Saying Goodbye to 2018

 Summer Sweet  11x14  oil/panel

I spent some time over the past month recovering from quite a busy year, 2018 was exciting and downright exhausting at times too.  I have often shared on this blog my love of the winter months.  I appreciate the time after the holidays to rest and contemplate new beginnings in Spring.  Being in sync with nature's cycles helps me gather energy for the coming year, and 2019 promises to be another busy one!  While I made plans for upcoming events this Spring and Summer (which I will continue to share on my blog), I also revisited some favorite paintings from my work last year.  I thought I'd share them with you.

   Water Pitcher and Magpie  16"x20"

Still Life with Bluebird 18"x14"

 

The Gift 14"x11"

Making Salt Refined Organic Linseed Oil

A fresh batch of raw linseed oil made from organic flax seed oil, resting in the light

I recently completed another batch of SRO oil, or salt refined organic linseed oil, for painting.  It's such an interesting process and the results are truly worth the effort.  I like to make my own linseed oil because I am interested in the materials of the past, used by the old masters before modern oil painting materials were available.     

 

The image above shows the first stage of cleansing the organic flax oil to remove impurities.  The flax oil is mixed with water, sand and salt, and given a good shake.  The cleansed oil rises to the top and is siphoned off and the entire process is repeated again.

 

Here is the cloudy oil after the first cleansing.  I discard the dirty water, clean the jar, add fresh water, clean sand and salt.  I add the oil back in and shake, shake, shake.

 

The impurities and mucilage (stuff you don't want in your paintings!) have a molecular attraction to the other ingredients and separate from the oil, sinking to the bottom of the jar.  

 

 mucilage, yuck

 

 

This oil is fully cleansed and will clear as it sits in a sunny window in the light. 

I currently depend on my SRO oil for making oil paint.  I use half of the raw SRO oil for mulling pigments.  I tube the hand made paint in 50 ml tubes that last a long time.  I take the other half of SRO oil and pour it in a shallow glass dish and place it in the sun to thicken.  After a month I have a beautiful, clear and thick oil that is perfect for mediums.

 

 

The completed jar of raw oil, ready to make paint!

At the moment I make about half of the colors on my palette from my own oil and pigment.  I have adjusted the ingredients for each pigment to suit my particular needs.  I am slowly making my way through each color and experimenting with the pigments to find the best balance of oils, pigment and fillers like calcite or fumed silica, to create a beautiful tube of oil paint perfectly suited for my indirect layering process. 

~my favorite white~

~my dependable 'warm light mix' that sits right next to white on my palette~

It will take a long time to get through all my colors to have a full palette of handmade oil paint, but in the meantime I'm really enjoying the process!

Workshop with Teresa Oaxaca & Demo

This past weekend I had the wonderful opportunity to study the portrait in charcoal with Teresa Oaxaca.  I have been spending a lot of energy this year studying figure drawing and when I heard Teresa was coming to Albuquerque I signed up immediately.  In my self-study I had been experimenting with different materials and papers and started to feel frustrated with the time limit in my usual figure drawing group. During the workshop we were only using charcoal and Canson mi-teintes papers and spending a full day on one composition.  It was such a luxury to have a so much time to concentrate on each portrait.  It was a two day workshop, so the class worked on a new portrait each day.  

 

Here is the model Malia on the first day of the workshop.  Teresa started the day with the following demo:

 my first day portrait

 portrait by Shana Levensen

David Jon Kassan's work for the day. It was such a pleasure to meet so many fantastic artists participating in the drawing session on that first day!

Here is Teresa's work on the second day. Teresa was a wonderful instructor and such a lovely person to meet.  She spent the majority of the time circulating the room and offering personal guidance and instruction.  She spent as much time with you as you wanted and answered every question with the utmost patience and respect no matter what level an artist you were.  Even though I've been painting for fifteen years I felt like a newbie, but by the second day something clicked for me and I felt really focused.  I was pleased with the work and happy because I felt like my self-instruction and practice over the year had finally come together.  Drawing on weekends and finding time in the evenings was worth it and I will continue to hone my skills during these stolen moments between painting and family.

Reflections on Teaching in 2016

 

student working on the underpainting

This year has been an exciting journey in teaching.  It has been such a wonderful experience!   As an artist I feel I've grown so much by sharing my classical method of painting with students and the feedback has been amazing.  It began last April when I traveled all the way to Virginia to Deb K Art Home Studios and taught an intensive five day workshop to a full class.  At the same time I also became a member of the faculty at the New Mexico Art League and started teaching Classical Still Life.  It has been a joy to work with students and introduce many to a way of painting that is completely new to them.  The classical indirect method of painting is growing in popularity and I'm glad to be part of a new generation of painters interested in techniques of the past.  Many are amazed at the paint quality that results from layering paint and glazes in oil and continue to study this method by signing up for more classes. 

 finished and signed!

Here are a few examples of students' work:

 

 

My next class at the New Mexico Art League begins January 9th, Mondays from 9-12 for eight weeks. click below for information (space is limited!):

                                        3409 Juan Tabo NE,  Albuquerque                               

                                                 P.O. Box 16554, Albuquerque NM 87191                                                   505-293-5034

I have developed a curriculum that begins with drawing and composition.  I teach how to use a basic armature and thumbnails to begin playing with design ideas.  I want students to think of objects as simple shapes, the simpler the better.  We study classical still life with the armature as examples.  We also study the importance of value by changing classical paintings to black/white:

Emil Carlsen 1853-1932 

Chardin 1699-1779

Next we move on to monochromatic underpaintings that concentrate on compressed values, we don't want the shadows too dark:

 

Once the underpainting dries we begin to study the local color and make individual plans for future glazes and scumbles based on the subject matter.

 

I introduce a glazing chart, illustrating how brilliant color can be created with a limited palette and knowledge of transparent vs opaque oil paint.

 

 

 Dennis Crayon's completed artwork

By the end of the class it is my goal to have students experiment with new ways of approaching oil painting.  Each day in class a new concept is introduced and practiced, from drawing and composition, value and color, to final details and color harmony.  I share different ways of applying and handling oil paint.  It's been quite a year, and I'm so thankful to have these opportunities.  Meeting other artists and talking about art has added a new dimension to my personal art life and I love it a lot!  I want to thank my students for allowing me to share their work here and hopefully inspire other artists to try new ways of painting.  Here are what a few of my students students are saying:

"I have learned more in this class than at the university."

"Great, the best art class I've had.  Would love to have and even longer study/class time to share with Sarah.  Her knowledge of materials and techniques and help with problem solving is truly helpful and valuable."

"Excellent-I learned a lot about composition, underpainting and glazing, as well as problem solving that will help me in whatever style I paint in."

"Excellent, well organized with a generous instructor."

"Thank you again for a fabulous 5 days. Sarah is an excellent teacher. Her calm supportive demeanor allowed for a stress free experience. I just want to keep painting in this style."

Mulling Smalt PIgment and Crystal Glass Medium

 Blue Morpho  10"x8"  oil/panel by Sarah Siltala

I was reminded recently of a couple failed attempts in the studio, one: to make a medium with powdered crystal glass and two: make Smalt into paint.  In my previous experiments I had used linseed oil alone without any other additions to the mixtures.  This was a mistake, both Smalt and crystal glass are heavy particles that do not mix easily with oil.  They need an additional stabilizer to create a smooth consistency that will not separate.  I thought about my experience with both and suddenly a light bulb went off, I immediately pulled out my unusable tube of glass medium and ordered another batch of powered smalt pigment.

While I waited for the smalt to arrive in the mail I went to work on my tube of hardened glass medium. It had separated in the tube and I had to cut it open to scrape out the hardened mass of glass and re-mull it.  Below you can see the hardened chunk of medium and the oily residue.  It needed some sort of stabilizer but I did not want to use wax, and I did  not want to use alumina stearate-a paint stabilizer and cheap filler found in modern manufactured paints. 

I re-mulled the leftover glass chunk with my handmade linseed oil, below you can see the result, a nice smooth mixture.  

I divided the linseed/glass mix into two jars afterward.  To one of the jars I added fumed silica.  I've experimented with making my own medium with fumed silica before and thought if I added this as a stabilizer maybe my mixture would not separate like it did before.  Below on the left is the glass/linseed oil mix and on the right I am adding powdered fumed silica.  I have a post about my previous mixture with linseed oil and fumed silica HERE.  When fumed silica is mixed with linseed oil to make a medium it creates a lovely clear gel and is fantastic to add to oil paint.  It thickens up quite a bit and I'm hoping to have the same effect with my crystal glass mixture.

I also fill a third jar with linseed oil and fumed silica, to prepare for my later experiment...

 Here are my three mixes:

And, 24 hours later:  The linseed/glass mix is already settling and the oil rising to the top, the mixture with linseed and fumed silica is consistent and has not separated.  The fumed silica addition created a stable mixture.  I go ahead and tube it and label it. 

You have probably guessed by now that I intend to mix Smalt pigment with linseed and fumed silica.  Smalt is incredibly difficult pigment to make into usable oil paint.  I've read that adding wax can help as a stabilizer, but when I asked the director of Natural Pigments about using the pigment in oil he recommended mulling and using it the same day.  In my first attempt to make paint with just oil and powdered pigment I found it to by totally unpredictable and when I let it sit for 24 hours to 'sweat' it had solidified completely and had to be re-mulled.  It never really became a stable consistency I could use for paint.

Smalt is a historical pigment and a beautiful, delicate shade of blue.  Very unusual.  It's incredibly transparent and has been known to fade or turn green over time.  Luckily potassium has been found to combat the discoloration and fading and Natural Pigments brand of Smalt contains plenty of potassium so no worries there.  Mixing with lead white will also help against future fading, but Smalt has such a low tinting strength I prefer to use it as a glaze.

I add the smallest amount of oil I can to create a thick chalky paste, this will thin out to an ink like consistency immediately.  I don't have to work hard at all to mull it and it's best not to over-mull this pigment anyway.

 

I'm surprised at how thin the oil becomes, but now I add my previously prepared mixture of oil and fumed silica which has become a thick gel.  After a quick mix together with the ink like Smalt I have an actual paint like consistency!

 The paint has become buttery and smooth:

 Here are my tubed up experiments, both with the addition of fumed silica as a stabilizer:

Below you can see them again, almost two weeks later.  I wanted to wait before posting to make sure the tubes wouldn't seize up and pigment and oil separate again over time.  So far both the Smalt and the crystal glass medium have remained consistent in the tube and I'm really enjoying using them in my current painting.  So far so good!