Info From The Vaults

Recently I was checking out a painting blog and this person just happened to mention that they were trying out some recommended painting techniques from Charles Sovek. For me to read his name on a blog especially a current one is almost as satisfying as reading "Alfred Chadbourne". Maybe not in easily seen ways but both are influences of mine and in today's current art scene (of things that I disagree with), their names being mentioned is an increasing rarity. _______________________________________________________________ _________________ Seeing Mr Soveks name mentioned reminded me of a post I had hoped to put together to help out some painters that are out there fighting the good fight.. I you were a student of Mr Sovek or have seen some of his demos (available online) you would know that he would mix up his own viridian green color. Well I normally don't buy too much viridian just due to a very tight budget (it's kinda pricey) and usually just use pthalo. On this years first paint order I went for a nice big tube of Sennelier Viridian, 200 ml of pricey green! Well, my excitement was short lived because when I opened the tube about 1/6 of the tube emptied out in the form of oil and the remaining paint was so loose it held no impasto at all. So I had a perfect tube of Viridian to try out this mix. _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________ This Recipe is essentially 50%/50% Viridian and Pthalo Green.I added a little cold wax medium and my new favorite, Williamsburg Impasto medium to help combat the loose viridian problem. This helps put some power into your Viridian and puts some control ability into your Pthalo. I recommend just trying a 50/50 on a small scale first, see if it's for you before emptyng your greens into the mixing board. If you think this color is too much try controlling it with Quinacridone Red and put on your big painter pants..________________________ for some reason Blogger is not letting me space my paragraphs apart..?. So I'm using the underscore to space until they patch up this problem. Sorry for the unsightly appearance. -_______________________________one more thing! I forgot until reading a Facebook comment about this post (yes I'm on Facebook look me up ) The reason besides the Sovek recommend to try this mix was I usually use (besides regualer Thalo green) is Classic Artist Oils Viridian. This Viridian is made entirely of Thalo Pigment but looks like Viridian in masstone and mixes like a weaker thalo. This also only costs about $23. For a 10oz tube. I know what youre saying why would I want a huge tube of weaker thalo. The answer is paint mass and equal mixing. I like being able to mix a brush full of paint and if I do that with thalo, it takes a lot of the other colors to make some mixes possible.