Making Linen Canvas Panels

In the never ending quest to find the ultimate painting surface I often experiment by making my own oil painting canvas panels. It does entail some work, patience and time. While it would be much easier and quicker to buy readymade stretched canvas or rolls of primed canvas, the process of making the panels makes the artwork very personal. You are involved with its lifecycle from the very beginning even before it is painted. And because of the time and energy invested in making each canvas panel there seems to be a bit more mindfulness involved in the painting process. To date I haven’t found that ultimate painting surface and so I continue to strive for it experimenting and maybe one day hopefully soon the magic moment will happen when at last perfection is achieved. But until that moment, as the saying goes “if at first you don’t succeed, try try again.”

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Understanding the DuMond palette-A brief tutorial

Many of my students ask me, "what is this palette that you are teaching me?" To which I reply "a palette that my teacher's teacher's teacher developed some time ago long before you and I were born." Of course this explanation fetches some curious looks, but in truth, the palette has been handed down through the generations from teacher to student. Fortunately it was handed down to me and happily I am handing it down to a future generation of aspiring artists. At first glance, the prismatic palette appears to be of a complex nature with many colors. As shown above it proffers an array of a multitude of manufactured and premixed colors laid out in strings according to values. The top string of colors are manufactured pigments ranging from white, yellow, orange, red, blue, and black. The rest of the palette is comprised of pre-mixed colors in eight equal steps of light gray to dark gray, eight equal steps of light blue to dark blue and eight equal steps of li...

DuMond Prismatic Landscape Palette

Back in March of 2018 I decided to recreate the DuMond Prismatic Landscape Palette Chart and donate it to the Ridgewood Art Institute. That’s me above in the video creating the new chart. The original chart that we used was made by Joe Paquet. As you can see it was heavily used and covered in paint swatches. This made it difficult to discern the original values and colors that lay underneath. The new chart is much easier to read and will provide many years of use. It was nice to get a nod by former Board Member Ed Horvath of the Ridgewood Art Institute for my contribution to furthering the Frank Vincent DuMond, Arthur F. Maynard, and John P. Osborne legacy at the Ridgewood Art Institue.

Tubing Your Own Colors

When I first started painting my teacher introduced me to tubing colors. Being a new student I did not quite understand the benefits of tubing my own colors and thought the mixing and tubing process to be fun while being labor intensive. Later on when I put those tubed colors to use did I realized just how beneficial it was to have an abundant supply of color on hand readily available. There was no longer the need to be constantly mixing up color hither and thither. All I had to do was reach into my paint box, open a tube of color, squeeze out some paint onto my palette and start painting. Now I am introducing the concept of tubing colors to my students. It is a great kick to watch them take out their supply of empty paint tubes, pigments, palette knives and see the amazement on their faces as the pigments get swirled together into large toffee colored mounds of paint that morph into flesh tones that rival makeup foundation products. When I propos...

Diana K. Gibson

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