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Category: RGH paints

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Busman’s holiday

When buying paint, it’s all about that base.
My second-favorite kind of painting.
I’m in the western Berkshires painting the interior walls in my oldest kid’s new house. She’s 28 and it’s her first house, and she’s very excited. So am I; like many artists, my idea of a good vacation is to paint walls. (Ceilings, not so much, but you must take the good with the bad.)
In artists’ oils, I like RGH paints. This is a small company based in Albany, NY. The owner, Rolf Haerem, has been making paints since 1989, and is a painter himself. In acrylics, I prefer Golden. Today, Golden is a large national brand. However, it also started as a small New York business, the brainchild of retired paint-maker Sam Golden, in New Berlin, Chenango County. In oil painting mediums, I like Grumbacher, which was founded in New York City in 1902. It’s now owned by Chartpak, based in Northhampton, MA. In brushes, I like Robert Simmons Signet.
None of these brands are sacred in themselves. They’re just my preferences, developed over decades of painting.  They work with my technique. On Monday, I wrote that I’d used a gel medium in an emergency, and it messed with my style. Still, other painters love it. It depends on what you’re striving for.
Nevertheless, there’s a theme running through my choices. They’re professional grade materials. I, too, was once an impecunious student buying student-grade materials, so I understand economy. But at some point, artists need to buy the right stuff, or they’ll never get the right results.
The new homeowner, surrounded by her paint chips.
In wall paints, I also have strong preferences. I’ve been painting with Benjamin Moore for decades. I know I can drop a bead of color alongside wooden moldings without taping or endless massaging, and I can generally get full coverage in a single coat. As with oil paints, wall paints are made with various combinations of pigments, binder and filler. It’s important to find one you like.
Here in the wilds of the New York-Massachusetts border, it’s been a problem to find it. And my budget-masters kvetch at the sticker price. Yesterday I capitulated for expediency’s sake, and used a brand sold by a large big-box retailer. I immediately regretted it. It clumped in the roller, and it didn’t slide easily off my brush.
When I first arrived on Sunday, I drove up to see my son-in-law digging a trench, sweaty and hot in the September warmth. He and my daughter are the same age as my husband and I were when we built our own first house. It was also a modular, also on a wooded rural hillside, and we also did all the sitework and finishing ourselves.
I was happy to watch the lad dig. One of the consolations of getting old is that you never need to pound another copper ground rod into rocky soil if you don’t want to. Some jobs are best enjoyed through the rose-colored glasses of nostalgia.
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Let’s talk about summer, part 2

Start with your pigments. 
Yesterday, it was so warm that I went outdoors in my loafers without socks. There’s still two feet of snowpack out there, but winter’s back is broken. Yes, it will snow again between now and Easter, but it can’t last.
That means that it’s time to get your plein air pack in order.
I use the same palette indoors and out, but my umbrella, my backpack, and my field easel get stashed in a corner. My first order of business is to pull them out and inspect them for cracks, tears and other damage, and to thoroughly vacuum out my backpack.

Check your brushes.
Last fall, I bought a bunch of new brushes so I’m sure that my brushes are in order. Good thing, too, since by the end of last season it felt like I was painting with clubs. Start by getting rid of brushes that are worn out or gunked up.
I buy my paints in cans from RGH Paints in Albany. I keep them in this segmented vitamin box. Generally a plastic box of paints will get me through a week of travel without reloading, and it weighs a fraction of what the same paints in tubes do. Spring is when I clean out the box, check my supplies, and order new paints for the upcoming season.

Baby wipes, bug dope, sunscreen, hooded ponch and a baseball cap are important.
More drawing means less struggling, and I carry a lot of drawing tools, both for myself and my students: charcoal, watercolor pencil, graphite, greyscale markers for fast value studies, and a viewfinder with a dry erase marker. I often use watercolor pencils and a straight edge when architecture is involved.
Don’t forget drawing tools.
I check my sunscreen, bug repellent, painting cap, apron, water bottle, and supply of liquid gloves. I always carry two ponchos—one for me, and one for my painting, because when it rains in the spring, it really rains.
I have two sets of tools, so my field ones generally don’t wander off. They still need to be checked: compass, palette knifes, scraper, bungee cords, level, S-hooks, clips, all-purpose tool, straight edge/angle finder, paint pots and soap.

S-hooks, clips and bungee cords have a thousand and one uses in the field.
It’s time to order new fast-dry mediumand check my supply of mineral spirits. Because I want to travel light, I repurpose old medium containers to hold mineral spirits, and carry my medium in a hotel shampoo bottle or cosmetic pot. I always carry a few plastic grocery bags for trash. The pins and strap are one way to carry finished paintings, if you don’t use a panel carrier. If you do use panel carriers, check the elastics to see if they need replacement. And it’s definitely time to check your inventory of painting boards.

You’ll need wee jars for medium and solvent. Don’t forget to check your stash of boards.
Last, I check my supply of frames and framing tools. If you do plein air events, you need them on hand.
Check your pigments, check your tools, check the stuff you need to be comfortable. Reorder what’s used up, repair what’s broken.
Let me know if you’re interested in painting with me on the Schoodic Peninsula in beautiful Acadia National Park in 2015 or Rochester at any time. Click here for more information on my Maine workshops! Download a brochure here. 
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My paint list

With the palette I outline below, you can get anywhere you need to go on the color wheel. 
I’ve been using RGH paints for several years. I like them because they’re relatively inexpensive, they have a high pigment load, and they don’t add driers. In addition, they’re made in a small workshop in Colonie, NY.
On Friday I stopped at RGH to talk to them about finalizing a paint list for my students.
Paints are often sold with poetic names like “Naples Yellow” that mean nothing. The real pigment by that name, antimony yellow, is toxic. Alizarin crimson and Indian yellow are both fugitive (meaning they fade). When people buy paints using those old romantic names, they are in fact buying a mixture of pigments that approximate the handling and color of the original pigments.
Colors like cerulean are very expensive, so manufacturers make mixes that approximate them, which are labeled as “hues”. But mixes of any kind give you less value and flexibility than buying the straight colors and learning to mix yourself.
Even when manufacturers use the same pigments there can be wide variations in color in the finished product, depending on the pigment load, how finely the pigment is ground, what oil is used for the binder, etc.
I carried my palette box into RGH’s shop and Roger and I spent an hour comparing pigments. This is the palette I am now recommending to all my students, or to anyone else who wants to paint like me:

Burnt sienna
Cadmium orange
Cadmium yellow light
Indian yellow transparent
Ivory black
Mars yellow deep
Prussian blue
Quinacridone magenta
Raw sienna
Titanium white
Ultramarine blue

For all colors except Titanium white, a 37 ml tube is sufficient. For Titanium white a 150 ml tube is necessary. Order them here.
I buy my paints in cans and put them in a plastic pill box but for most painters tubes are fine.
Note that this palette contains neither a red nor a green. I’ve concluded that neither is necessary on the everyday palette. If I were to add them, I’d add chromium oxide green (the color of summer foliage in the northeast) and naphthol red, which approximates cadmium red but doesn’t dry out as fast (or cost as much).
If you want to learn more about pigments, the best source of information is the Handprint website. Although designed for watercolor, its information is true across all media.

Sorry, folks. My workshop in Belfast, ME is sold out. Message me if you want a spot on my waitlist, or information about next year’s programs. Information is available here.
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It’s not gonna snow forever

Spring really is just around the corner, I swear.

I think the dead of winter is God’s way of telling me it’s time to paint the figure, so I generally lay off plein air in the coldest months. The last day I painted out-of-doors was the day before Thanksgiving. But watching spring snow falling outside my studio window is a reminder that in a week or so, we can be outdoors, so it’s time to get my pack in order.
Is this the year I buy a new brush holder? Nah…
I use the same palette indoors and out, but my umbrella, my backpack, and my field easel get stashed in a corner, from whence they silently reproach me for not going outside to play. The first order of business is to pull them out and inspect them for cracks, tears and other damage, and to thoroughly vacuum out my pack.
If brush cleaner/conditioner doesn’t
salvage them, replace them.
Then it’s time to consider what condition my brushes are in. A few need replacement every year, particularly the flats and long filberts. Some need reshaping, and a few need to be rescued, but mostly I have to track down the ones that have wandered out of my brush holder into a coffee can in my studio.

 I don’t use tubes, but buy my paints in cans (from RGH Paints in Albany). I keep my paints in this segmented vitamin box, given me by my pal Jamie Williams Grossman. Generally this box of paints will get me through a week of travel without reloading, and it weighs a fraction of what the same paints in tubes do. Having used this box without cleaning it since last May, this seems like a good time to clean out any residual old paint and wipe out the reservoirs. But it’s also a sensible time to check my supplies and order new paint.
Ditching tubes cuts down on weight. Cheap, efficient, and faster.
More drawing means less struggling, so I carry them all: charcoal, watercolor pencil, graphite, greyscale markers for fast value studies, and a viewfinder/dry erase marker. I often use watercolor pencils and a straight edge when architecture is involved, and I particularly like that one can erase errors with a damp paper towel. I definitely need some new watercolor pencils this year.
Draw slow, paint fast. From left, charcoal, watercolor pencils and sharpener, grey-scale markers, graphite sticks and sketchbook, viewfinder and dry-erase marker.
Another group of supplies that’s frequently looted over the winter is personal care supplies. I note that I need replacement suntan lotion and I need to track down my lucky painting cap, apron, and water bottle. The latex gloves are primarily for warmth, not cleanliness, so I’d better order liquid gloves. (You Southerners will be surprised to learn that the hand warmers can be dropped out again after, say, July.) I always carry two ponchos—one for me, and one for my painting, because when it rains in the spring, it really rains. I put my IPod and my camera in this category, but they don’t need to be checked; they’re used every day.
Never discount the value of being comfortable. From left, insect repellent, baby wipes, poncho for my easel, hand-warmers, my poncho, latex gloves.
I have two sets of tools, so my field ones generally don’t go walkies, but they still need to be checked, because they’re the most important tools I own: my compass (because I want to know where the sun is heading), palette knifes and a scraper, bungee cords, a level, S-hooks, clips, an all-purpose tool, a straight edge/angle finder, double pots, soap.
The most important part of my kit after paints and brushes. From top left: compass, two palette knives, scraper, bungee cords, level, soap, palette cups, angle finder/straight edge, all-purpose tool, clips, S-hooks.
It’s time to order new fast-dry medium, and check my supplies of mineral spirits. Because I want to travel light, I’ll repurpose the medium container to hold mineral spirits, and carry my medium in the tiny pot in the foreground (bought as part of a cosmetic travel set from my local dollar store). A hotel shampoo bottle serves equally well for this. I always carry a few plastic grocery bags for trash, and I stash the larger containers and a funnel in my car. I’ll go out in my shop and run a few rolls of paper towel through my chop saw so they’re half size, and I’ll be good to go.
You need a big bottle of mineral spirits in your car and a little one to carry, a big bottle of medium and a little one to carry, a brush-washing tank, some boards to paint on, and a way to move the finished paintings.
I’ve been using thumbtacks, a strap and waxed paper to move wet paintings, but this year I think I’ll go all-out on a new carrier system made from cheap frames and big rubber bands, as suggested by my pal Marilyn Fairman. And it’s definitely time to check my inventory of painting boards. I like Ray-Mar boards and they always have a Memorial Day sale, so I always try to arrange my inventory to limp along until then. But this week I’ll sort my remaining inventory and count them so I know what I need to order.
That’s my routine for checking my oils. You can extrapolate the same checklist for watercolors and pastels—check your pigments, check your tools, check the stuff you need to be comfortable, reorder what’s gone, repair what’s broken. For a complete list of my recommended oil painting supplies, check here. For watercolor supplies, check here. For pastel supplies, check here.