Okay, I just know y'all are asking, "So what do these things have in common?"
Answer - painting.
???
Yes, painting. Working in the studio. Making art.
Lights = Ott Lites at my drafting table. I love my Ott lights. I have two of the floor type lamps, one on either side of the table. My studio gets West light from a single window and it sucks. As most artists will tell you, North light is best because it's even, cool and helps show colors more accurately, yadda, yadda, yadda. Considering my lack of North light, the fact that I paint a lot at night, and such things as cloudy, overcast days when the room gets almost no outside light the Ott Lites were a good investment.
Music = 5 CD's in the stereo playing nice tunes to paint by. I like having the variety and also not having to get up and change the CD every time one ends. Today's selection is: Melissa Etheridge Skin and Breakdown, Van Morrison Tupelo Honey, Boys On The Side soundtrack, and The Bonnie Raitt Collection. I have a fairly extensive collection, somewhere in the neighborhood of 380+ CDs. It's quite varied in style of music as well. Everything from Classical to Country.
I like having music to fit whatever mood I may be in. Sometimes I'm feelin' all old school and need a little Steppenwolf or Golden Earring. Sometimes I'm feelin' a touch retro and plug in The Ramones. Occasionally I get my girl freak on an listen to Tina Turner or Carole King. Then you've got mellow days and it might be something like England Dan & John Ford Coley or Simon & Garfunkel. New age tunes with 2002, Enya or Ottmar Liebert is sometimes the flavor of the day. Once in awhile I break out with Latin music or Reggae. Pretty much whatever I want to hear, I've got somewhere in my CD library.
Smoke = incense filling the room with the scent of Fern & Moss by Maroma. I love incense and this particular scent is just too freakin' yummy for words. I get this one at GreenLife grocery in Asheville. Last time I was there I bought all of if they had. I am the kind of person who buys incense in quantity. We're talking $60+ worth or more at at time. I found a website a couple of months ago, Mystic Unicorn, which carries another brand of incense I like, Escential Essences, and I got a boat load. My mailman said it was the most fragrant package he'd ever delivered ... :)
Water = watercolor painting. Today I'm working on one of the "secret art project" images. I think I already told you I've gotten two of them finished, one watercolor and the other in acrylic. This current one, and the next two, are perfect images for watercolor work. Plus, I've done so much more acrylic work of late that I feel the need to use my watercolors again. I love the way they flow and how the brush feels on the paper. Acrylic is nice and I do like it, but watercolor is my first love. The way this particular painting is going I'm thinking the watercolors like me, too.
I use only one brand of paper, that being Fabriano Artistico Extra White 300lb. Soft Press. I've tried several others and they just didn't work for the way I paint. Too thin and I had to pre-soak and tape them to a board. Too rough and I couldn't get fine detail. Too smooth and the paint just puddled on the surface and I couldn't fight the hard edges. Then I found the Fabriano. I love it. I am a dedicated fan. May this stuff be around as long as I live. As a matter of fact, I just ordered 20 more sheets of it today. Yee ha!
As for paint, I have a variety; Daniel Smith, Old Holland, Lukas, MaimerBlu, Da Vinci, Holbein, and Windsor & Newton. Different brands produce many of the same colors but how those colors look may be very different. For example, the Windsor & Newton Raw Sienna isn't the same as the MaimerBlu Raw Sienna. How each brand performs is another issue as well. Take the same W&N vs. MaimerBlu example and one Raw Sienna tends to be more grainy than the other. Lots of technical reasons for that, but the fact still remains, they aren't the same and each one will produce a different result in a painting. I could also go into all the dozens of other reasons for using a variety of brands, but I won't. Suffice it to say, what I do works for me ... if you paint with watercolors I'm sure you understand. If you don't paint with watercolors, anymore explanations will bore the socks off of ya'.
My brush of choice is the Raphael 8408 Marte Kolinsky. I love the #8. The 8408 is well balanced, somewhat short handled. The tuft is average size around the ferrule, but the belly is narrow so that the side of the tuft continues the tapering line of the ferrule without any visible widening. The brush hold a good charge of paint and releases it very evenly. The tuft is somewhat soft (rather like ABS brushes) and quite responsive, it snaps to a needle point - which is so lovely it's almost orgasmic.
Back when I sold my very first painting I bought a set of Windsor & Newton Series 7 brushes ... supposedly the best, preferred by professional artists and all that rot. Ha! NOT. I didn't like them in the least. I tossed them in a box and didn't use them again until I started painting with acrylics. I like them for that well enough. For watercolor work I kept using my old, cheap brushes until I came across the 8408 in a DickBlick catalog. A whopping $80 bucks for a brush. Kind of freaky, yet I know the old adage of "you get what you pay for" and "always get the best materials you can afford" applies to art stuff. I bought the #8 and fell in love from first time I held it and painted the first stroke. *sigh* I loved it so much that as soon as I could afford it I bought two more and the sizes #0-6 as well. I don't use them often because the #8 is so incredibly versatile. I can use it for nearly everything except large washes. It's a damn near perfect brush.
So this is my day today, all day, maybe all night. I love it. Now, back to work ....
Namaste y'all ...
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