I got these Rive Gauche about a year and a half ago and about a month ago, I peeled part of a painting off that had still not dried after all this time. It was still sticky and very easy to peel off. Unfortunately, I do not know what I did apart from using something from Rive Gauche, either paint or medium, with paint or medium from the regular oil selection. So, to prevent myself from doing that again, I moved the Rive Gauche to a dedicated box that I tend to use in the house rather than in the studio. I come across unfinished paintings - I do have a rather large amount of those - and wonder if they are Rive Gauche or regular. Also, I don't know if using one over the other after it is dry would cause a problem. I remember being at one of my exhibitions in Antwerp and I was standing with a woman, discussing one of my paintings. As we spoke, I noticed a little something on the surface of the painting and pulled it off. I said "oh! look! my painting is peeling!" and the woman asked if that was normal. I told her it depended on her interest in the painting... That was caused by drawing in pastel - dry or oil - on the canvas and then painting over it without "wetting" the lines beforehand with thinner or medium. A fellow artist told me it added a certain something to the painting to have bits peel off. I remain unconvinced.
So, for the past few days, I have been playing with the Rive Gauche and, separately, with the regular oils. I now have a growing number of small paintings and I am losing track of which paint I used for which. I will be glad when I can get back into the studio and have separation of oils! The one above is Rive Gauche and as you can see, the colours are really nice. It also is supposed to dry twice as fast as regular paint and is non-toxic for the environment. The only problem is that it is 'fine oil paint' and not 'finest oil paint'. I am not sure what that means. Does that matter to my paintings? There is a well-known artist in Belgium who only paints in Winton paints which have the problem of 'greying' as they dry. They are of a lesser quality. He uses them because of their 'greying' quality.
I get to the end of these posts and wonder if there is a way to end a post. Well, if there is, it is unknown to me along with many other social whatsits. Ah! here's an idea:
The End
or is that a little too final?
The End for now
Yes, I'll go with that.
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