When I was a teenager I clipped out an advertisement from one of my comic books for the Art Instruction Schools, a correspondence course out of Minneapolis, MN. They responded with a “Talent Kit” booklet of various drawings that I made copies of. When I sent it back they would evaluate if, in their opinion, I had enough artistic talent to enroll. Another good friend of mine, Jimmy, who was the same age, signed up for the Famous Artists course, a similar program run by another school. The art spokesman for AIS was Charles Shultz, and for Famous Artists it was Norman Rockwell, and each school has very well known alumni. Sometime later a salesman showed up at our house and enrolled me in a two year course. I believe the price at that time was under $1000; an enormous sum for my father to come up with.

During this recent Thanksgiving holiday I was visiting at my Mother’s home, and dug through a closet to find these old instruction books buried there. The first year was a basic art course to learn design and drawing skills. In the second year you could choose commercial art or painting. Thinking that a professional trade would be a more useful thing to pay for, my parents directed me towards the commercial art course, concentrating on cartooning. There wasn’t any back-and-forth communication with my instructor, David Kline. I would spend a month on each lesson that included questions on the text of the lesson and some assigned drawings, mail that in, and then he’d reply back with comments. Some of the letters he wrote me, however, were very astute towards my obvious problems with some good advice, if rather briefly stated. My grades were average and drawings showed some competence considering my age. I remain to this day very impressed with the quality of material presented in these books, as well as the teaching I received. I would reference that material for many years afterwards.

Drawing Lesson

My pencil drawing

Instructor's comments

In this enclosed example you can see my attempt at a lesson for drawing objects. This part of the lesson required the choice of either a photograph of a duck or lamp following written text describing the sight-size method of drawing. I chose the lamp, and did a barely passable drawing of it. You can see the tracing overlay showing his comments. Notice how he politely reprimanded me for not shading the background, and the instructions in the lesson were not that clear. It would have been something a teacher would have noticed in a regular class as the drawing was being made. That shows a shortcoming for mailing in completed work. You got no “do-overs.” His grade of “B” was very kind. Thanks, Dave.

Jimmy graduated from his Famous Artists course also, but years later decided he no longer wanted his books, and very generously passed them over to me, which I still have in storage. Both courses are very similar, but I can’t say how well the teachers helped him with his lessons. The course books for AIS seem more extensive and clearer to me in regards to basic art skills.

The AIS course still exists today; although, I can’t speak about whether or not the instruction material or teaching may have changed over the years. It looks like the offered courses are different. For a kid like myself who had no real exposure to art instruction of any kind up to that point, it was a major challenge for me. It remains some of the best art education I ever received, and definitely helped prepare me for college.

Berkey's award

The Illustrator magazine was published quarterly by the school. It showcased instructors and student work in a couple articles within each issue by mostly black and white reproductions. They sponsored a competition for each issue in different categories, and one major prize every year. I entered once I think, but didn’t win anything. In the winter of 1976 the Grand Prize Award winner announced for the previous year was former student John Berkey, who went on to become a well-known illustrator.
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Links:
Art Instruction Schools
Famous Artists School

Here are a couple recent ink sketches. They are made using a Uni-ball pen I picked up recently called a Signo Gelstick, a ballpoint pen with acid free ink. It seems to draw a nice black line, but has a tendency to “blot” when you first lay down a mark to paper.

Ink and digital drawing

Ink sketch

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The drawing on the left was made in ink and then colored digitally afterwards. For the figure on the right I had to cheat a bit and place a second paper beneath to make a larger page to draw on. You can see a closeup below and notice the “blot” at the start of the line. It’s an interesting mark, and can be useful, but I have to be more aware of this “feature.”

Ink blot on lines

I decided to do a new version of a previous drawing which was posted here last November, “Point Lobos.” That drawing was okay, but felt I could still do a better job, especially with the water.

The background water, cliff, and horizon was drawn with Prismacolor liner markers (.005mm point,) and a Nikko-G pen nib was used for the trees and foreground area. The surface is Multimedia Artboard which can stand more abuse from a pen than regular paper. The size is about 16×12 inches.

I’ve been spending some time browsing through the online library at the Eastman House site over the past couple days. They have an extensive collection of early photographs that are fun to sift through. I’d like to see them at least twice as large as they are, since some details are difficult to make out, but good to see nontheless. The GEH.og link there also displays photos of early cameras, including a few of my beloved Brownie.

Wanted to post a couple recent sketches. Both in pencil, @ 8×10 inches.

I enjoy drawing guitar players. They always have very expressive fingers.

One of the reasons to varnish a painting is that it can unify the surface quality. In this image of a recent painting of mine shown below, when you look straight at the painting it appears fine, but at this angle of reflected light the surface shine is uneven from matte to glossy. This matte effect is sometimes described as “sunken in” and a number of factors can create it.

The chief issue is related to absorption. Any paint media can have this problem, whether it’s oils, acrylic, gouache, or casein. The main constant with all of them is the pigment in the paint, but that’s not the only cause. The surface itself might be absorbent, like raw paper or gesso, or if you’re painting in layers then that paint surface may have varying degrees of absorbency. Some paints may also contain additives like surfactants, driers, or wax that can alter their shine. Some oil mediums, like stand oil, are glossier than others.

There are a number of ways to deal with this patchy shine. The best solution with some media is to varnish the painting. Unfortunately, I don’t recommend varnishing watercolor or gouache, since it can alter or damage the painting and can’t be removed, and some exhibitions require anything on paper to be framed behind glass anyway. Since it only shows up opposite reflected light, one option is to just hang the unvarnished painting in a location where you can’t see any reflection. That’s not always possible, however, and sometimes you have no control over where it’ll hang in a show or someone’s home.

Even though this effect happens with acrylics also, it’s a simple solution to just rub acrylic medium over the dried paint to even out the shine. You shouldn’t really do that with oils since it isn’t intended to be used like a varnish. Varnishes should be removable, but mediums aren’t, and can cause yellowing problems as they age.

Another option is to manage what paints you use and when. This may mean your initial layers can have more absorbent pigments, and the top layers use less or none of those. That’s quite a bit of trouble to go through just to avoid a shiny surface, and forces you to restrict your choice of pigments. Personally, I’d rather not concern myself with that and resolve the issue when I’m finished. Nonetheless, it’s a good idea to be familiar with your paint’s surface quality. In the images below you can see an example of various commercial gouache paints. I painted them on glass so they wouldn’t be effected by the surface absorbency. I recommend doing this test with all your paints in whatever medium you use.

Paint swatches

The best solution for an oil painting is to varnish it also. A temporary varnish (retouch) can be applied after the final layer has dried which may take a couple weeks, depending on how it was painted. A retouch may not completely restore an even shine, but will do in the short term. Once the oils have completely cured then a final varnish can be applied.

Here are some more drawings. The Equestrian sketch is actually about a year old, but the other two are recent. The kitchen sketch may be worked into a new painting.

Many years ago I learned how to make my own gouache paint since all the commercial brands I could find at that time were in small tubes that I used up rather quickly. Raw pigment was a bit more difficult to find back then than it is now. Anyway, here’s a sample batch I made recently of some burnt umber gouache.

It’s one of the simplest paints you can make, short of egg tempera. The only issue is finding all the ingredients. Essentially you just mix it all together and start painting. This pre-mixed binder can keep for several years, as will the paint.

BINDER:
2 tablespoons gum arabic powder
4 tablespoons distilled water
Pour water in a blender and add powder slowly while blending. Let it sit @1 hour.  A faster method is to heat the water to boiling, add gum slowly while stirring, let cool to room temperature. The blender method tends to give me a clearer liquid. Strain liquid through a cheesecloth if it’s lumpy.

3 ounces honey and water (1:1) warmed into solution
3 ounces glycerin
1 teaspoon oxgall
3 teaspoons dextrin powder
Mix together in a warmed bowl and add in gum arabic solution slowly while stirring.

1-2 drops preservative: Oil of clove, Thymol, or even concentrated Lysol will work

PAINT:
2-4 tablespoons dry pigment
1-2 tablespoons Binder
1 teaspoon Calcium carbonate as an optional filler to help bulk up thin paint

Place pigment on a large glass or plexiglass plate. I usually dump out about 1 teaspoon of pigment at a time, as shown above.
Make an indentation in the pigment pile. Add a small amount of binder solution and mix together thoroughly. A good target is half as much binder as pigment (1:2) but some pigments require less. Keep adding just enough binder to make a smooth paint to your liking. Any pigment that is difficult to get wet can be helped along with a teaspoon of grain alcohol.

Rub a small swatch of fresh paint on a clean spot of the mixing plate. Let that air dry for several minutes COMPLETELY (this may take longer than you think – give it 20-30 minutes or so.) Rub the dried paint with a cloth. If paint completely lifts then the mixture is too weak or there’s not enough binder. If the dried paint has cracks then there’s too much binder. Those can be hairline cracks, so I like to make a high-res computer scan of the dried paint to be certain.

If you find yourself using up those tiny tubes of paint, making your own paint can be much more economical, especially for expensive or hard to find colors, and you have more control over paint quality.

Please remember that pigments have certain health hazards and require careful handling in powder form.

I’m showing two recent drawings, one in pencil, one ink. Both started as quick sketches and then finished later. Each on 8×10″ paper.

To follow up some on an older post that explored using drafting film as a painting surface, I thought I’d test out a sheet of it for further oil paint tests. The results are mixed, but less than ideal.

Oil swatches on film

Colors used: Grumbacher MAX ivory black, Lukas Berlin warm gray, Winsor Newton Artisan cerulean blue, MAX ultramarine blue, Holbein DUO red, Lefranc orange, W&N Artists naples yellow, Lefranc raw umber, W&N cremnitz white, Lefranc titanium white, W&N van dyke brown, DUO lemon, Artisan titanium, Artisan burnt sienna, Berlin primary yellow.

I took a piece of matte polyester drafting film made by Grafix, and painted swatches on it of various types of oil paints I had available. These colors have a range of vehicles from refined linseed oil, safflower, soya, and modified water-miscible oils. I painted both a masstone layer (right out of the tube) and a layer slightly diluted with odorless mineral spirits about 1 x 2 inches square for each color. I then let that dry for about 3 weeks.

Close up section

In the end, all the oil types behaved about the same; although, some of the them, especially the Van Dyke brown, stained out very quickly after being diluted. The smooth surface of the film caused the thin paint to spread out quickly. I noticed very soon that all the swatches, even the faster drying pigments, took longer to become touch dry on this surface than they would on canvas or wood panels, probably due to lack of absorbancy. In fact, even now, the MAX black and Ultramarine blue are still slightly tacky several weeks later.

To test the adhesion, I first did a “tape” test where I rubbed some strong adhesive tape on the top of several swatches, and then cut through the tape and the paint film below. When I lifted off the tape, no paint was removed. Generally I would say that is very good adhesion, except that I then took a metal palette knife and lightly scraped the surface of each swatch, and it was extremely easy to remove paint this way all the way to the film surface. You can see this in the close up image above. That would not happen on a traditional surface like canvas or wood, or even paper.

I also tried some acrylic primer on this, and although I was able to scrape that off as well, it wasn’t quite as easily removed as the oils. It improved the oil paint adhesion slightly but not dramatically. Commercially available polyester canvas sold for artist’s use has a special acrylic primed surface that is heat-set and permanent (see for example Fredrix Polyflax,) but I don’t know how that’s done (possibly similar to BEVA.) I’m not much of a fan of acrylic primers for oil use anyway since I find the surface unpleasant to work on and rough on brushes. It also defeats the idea of having a surface that won’t be damaged by oils so it doesn’t need any protection.

The conclusion I’m making here is, compared to other surfaces, drafting film is less than satisfactory for painting with oils. It certainly will work, and the film itself is a much stronger and stable surface than the others. As long as it doesn’t get accidently scraped, it might hold up very well, but the permanent adhesion of the paint film is questionable. If that problem can be improved, I’ll reconsider using it.