Artalk

Q.  What kind of paper do you use?

A.  There are a lot of great papers out there, and I highly recommend that you try several kinds as long as they are acid-free. Right now, my favorite paper for everything except portraits is Waterford 140# or 300# Rough (cotton rag) available through Jerry's Artarama and Daniel Smith. It is internally and externally sized, which means I can lift out color after applying it. Artist Stephen Quiller also sells a paper with the same qualities at www.quillergallery.com .

For portraits, where I often use several glazes and dry-brush technique, a paper that lifts too easily can really make things rough, so the Waterford isn't my first choice here. Anytime I need a lot of control, I use good old Arches 140# or 300# Rough (cotton rag), which is available just about anywhere.

Why Rough? I just really like texture. I can get lovely, smooth washes if that's what I want, but I can also use the granulating pigments to settle in the pockets of rough paper for a wide variety of textures. Also, edges can be as tight or as loose as I want.

A.  Painting steam isn't really a technique; it's an approach. Instead of painting steam, I painted what I saw showing through the steam. I saw the entire bell, so I painted a bell. To the right of the bell, though, I could only see a bluish shadow for the upper left portion of the dome, so that's what I painted. Where the dome and stack showed darker, I painted them darker. If I couldn't see anything through the steam, I left white paper. Once I started painting what I saw through the steam, I didn't really think of steam again until I was done, but it reads as steam. 

A. I don't use masking fluid very often for precisely that reason. Once in a while, though, I simply can't paint around the details I need to save and still get the effect I want. When that happens, I check the clock to make sure I have time enough to go through the entire mask-paint-peel procedure all in one day. If left on longer, the masking is apt to pull up the paper.
I  put down a slightly-darker-than-usual first wash of a staining or partially-staining base color that appears in the detail area(s). For my work, it's usually one or two of the cadmium yellows since sunlight fascinates me so much. I also apply that color regular strength to any other area in the painting where it appears.
When it's all dry, I apply the masking fluid over the painted detail area with a very fine brush which I rinse often in soapy water so I can mask the shapes accurately. All the masking goes on in one sitting, and care must be taken that everything I want covered really is covered. I let the masking dry completely. 
Now the background goes in. I finish it in one sitting, even if it means using a hair dryer or a fine water sprayer as I go because I won't be able to come in and re-work things once I take the masking up. 
When the paint is completely dry, I use a masking remover to pull up the masking and continue painting into the detail areas and any other areas that need to be finished. I also soften masking edges by lifting out paint with my brush (see PAPER section, above) and adjust edges by carefully painting in background color where necessary.
 In "Lovers' Knot" (grapevines), I only masked the vines in the top 1/3 of the painting, as the distant hills were too complex to paint any other way. In "Four Sisters" (callas), all the flowers and leaves were masked.  

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Sorry for the mess. Website under construction

Sorry for the mess. Website under construction