Writing a Memoir: How Do I Start?

Today I begin writing my memoir about attending art school in San Francisco. I'm not sure where to begin. For starters, I am collecting my journal entries into one place. Then I'll go through them day by day and try to get an idea of the source material I'll have to help me. God forbid I rely on just my memory. The main reason I journal is because my memory sucks.

I checked sources online for help in writing a memoir. So I have plenty of help. I'll be updating my progress here and at my writing blog at www.AikenWriter.com.

Using Acrylic and Oils in a Painting

The debate continues about using acrylic paints and oils in the same painting. Most of the time, an artist will use an acrylic painting first as an underpainting, then proceed to finish the work in oils. The question is: will painting with oils over acrylics hold up over time? 

Some critics of this practice point to evidence that suggests the oil layer will eventually peel away from the acrylic layer underneath. Acrylics, they say, is still relatively new to the market place and there is no long term history to back up the belief that its okay to use as a layer beneath oils. Others believe it is okay, just as long as the acrylic layer comes first. Painting acrylic over oil is a guaranteed disaster. However, the consensus is still out on whether painting oil over acrylic is advisable. 

Much of the thinking goes like this: we use "acrylic gesso" as an undercoat, so why not also use acrylic paint to get us started? It dries so quickly, it allows the artist to lay down a quick drawing or underpainting and begin work with oils the same day. However, "acrylic gesso" and "acrylic paint" are not the same thing. Acrylic gesso contains additives to increase absorption and provide tooth. Acrylic paint dries to a relatively smooth surface and is not as absorbent. Is it best to stick with oils throughout the process and avoid using acrylic paint AND gesso? Some would say the best ground for an oil painting is lead white.

Staffers at Golden Paints have seen paintings with oil over acrylic layers that have lasted 20+ years without any apparent peeling or damage. However, a more conservative view that errs on the side of caution would promote using acrylic gesso and/or paint in layers as thin and matte as possible. They point out that acrylic paints, in general, are porous enough to provide adhesion with an oil layer. However, George O' Hanlon at Natural Pigments writes "I tend to err on on the conservative side. There is not enough information yet about this practice to make it a 'best practice.'"

As for my own work, I began using acrylic gesso and thinly applied acrylic paints for underpainting. Acrylics are generally cheaper than oils, and they dried so quickly it was easy to get started with oils within an hour. Having said that, it has been suggested that a layer of acrylic needs to be fully dry and free of any moisture prior to applying oils. So I was most likely painting my oil layers too quickly over acrylic. If I do it right, how much time do I really save?

I have changed my approach. I don't want to take any chances. I have switched to an oil-based gesso, like Gamblin's oil ground. I then use lead white and raw umber for underpainting and drawing. They dry quickly and I can avoid using acrylics. 

Crispening: Light, Value and the Background

(from Anthony Waichulis, at AnthonyWaichulis.com)

Often I have seen students work very diligently on a “tonal” subject---only to have an arbitrarily added background or surround adversely affect the vast majority of value relationships throughout. Well---before you throw any ol’ value around your subject you should consider two related perceptual effects that could significantly affect everything that you have done.

In the 1960s, Hiroshi Takasaki from the University of Shizuoka, Japan and the Carl C. Semmelroth from the National Institute of Standards and Technology discovered and studied a lightness contrast effect that they dubbed “crispening.”  This effect was described as an enhanced perceptual difference between samples as their lightness approached that of their background.  In other words, perceived contrast between two similar values may appear greater if they share a background that is also similar.  Let’s look at the graphic to better understand this: If you look at the numbers placed over the 3 strips of value---you will notice that the numbers that near the missing number (the number that matches its background) seem to have a greater disparity (perceived higher contrast) than those that are more distant. For example, the values of the numbers 7, 8, and 9 against the black surround here seem to differ more in value than the 7, 8, and 9 against the middle gray or white.

Later (around 1967), C. J. Bartleson and E. J. Breneman of the Eastman Kodak Company Research Laboratories also documented an effect involving perceived contrast variation observed among areas of different value within an image when the image is viewed against a light or dark valued background. As you might suspect, they dubbed this phenomenon, the Bartleson-Breneman Effect (B-B).

Generally speaking, as a subject's background becomes darker, the  values of that subject appear lighter, darker values are “compressed,” and the grays appear more similar (less contrast). When a background skews lighter, values may appear darker, darker values still tend to compress, and grays may appear to be less similar (more contrast). If you look at the grid of value patches at the center of the graphic, you will notice how the values and their relationships appear different (as described) as the background changes.

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Eric Fischl: Notes From a Critique

I recently came by a video of Eric Fischl giving a critique to second year students at the New York Academy of Art. About twenty students had their paintings displayed around the room and Fischl walked among them and did his best to give some advice.

Here are some notes I took from his talk:

1. "What makes a masterpiece?"  Fischl began the discussion with this question. He told the students he saw one masterpiece in the room. I'm sure the students began to squirm, "Is it mine?" Turns out it was this painting, "Auntie", by Aleah Chapin. Chapin's work won the BP Portrait Award in 2012. So, I guess Fischl was right. 

Fiscal told the students his definition of a masterpiece:  when "intention and execution happen simultaneously on the canvas." He mentioned the scientific term "elegant solution." An elegant solution seeks to explain complexity in the simplest terms. For an artwork to have any chance of being a masterpiece it must be simple. The message it conveys may be very complex, but it must reveal its complexity in the simplest way possible. 

2.  In art there is always a dialectic. Dialectics refer to logical arguments. Art needs to make sense. It must have a logical base as a foundation. He pointed to one student's work and said it was unclear, ambivalent. The student failed to make a decision on which way to go. He talked about the difference between ambivalence and ambiguity: ambivalence is uncertainty, an inability to make a choice; ambiguity is a good thing if it intentionally makes the viewer think, reexamine or redefine their assumptions. An artist decides to be ambiguous. A decision is made, an intention is defined. 

3. Modern, contemporary society is a collage, a reality that is fragmented. We are constantly being bombarded by multiple images, especially on social media. An artist decides how to handle these collages:  either by fusing the images together and hiding the fragmentation, or revealing the fragmentation and emphasizing the deconstruction. Many artists, for example, use Photoshop to compose their imagery and reference material. Do they fuse these images into a new reality, or do they expose the fakery, the fragmentation? Do we hide our technique or reveal it?

4.  Fischl encouraged the class by stating "I see a lot of sincerity here." He noted there was not much cynicism. Most of the students seemed to care about what they were painting. No one seemed to have the attitude, "I don't give a damn." 

5. A discussion about sentiment also took place. Fischl defined sentimentality as "unearned emotion." A sentimental painting is "fake" in the sense that it reveals something already known. The highest ambition of art is to "reexamine, undermine, redefine" what is known. A student brought up Thomas Kinkade, who died in 2012, the year this video was taken. Kinkade's work is sentimental, reinforcing what is already known, failing to undermine or redefine beauty in landscapes. 

6. "How do you know when you are finished" with a painting? "I stop being a painter, and become a viewer," says Fischl. At some point in the painting process he stops painting and starts looking, just takes in what he has done and becomes like anyone else who views a work of art. At that point he knows he is close to the end. 

7. Things to consider: balance in the work among the elements, a unifying of the space. Do all the elements make sense, do they seem to logically fit in the same space. Pay attention to artifice and observed reality, and how they relate to one another in the piece. He pointed to a painting of a nude woman with a huge bird sitting on her torso, with its claws digging into the skin. The way the bird and the woman were rendered made them appear as if they belonged in different paintings. The bird was artificially inserted into the space and looked as if it didn't belong there.

Defining Some Terms in Color Theory

RGB: The combination of red, green, and blue light that forms a color. This is also called additive color (when you add more light, you get closer to white) and is what you'll see for digital cameras, televisions, monitors, and anything that emits light in general instead of needing an external light source to illuminate it.

CMYK: The combination of Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and black ink or paint that will reflect a certain color. This is also called subtractive color (when you add more ink, you get closer to black) and is what you'll see for printers or anything else that uses ink, pigments, or paint. Theoretically Cyan, Magenta, and Yellow components would be enough to make all colors, but it's cheaper and faster to use dedicated black ink for dark colors and shades of gray.

HSL: A way to express a color in terms of its:
• Hue: is it red or blue or anything in between? If you consider spectrum of visible light, hue determines on which point of the spectrum the color roughly is.
• Saturation: Is the color purely, say, red, or is it muted down with some combination of gray? Totally saturated is red, totally unsaturated is gray (or white or black, depending on the…)
• Lightness: Is it closer to white, or closer to black?
You can play with an HSL color picker at MothereffingHSL.
In Photoshop and elsewhere you'll see HSB (for Brightness which is in practice the same as HSV for Value) and HSI, which are both similar but not identical to HSL.

Lab: This is a way to plot a color based on its Lightness, amount of green or magenta (a), and amount of blue or yellow (b), a model that closely approximates human vision. With Lab, you can plot every single color that's possible in RGB and CMYK, so it's useful as an intermediate step in converting digital graphics for print.

Tint: for a given color, make it lighter (basically, add pure white) and you'll have a tint of that original color.

Shade: for a given color, make it darker (basically, add pure black) and you'll have a shade of that original color.

Tones: I see "tones" used to describe ranges of discrete brightness/lightness/luminescence levels in images. You'll also see it used to describe combination of colors. Mariam-Webster gives the example of "gray walls of a greenish tone".

Chroma: Generally this is another term for saturation or a combination of saturation and hue. The Wikipedia article on colorfulness groups chroma, saturation, and colorfulness together as loosely similar, but chroma does have a specific definition in some color spaces.

Intensity: Could refer to the brightness of a color or the saturation (or a combination). Like a soda can could be described as intensely red, or a white point of light would be intensely bright. One quirk of human vision is the Helmholtz–Kohlrausch effect, which describes how we perceive highly saturated colors as appearing lighter.

*It should be noted that "Tone" generally refers to the quality of color, gradients, shading, etc. It also refers to the range of discrete luminance levels present in an image. It is not really another term for tints and shades. Chroma, or Chromaticity, refers to the color "vector", which would be its angle around the color wheel, and its distance from the center of the wheel towards the edge. Intensity generally refers to brightness, and has more to do with the luminance axis (remember, color is three dimensional) than anything.

Secret Lessons from Odd Nerdrum

Some notes from a recent online visit with Dustin Neece. (DustinNeece.com) Dustin has studied with Odd Nerdrum and has some “secret lessons” which he teaches to various groups.

Lesson: work from life.  With photography so prevalent these days, it’s increasingly important to remember that working from life is better than working from photos. It is easy to work from photos, and often the only option we have. But the preference and first choice should always be to work from life. Why is working from life better than a photo? That’s a topic for another blog entry.

Lesson: use a limited palette.  According to Dustin, Odd Nerdrum uses just a few pigments:  a red, a yellow, white and black. This is also the “Zorn Palette” of which many of us have used. I have used in the past Ivory Black, Titanium White, Yellow Ochre, Cad Red.  Dustin points out that the more pigments an artist uses, the more difficult it is to achieve overall harmony. A complex palette leads to complexity in our work. It’s better to keep things simple. Dustin’s palette:  Cobalt Green, Quinacridone Red, Cobalt Blue, Permanent Yellow Light, Cad. Yellow Deep, Black and White. Keep in mind that different manufacturers produce different pigments, so you have to experiment and find the pigment manufacturer you like. Dustin likes Michael Harding Naphthol Red, for example. He buys his pigments from Kremer Pigments in New York. (http://shop.kremerpigments.com/en/)

Lesson: open approach vs. closed approach.  An “open” approach to the painting process means you don't know exactly how you will get to where you are going. You have a goal in mind, a kind of painting you want to make, but you don't have a set of steps that you will take. You want to keep all the possibilities and techniques at your disposal as you work. You don't have a concrete plan in place.

A “closed” approach means you have a way to work and you don't vary your method. You have a certain way of doing what you do and so you do it.  Everything is planned out and predetermined ahead of time. It is a “linear” approach to work.


Dustin suggests, if you want to paint like Nerdrum and him, you want to keep your painting “open” as long as possible. Experiment, play, try new things out as you work. If something doesn't work, scrape it off and start over. Feel free to fail. Look for the “happy accidents” that occur when you work without a net. It is a “non-linear” approach to work. Sure, it involves risk. Yes, it takes time. But the rewards of working this way are enormous.

Lesson: tear down, then build up.  This is the “destructive method” that brings a lot of expression and feeling to the work. Using your hands, sand paper, palette knife, whatever, destroy your work, then come back and rework it over and over again until you achieve what you like. You tear down, scrape off, dismantle a layer of work then apply another layer of work on top of it. Slowly the layers begin to build up. Amazing effects begin to appear as you work layer after layer after layer of tearing down and building up. It’s a great deal of fun to work this way, too. You have the freedom to explore and fail and make mistakes because you know you can destroy it and move on to another layer. Destroy to create. Work in a mental state of “not-knowing” what is coming next.

In this photo of a recent painting, you can see first my initial block-in. I let the layer dry completely, then using sandpaper and my palette knife I scraped and sanded the painting, destroying much of the work I had done. I applied a a subsequent layer of paint next, looking for ways to improve the overall drawing and details. If I desire, I can continue to destroy a layer and rebuild it as I go. Maybe a section of the grey coat needs to be deconstructed and rebuilt. I don't know. That is the point. I don't know. The painting is still "open" for me to continue the process.

I'm Eliminating Solvents from Studio

Artists are continually talking about making their studios safer and non-toxic. It makes sense. Why not have a safe working environment if you can do it? 

I have been using surgical gloves for over a year now when I paint. I mainly do it to avoid washing my hands. Clean up is so much easier when you don't have to wash your hands, especially if you often stop while working (answering the phone, going to the restroom, getting coffee, etc.). I grew tired of getting paint on my hands and having to wash them off each time I needed to take a break. Now, I just remove the gloves. Plus, they are safer. Any cuts or scratches on your fingers allow toxins to enter your bloodstream. Why take the chance? If I feel the need to use my fingers, I just remove the gloves. No big deal. 

Solvents have been used for hundreds of years to clean brushes and thin paints. But they are toxic. They also hinder the binding of pigment to the surface and are not the only way to thin paint. There are better alternatives. Eliminating solvents entirely from the studio is not that hard. Solvents are different from some mediums like Liquin or Oleogel. Solvents break down the pigments and hinder adhesion. Mediums like Liquin suspend the pigments in solution and shouldn't interfere with pigments sticking to the surface. Too much solvent will cause problems in adhesion. So eliminating solvents is a good idea unless you really like the effects of using it in underpainting or in other techniques. However, nontoxic mediums now exists that will do the work of solvents, so why not use them?

What about cleaning brushes? I have recently followed the advice of many artists: I no longer clean my brushes at the end of each working session. I simply suspend them in safflower oil. I also use safflower oil to clean the brushes while working. I use Rublev Oleogel and linseed oil as mediums to help me work the paint. I no longer use OMS like Gamsol while I work. 

For now, this seems to be working for me. I like having a solvent-free environment. If we carefully dispose of our toxic wastes and protect ourselves from toxins while we work, we should be hedging our bets against harmful health issues. 

The Head versus the Heart

In a recent discussion online with another artist about color theory, I was promoting the idea that two kinds of artists exists: those who love the scientific and technological side of the work, and those who do not. Some artists are scientists in disguise. They love to talk about pigments and mediums and theories of color and composition in scientific, logical terms like a CSI unit looking at a crime scene.

On the other hand, many artists are not scientifically inclined at all. They are more practical in their use of materials, and just want to learn enough to get the job done. They don't read books on color theory or delve into the chemical composition of a tube of Rublev Oleogel. They want tools that work and don't give much of a damn of how it works. "Just show me what works," they say.

What I'm writing about here is the head and the heart. In my discussion with this artist about color theory, I was promoting a balancing act between the science of art and the spirit of art. Both are important. The head and heart need to be in balance, I believe. But if I had to choose one over the other, give me the heart.

This artist writes, "There is no real separation between head and heart since, in reality, it is all head. The rest is illusion." I disagreed.

My response.  "The real issue is that much of the contemporary art world doesn't give a damn about skill, technique, or about the issues you and I are discussing. Look at the crap that is selling these days. We should talk about color theory and helping students develop skills, and it is right. But we also must face the reality of the current art market and its de-emphasis on skill-based work. Skill and technique will only get you so far. But show some heart, some backstory, some personal narrative, some personal slant on your point of view, and the market eats it up."

It is an old debate, the role of the head and heart in making art. Is it all "head"? Is our heart really a product of the brain and its activity? Is the "heart" an illusion? Should we talk in terms of the head and heart being separated? I don't know. I'm not that smart.