Wheel invented!

If you are the sort of person who pokes around on art and artists' websites you may have come across an ad for "The Carder Method" (trademarked). Carder's website sells a six-hour dvd and two tools for learning to paint and draw according to this method. The proportional dividers shown above can be bought from his website for $29.95.

Yes, that's two pieces of wood with some holes drilled into them and a brass screw and nut holding them together. $29.95. I will admit to having bought one of these a couple of years ago, largely because I am too lazy and/or inept at building and making things to have tried to make such a device myself. But that doesn't mean I don't feel foolish for having spent thirty dollars for two pieces of wood and a brass screw.

Carder also sells a color spot checker for $14.95 Presumably that's less expensive because it has no moving parts.

Mark Carder is a very capable and accomplished portrait artist. You can see some of his work on the same website. I respect his art considerably more than I do his marketing claims.

The method itself being described on his website is a quite solid, dependable, almost foolproof method for learning to draw by carefully measuring proportions and learning to paint by carefully observing and comparing mixed colors to the natural colors you're trying to duplicate. As Carder says in a video on his site, this is "how to become a color Xerox."

But while Carder has trademarked the name "The Carder Method," I don't see a patent mentioned anywhere. The irony is that his descriptions of his "method" leave one with the impression that he's come up with all this himself. In fact, these methods have been around much longer than Mr. Carder.

Proportional dividers are such an old concept that one can find them showing up in old master etchings and engravings. And the color-spot method of painting was being taught by Charles W. Hawthorne after the turn of the previous century. "Hawthorne on Painting" published in the 1930s is still being reprinted, by the way, and can be purchased from Dover for $5.95, considerably less than Mr.Carder might charge were he to issue it under his name.

In the book, Hawthorne makes no claim to having originated this approach to painting himself but neither does he mention Carder who, in fact, would not be born for another few decades.

Are you peeking at my underpaints?

There's a conscious effort on my part here to create some interesting colors and optical effects by laying in some complimentary colors as underpainting. You can be the judge as to how successful this is when I'm finished.

I did this kind of underpainting in the composition at top. You can see traces of the orange underpainting peeking out from beneath the pale blue surface on which the two shells sit.

Finito?

Sometimes I sign these things and then a few days later come back and add another couple of daubs...

And speaking of signing, I have used only initials here. Can you blame me? With a name like this? On a canvas that is only 9 x 12?

My son, Chris, is going to a reception tonight at the Chicago Public Library which is exhibiting, among others, the poster design he did for them. In an email to me he made reference to his incipient fame as a graphic designer on his way to becoming a 'household name.'

"With a name like ours?" I replied.

Almost finished

I still need to adjust the highlights in the smaller shells. And that cone shaped whitish shell in the lower center is still too bright but I'm fairly happy with how this has gone. A little more work and it might be signature time.

New toy for spring

Were you ever so excited about a trip that you practiced packing for it? I guess I'm that way. My wife and I are renting a big old house on Little Cranberry Island in Maine at the end of May. My brother will come with us. You leave your car on the mainland and take the ferry to the island. I've been practicing packing my art supplies. I want to make sure I have everything I could possibly need but I want to travel light nonetheless.

The smaller, newer box sitting on top there is a thumb-box. You can't quite see it but there is a thumb-hole cut into the bottom. Those brushes are tucked into the thumb-hole for the moment.

I'm a sucker for these kinds of things. The flat palette is a tray that slides over the tubes of paint. The box lid has a slot for a 6 x 8 inch canvas panel on which to sketch.

The older, paint spattered box on which it sits is called a pochade box. Pochade is a French word for paint sketch. The french impressionists got painters out of the studio and painting outdoors. But they couldn't have done it without the American invention of the tin paint tube.

That older pochade box was made of recycled wood by a handyman in Canada from whom I bought it over eBay some years ago. But pochade boxes require tripods. And I'm thinking I could use something even smaller and more compact.

Last year I saw this new thumb-box deeply discounted and I grabbed it, but I haven't had occasion to use it yet. It's made by Jullian, the French outfit that made the first portable sketch easels with collapsible folding legs that the impressionists used in the 19th century. Those so-called French easels are big and somewhat heavy, but, yes, I have one of those too,

This thumb-box gets eight tubes of paint so I have to be judicious about what I choose to take along. Right now I'm sticking to two versions of each of the primaries, plus a red/brown and a white:

Ultramarine Blue (Williamsburg handmade paints)
Cobalt Blue (Old Holland)
Vermillion Extra (Old Holland)
Perylene Crimson (Williamsburg)
Burnt Seinna (Old Holland)
Italian Yellow Ochre (Williamsburg)
Indian Yellow (Gamblin)
Quick Dry White (Gamblin)