Posthumous commission

[Patricia Joyce]

Thanks for the references, Julie, Mike and Sharon.

After viewing Rembrandt's Mother I felt relieved to have the image I have to work with- yikes!!

I am definitely going to give this a shot in oils since I have until the end of March to complete. I was thinking of a monochromatic painting but making the black a chromatic black rather than black, black??

And then I saw the Elizabeth Throckmorton by Nicholas deLaigilliere - Wow, Sharon, it must be georgious to view in person. I found some great images on the web, posting one of the closeups below for everyone else to enjoy.

I'm feeling inspired!!

[Mike McCarty]

Nothing beats oil paint. I did one of these a year or so ago and really enjoyed it. It went so quickly, only values to worry about, not all the complication of color. I had it hung in my retail space for a while and it had much more of an visual impact than I thought it would. Black, white and linseed oil, that was all I used (linseed oil is all I ever use). And, it certainly gives more of a sense of prominence than graphite, in my opinion.

I would recommend this to anyone thinking about making the move to oil paints.

[Patricia Joyce]

Mike,
What black did you use?? And what white??

[Mike McCarty]

As I recall, I just used what I had in my box, which was Ivory Black and Titanium White.

I didn't research it at all. Others may offer more reasoned choices. I do recall that I had no complaint with the choices.

[Debra Norton]

Patricia,
When we paint in black and white at school we use cremnitz white (at least some of us do) and mix up our black with equal mixtures of ivory black and raw umber. That gives a warmer mixture than ivory black alone. Ivory black alone will give a blue tint to it. We mix and tube the black ahead of time. If you want I can email you a picture painted with this combo and you can see how it looks.

[Patricia Joyce]

Thanks Debra, I would love to see a painting with this combo. I have never heard of cremnitz white, is it readily available?