maroger's medium
Paul Mesken
wrote:
>I've heard a lot of conflicting thoughts on this. I borrowed the Mayer
>book from the library last week, and even he seems conflicted about
>it, although he may not now -- my dinky library only had the 3rd
>edition. Anyone here care to give it a shot? I did buy some, just to
>experiment with, and hopefully I didn't completely waste my $13. I'm
>not as knowledgeable about oils as I am tempera, so all I know at this
>point is what I read.
>
Maroger's medium is black oil with something else (mastic tears, wax,
turps, you name it). If it's the real thing it should have health
warnings all over because of the lead content. The mediums of Maroger
are described in his book "The Secret Formulas and Techniques of the
Masters". Seems to be out of print though. Another source is Joseph
Sheppard (www.josephsheppard.com) who has been a student of Maroger
and recipees of his mediums can be found in "How to paint like the Old
Masters" (a good book describing various techniques).
Chris
Are you familiar with the cowdisley group on yahoo? (
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/cowdisley ) It's been extensively discussed
there - I think the general consensus is that you are better off to avoid
it. But if you post the question there you'll probably get some
knowledgeable responses.
Chris
<xenochryst@_holycow_sbcglobal.net> wrote in message
news:vg75cv8o3jll2bd6b...@4ax.com...
> I've heard a lot of conflicting thoughts on this. I borrowed the Mayer
> book from the library last week, and even he seems conflicted about
> it, although he may not now -- my dinky library only had the 3rd
> edition. Anyone here care to give it a shot? I did buy some, just to
> experiment with, and hopefully I didn't completely waste my $13. I'm
> not as knowledgeable about oils as I am tempera, so all I know at this
> point is what I read.
>
> thanks,
> wanda
Chris
<xenochryst@_holycow_sbcglobal.net> wrote in message
news:sqc5cvstrcohvr4ij...@4ax.com...
> On Wed, 14 May 2003 17:45:37 -0300, "Chris" <n...@this.address> pulled
> up a chair and spoke thusly:
>
> no, I'm not familiar with them.There has been some discussion about
> maroger's on the studio products forum, in the past. I've tried
> posting there, but the moderator seems, for some reason, to not like
> me and is a bit short with me. You guys are much nicer :)
LOL, that place must be hell on earth :)
Chris
Paul Mesken
wrote:
>On Wed, 14 May 2003 22:38:23 +0200, Paul Mesken <usu...@euronet.nl>
>pulled up a chair and spoke thusly:
>
>>Maroger's medium is black oil with something else (mastic tears, wax,
>>turps, you name it). If it's the real thing it should have health
>>warnings all over because of the lead content. The mediums of Maroger
>>are described in his book "The Secret Formulas and Techniques of the
>>Masters". Seems to be out of print though. Another source is Joseph
>>Sheppard (www.josephsheppard.com) who has been a student of Maroger
>>and recipees of his mediums can be found in "How to paint like the Old
>>Masters" (a good book describing various techniques).
>
>
>The library here only had his book "Learning With The Old Masters". I
>told them to hold it. I'll go pick it up in awhile. Are you or anyone
>else familiar with it?
>
It's the original (1979) title of "How to paint like the Old Masters".
It's a great book.
Paul Mesken
wrote:
>On Wed, 14 May 2003 19:14:48 -0300, "Chris" <n...@this.address> pulled
>up a chair and spoke thusly:
>
>
>>LOL, that place must be hell on earth :)
>>
>>Chris
>>
>
>lol. nah, not really. you guys really are nicer ;)
>
Ah, but that's just because you entered this newsgroup in a peacefull
lull. You should have seen it 2 months ago :-)
Chris
<xenochryst@_holycow_sbcglobal.net> wrote in message
news:6sn7cv8oidhrf4g5i...@4ax.com...
> I'm gonna step out on the "I'm probably gonna sound stupid limb" here,
> because there is something I don't understand. I asked, a few weeks
> ago, about acrylics looking "muddy" sometimes, and I got some really
> good, thorough answers. While looking through this book last night, I
> noticed the same thing. The oils in this book, the demos he painted,
> also look "muddy", though that's probably not the right word. Maybe
> I'm just used to egg tempera -- it always looks very luminous, the
> colors rich and vibrant -- I dunno. The paintings in this book, for
> the most part, don't. Actually, some of the ones in the Sunday
> Painter book (Thomas Buechner) also looked muddy (for want of a better
> word). Is it just me, or is this an effect of a particular method of
> painting? The way he uses mediums? The colors themselves? The fact
> that the book is from '79 or so? The way they printed it? I'm asking,
> mostly because I want to avoid this myself, but also because I'd like
> to know why, if anyone can tell me. I wish I could put it a better
> way, but muddy seems to be the only word I can come up with. Grayed
> out, maybe. I dunno. I don't want my paintings to look that way. I
> want them to be as rich and vibrant as my ET are.
>
Hi Wanda;
I haven't seen Buechner's paintings in real life, and I've never read
Maroger's book, so I may be wrong - but the greying of colour seems really
common when one is photographing paintings with glazes. That would show up
mostly in the dark passages of the paintings. Mt Buechner is currently on
loan so I can't dig it out....
Another problem is that the farther reaches of the visible spectrum (in rgb
space, or whatever you choose) really don't reproduce well; looking at a
photograph of a good painting is kind of like listening to great opera over
the telephone. You get the tune but not the quality....
Chris
Paul Mesken
wrote:
>On Thu, 15 May 2003 19:36:12 +0200, Paul Mesken <usu...@euronet.nl>
>pulled up a chair and spoke thusly:
>
>>>The library here only had his book "Learning With The Old Masters". I
>>>told them to hold it. I'll go pick it up in awhile. Are you or anyone
>>>else familiar with it?
>>>
>>
>>It's the original (1979) title of "How to paint like the Old Masters".
>>It's a great book.
>
>I looked through the "Learning With The Old Masters" last night. Other
>than a handful of recipes, I didn't see that it was all that much more
>useful than my Sunday Painter book.
>
>I'm gonna step out on the "I'm probably gonna sound stupid limb" here,
>because there is something I don't understand. I asked, a few weeks
>ago, about acrylics looking "muddy" sometimes, and I got some really
>good, thorough answers. While looking through this book last night, I
>noticed the same thing. The oils in this book, the demos he painted,
>also look "muddy", though that's probably not the right word.
Hm, on page 20 (if the pages are the same in that older version)
Sheppard lists the pigments he uses. He also lists the colors he uses
for every painting. He never uses strong colors (apart from
ultramarine blue). His yellow is ochre and (genuine) Naples yellow
which are quite dull. His orange/red is genuine vermillion which pales
next to cadmium or DPP red, his white is flake white which appears
cream colored next to titanium white, etc. All of his colors are
subdued but ofcourse it is the way in which colors are used that gives
them strength. Sheppard goes for the old fashioned balanced look. He
doesn't use strong contrasts or sharp edges. Perhaps this is what you
mean by "muddy".
>Maybe
>I'm just used to egg tempera -- it always looks very luminous, the
>colors rich and vibrant -- I dunno.
Even though I've never made a work in egg tempera I did try out some
pigments with it. Pigments which are very hard to use in oil like
manganese blue and cobalt violet worked brilliantly in egg tempera.
They had the exact same color as the pigment itself. Oil appears
always a little weaker but unlike egg tempera it has depth and gets a
gloss quite easily. The oil always effects the color, makes it
somewhat more yellowish. This is why some painters go for clearer oils
(like poppy seed oil) when they want a very pure blue or even do that
part in egg tempera (mixed technique). In history painters did just
that to preserve the beautifull color of Lapis Lazuli (the real
ultramarine) which was (still is) the most expensive pigment.
> The paintings in this book, for
>the most part, don't. Actually, some of the ones in the Sunday
>Painter book (Thomas Buechner) also looked muddy (for want of a better
>word). Is it just me, or is this an effect of a particular method of
>painting? The way he uses mediums? The colors themselves? The fact
>that the book is from '79 or so? The way they printed it? I'm asking,
>mostly because I want to avoid this myself, but also because I'd like
>to know why, if anyone can tell me. I wish I could put it a better
>way, but muddy seems to be the only word I can come up with. Grayed
>out, maybe. I dunno. I don't want my paintings to look that way. I
>want them to be as rich and vibrant as my ET are.
Ofcourse you shouldn't take print in books as samples of what an oil
painting looks like. It might very well be the case that the colors
look muddy because of the print, it's also quite hard to get a good
picture of a glossy/varnished oil painting which reflects a lot of
light.
Egg tempera has purer colors than oil but with oil it's far easier to
mix colors on the canvas and make soft transitions in hue and value. A
lot of oil painters work all kind of colors through each other in
order to get a natural look (subdued that is). It's not often that a
pigment is used at full strength. However, the strength of a color is
only partially influenced by its pigment and medium : red looks far
more red when placed in a blue/gray surrounding than when in a orange
surrounding (Johannes Itten has written a number of interesting books
on this subject with lots of examples in it). Two strong colors placed
next to each other cancel each other out. If I were to use Phtalo Blue
(PB15:3, with some white ofcourse :-) next to Irgazine (or DPP) Red
(PR254) then neither of them would look particular strong even though
these are about the strongest pigments. If however I were to use
Cerelean Blue (PB35) and make it weaker with white then the red would
really spring to life and the blue would look far cooler than it
actually is.
Paul Mesken
> looking at a
>photograph of a good painting is kind of like listening to great opera over
>the telephone. You get the tune but not the quality....
>
Wow! That's a great one, got to remember it :-)
Erik A. Mattila
> Hm, on page 20 (if the pages are the same in that older version)
> Sheppard lists the pigments he uses. He also lists the colors he uses
> for every painting. He never uses strong colors (apart from
> ultramarine blue). His yellow is ochre and (genuine) Naples yellow
> which are quite dull. His orange/red is genuine vermillion which pales
> next to cadmium or DPP red, his white is flake white which appears
> cream colored next to titanium white, etc. All of his colors are
> subdued but ofcourse it is the way in which colors are used that gives
> them strength. Sheppard goes for the old fashioned balanced look. He
> doesn't use strong contrasts or sharp edges. Perhaps this is what you
> mean by "muddy".
That gives me an idea of a profitable business adventure: "Old Master
Eggs" to be marketed by the dozen in art supply stores world-wide. You
know, the way you prepare this medium is to take the yolk sack out and
roll it bently on a soft cloth long enough for the exterior be become
leather-hard (all the yellow stuff goes to the edges.) they you cut a
hole and the crystal clear liquid in the center is the medium.
Try doing that with a modern egg from the supermarket. You can barely
get a yolk into a frying pan without breaking it these days. Why?
Because the chicken-feed in the egg plants are laced with amphetamines,
that's why. The hens are speeding! Clucking incessantly and dropping
eggs like Bush drops Daisey Cutters. Artists need real eggs. This is a
market niche!
Erik
BTW, I read once that the really stunning egg tempera's were made by
several layers of careful crosshatching with a fine tipped brush, rather
than just laying a color down. What do you think?
Lauren Foster-MacLeod
> I'm gonna step out on the "I'm probably gonna sound stupid limb" here,
> because there is something I don't understand. I asked, a few weeks
> ago, about acrylics looking "muddy" sometimes, and I got some really
> good, thorough answers. While looking through this book last night, I
> noticed the same thing. The oils in this book, the demos he painted,
> I'm just used to egg tempera -- it always looks very luminous, the
> the most part, don't. Actually, some of the ones in the Sunday
> Painter book (Thomas Buechner) also looked muddy (for want of a better
> word). Is it just me, or is this an effect of a particular method of
> painting? The way he uses mediums? The colors themselves? The fact
> that the book is from '79 or so? The way they printed it? I'm asking,
> mostly because I want to avoid this myself, but also because I'd like
> to know why, if anyone can tell me. I wish I could put it a better
> way, but muddy seems to be the only word I can come up with. Grayed
> out, maybe. I dunno. I don't want my paintings to look that way. I
> want them to be as rich and vibrant as my ET are.
Hi, Wanda,
In my experience, I created "muddy-looking" colours when I rushed into
painting, and didn't clean my brush well between colour-mixings, and then
found that my palette became a bit of a grey/brown/muddy mess.
Perhaps it is also what effect people are going for. In landscapes,
perhaps, the colours can often be that way, esp. if someone is painting en
plein air. Here in Canada, the colours in our natural landscapes can often
look that way.
Depending on what the subject matter of a work is, the colours the
artist is looking for might not be so vibrant, or perhaps that is not what
the artist is working towards.
Just my thoughts.
Lauren
--
THE BLESSED BEE
www.blessedbee.com
samples/subscription info:
in...@blessedbee.com
Paul Mesken
<emat...@oco.net> wrote:
>Paul Mesken wrote:
>
>> Hm, on page 20 (if the pages are the same in that older version)
>> Sheppard lists the pigments he uses. He also lists the colors he uses
>> for every painting. He never uses strong colors (apart from
>> ultramarine blue). His yellow is ochre and (genuine) Naples yellow
>> which are quite dull. His orange/red is genuine vermillion which pales
>> next to cadmium or DPP red, his white is flake white which appears
>> cream colored next to titanium white, etc. All of his colors are
>> subdued but ofcourse it is the way in which colors are used that gives
>> them strength. Sheppard goes for the old fashioned balanced look. He
>> doesn't use strong contrasts or sharp edges. Perhaps this is what you
>> mean by "muddy".
>
>That gives me an idea of a profitable business adventure: "Old Master
>Eggs" to be marketed by the dozen in art supply stores world-wide. You
>know, the way you prepare this medium is to take the yolk sack out and
>roll it bently on a soft cloth long enough for the exterior be become
>leather-hard (all the yellow stuff goes to the edges.) they you cut a
>hole and the crystal clear liquid in the center is the medium.
I don't know whether that's such a good idea. The crystal clear stuff
is probably just water. It's the complete mix of what is in the yolk
that works (the albumen, egg oil and water).
>Try doing that with a modern egg from the supermarket. You can barely
>get a yolk into a frying pan without breaking it these days. Why?
>Because the chicken-feed in the egg plants are laced with amphetamines,
>that's why. The hens are speeding! Clucking incessantly and dropping
>eggs like Bush drops Daisey Cutters. Artists need real eggs. This is a
>market niche!
Hm, I never had any trouble with getting the sack out undamaged from
eggs I bought. It shouldn't be any problem for an artist to simply buy
a chicken for the eggs. This way the artist can control the food of
it. Chickens are very easy to keep, they can live almost anywhere (and
you can also eat them :-)
>Erik
>
>BTW, I read once that the really stunning egg tempera's were made by
>several layers of careful crosshatching with a fine tipped brush, rather
>than just laying a color down. What do you think?
Yes, that is the official way of doing egg tempera. See
Lauren Foster-MacLeod
>
> That gives me an idea of a profitable business adventure: "Old Master
> Eggs" to be marketed by the dozen in art supply stores world-wide. You
> know, the way you prepare this medium is to take the yolk sack out and
> roll it bently on a soft cloth long enough for the exterior be become
> leather-hard (all the yellow stuff goes to the edges.) they you cut a
> hole and the crystal clear liquid in the center is the medium.
I have a book on painting eggs, using the "Pysanka" batik method used in
the Ukraine. The author of the book has really developed the art, but
complains about how hard it can be to find good eggs, as the average
store-bought chicken egg doesn't have a strong shell. So, I think she
suggests going organic, or getting free-range eggs, and eggs from other
specialty birds, like Ostricch, goose, etc.
I guess if I was to seriously persue painting with egg tempera in the
future, I should consider raising chickens as well, eh!
> Try doing that with a modern egg from the supermarket. You can barely
> get a yolk into a frying pan without breaking it these days. Why?
> Because the chicken-feed in the egg plants are laced with amphetamines,
> that's why. The hens are speeding! Clucking incessantly and dropping
> eggs like Bush drops Daisey Cutters. Artists need real eggs. This is a
> market niche!
>
> BTW, I read once that the really stunning egg tempera's were made by
> several layers of careful crosshatching with a fine tipped brush, rather
> than just laying a color down. What do you think?
We tried doing egg tempera painting back in art school. While I did like
the results, it is a very slow process, and I found that the paint dried
amazingly fast; made acrylics seem slow-drying in comparison!
But when I see what Andrew Wyeth can do with egg tempera, I am tempted to
go at it again.
Hans Phul
>Try doing that with a modern egg from the supermarket. You can barely
>get a yolk into a frying pan without breaking it these days. Why?
>Because the chicken-feed in the egg plants are laced with amphetamines,
>that's why. The hens are speeding! Clucking incessantly and dropping
>eggs like Bush drops Daisey Cutters. Artists need real eggs. This is a
>market niche!
>
>Erik
What Erik? They don't sell 'organic' eggs in your locale?
>BTW, I read once that the really stunning egg tempera's were made by
>several layers of careful crosshatching with a fine tipped brush, rather
>than just laying a color down. What do you think?
I think it's true! Take an up-close-personal look at
egg temperas of old. And there are artists I know who
still use that method even though they may paint in
other mediums. I know one particular figure painter
whose works are trademarked by the overall mark making
all going in the same diagonal direction. I've always
marveled at his ability to 'shape' and 'blend' his
colors using that technique (the entire painting is
finished in this manner).
Erik A. Mattila
> In article <3EC6F008...@oco.net>, emat...@oco.net says...
>
>
>
>>Try doing that with a modern egg from the supermarket. You can barely
>>get a yolk into a frying pan without breaking it these days. Why?
>>Because the chicken-feed in the egg plants are laced with amphetamines,
>>that's why. The hens are speeding! Clucking incessantly and dropping
>>eggs like Bush drops Daisey Cutters. Artists need real eggs. This is a
>>market niche!
>>
>>Erik
>
>
> What Erik? They don't sell 'organic' eggs in your locale?
Believe it or not, it's rare to see any sort of chicken around here - on
the Devil's Anvil. Apparently they can't take the heat (and if eggs
will fry on the sidewalk, where would they lay them???)
But I used to have a half-dozen or so Leghorn's in NorCal that I let run
free as Range Chickens. Now there was some real eggs. Larger than
super-jumbo - and 9 out of 10 were double yolks of a bright cadmium
orange color. And delicious. As I watched them graze, I saw that at
least 50% of their diet was bugs (kind of funny to watch them chase
grasshoppers). That's the secret. Insects. Your average organic egg
factory doesn't feed bugs to the birds, I think.
Erik
Hans Phul
>and 9 out of 10 were double yolks of a bright cadmium
>orange color. And delicious.
OH MAN! You're supposed to be painting with 'em,
not eating them! I guess this thread is going
to devolve into 'culinary vs visual' arts now!
As for me, who once had the ignoble distinction
of a total cholesterol count well above 300 mark,
I shun eggs for the eating like a nun shuns
ovarian fertilization...
Hans Phul
xenochryst@_holycow_sbcglobal.net says...
>Actually, there was a study done some time ago about the benefits of
>raising chickens. If I remember it correctly, they suggested that they
>were much the same as having a dog or cat or other pet. Lower blood
>pressure, etc. Of course, with chickens and other fowl, you also have
>the added benefit of being able to do wonderful gastronomic things
>with them and as a bonus, make art!
Ummmmm... Ever tried to house-break a chicken???
Hans Phul
xenochryst@_holycow_sbcglobal.net says...
>umm... no. though my mom is keeping one in a fish tank just now. does
>that count?
>
>wanda
Trying to teach it to swim? or to breath underwater?