Why preserve Van Gogh's palette? – Telegraph Blogs

Why preserve Van Gogh's palette? – Telegraph Blogs

This is a great blog post from Lucy Davies on the Telegraph.uk site. I hadn't given much thought to the existence and availability of the painting palettes of artists such as Vab Gogh, Delacroix, and Goya. Looking at the photos of the palettes can give you something of an insight into how the artist worked and their approach to color.

Using a traditional palette set-up hasn't been a part of my studio practice for years, but I remember really enjoying lining up my colors from warm to cool on my newly scraped down glass palette at the beginning of a painting session. Once in a while, I might have a couple of piles of left-over paint on it, but usually, I just scraped off what wasn't used and put it in a jar with water. That was when I was working with oils exclusively. I liked having a clean palette to work on and could not deal with having dried paint from previous sessions still there. I didn't care about how messy the palette became, while I was painting but it had to be relatively clean when I started.

I still have those glass palettes, even though I haven't used them in a long time. I also have a couple of traditional wooden palettes as well. I think that they are packed up in the apartment or at the studio.

Lately, I have taken to using disposable palettes when I want to mix small amounts of colors that I don't already have stored in containers. I started doing that while working on 'Lagoon'. The disposable palettes made it easier to deal with movng back and forth across such a large piece.

studio 5.28.10

Studio corner with works in various stages of resolution. I'm starting to pick up steam now and am looking forward to jumping into some larger pieces in the coming weeks.

From the studio for Ready, Willing, & Able

Cherryripe, 2010, mixed media on panel, 10 x 10 inches

After The Storm, 2010, mixed media on panel, 10 x 10 inches

Two new paintings that will be shown in the upcoming Benefit Exhibition at the Bridgette Mayer Gallery. The beneficiaries of this year's exhibition will be Ready, Willing, and Able, which provides transitional housing and paid-work training for homeless and formerly incarcerated individuals in Philadelphia.

The exhibition runs from June 4-July 2, 2010. The opening reception takes place at the Bridgette Mayer Gallery, 709 Walnut Street, Philadelphia, PA on First Friday, June 4th, from 6-8:30pm

For more information about Ready, Willing & Able, visit: www.rwaphiladelphia.org

Studio visit-Juri Kim

Hole-punched patterns formed in over-lapping pieces of paper.

Paintings and other works in the studio of Philadelphia-based artist, Juri Kim. The seemingly random patterns of overlapping dots in Juri Kim's paintings belie a very definite strategy that involves the repetition of sentences translalated by the artist into braille. Kim then takes the translated sentences and composes her paintings in various patterns and colors depending on her needs. The resulting fields of layered dots give her paintings an optical vibrancy that warrant repeated viewings.

Update- Juri Kim will have work in two upcoming exhibitions:

Solo Series

Abington Art Center, 515 Meetinghouse Road,Jenkintown, PA 19046

September 12-November 30, 2010

Group Exhibition

Haverford College, 370 Lancaster Avenue, Haverford, PA 19041

October 22-December 10, 2010

Portrait of the artist: Douglas Gordon, artist | Culture | The Guardian

Portrait of the artist: Douglas Gordon, artist | Culture | The Guardian

'People who buy art should buy it like they buy veg. They should do it every day, and should love what they buy'

-Douglas Gordon

the broken

The brush bore the brunt of my creative angst today...

Dramatic, art myth-making line right there, no?

Well, the reality was more like this: I was drying the bristles on an old t-shirt on the floor of the studio, was holding the brush handle too far up and applied too much pressure. *Snap!!!* Surprised the hell out of me and I started laughing because it just seemed like such an odd thing to happen. I was kind of thrown for a loop and thought, "Huh, that doesn't happen". I don't know what to compare the feeling to. In that moment, I was still in my 'painting zone' and not quite in the world, so to speak, so the brush handle breaking seemed somewhat surreal and disconnected.

I think I've broken only one other paint brush in all the time that I've been painting. I've had some brushes fail from being poorly made, but it's very rare that I'll actually break one; I've spilled more paint than I have broken brushes.

So, I'm curious, has this happened to you? I mean, things break and fail all of the time in the process of making art, however, have you used something for a long time, have it fail in some way and have that moment of, "That was strange/wasn't supposed to happen even if this thing was old."

From the studio...

A Place Of Distinction, 2010, mixed media on panel, 24 x 24 inches

Order, order!

I opened the studio door and found that I had a feathered visitor trying desperately to get out. I think it might have come in through a hole in the plastic-covered window in my studio mate's space at the back of the floor. I opened up the remaining good window and left long enough for the bird to find the opening go about it's merry way.

That, folks, is a trash bag full of today's (and last week's) spring-cleaning results. I had a late start in the studio today, not arriving until nearly 2:30 this afternoon, due to not feeling that great. It seems that I have a bit of a cold, from the feeling in my throat. I didn't feel like doing much in the way of actual painting, despite feeling flush with new ideas. However, I was there and thought that I should do something, so I started by dealing with taking the large painting I worked on recently off of the wall and rolled it up. I also finally titled ("Lagoon") and signed it.

The next task I needed to tackle was the corner of paints that had since grown from when this photo was taken early last month.

Organizing this pile became my goal of the day. This included checking the containers and making sure that the paint inside was still usable, tossing anything that had dried up, and putting paints into new containers, as needed. My goal was to get them off of the floor and onto one of the carts I have, however, I had to come of with a way to organize them in a way that made sense to me and was simple. The cart I'm using for the paints has three shelves, so the most efficient way to use the small amount of space was to do this- top: warm colors, middle: cool colors, bottom: whites, blacks and neutrals. Once I dispensed with the stuff that I couldn't or didn't want to use, I had enough space for everything. I'm hoping that I can keep the paint cart fairly ordered, but that's going to be tested once I get going full-tilt on paintings that are coming up.