From: Judy Seigel (jseigel@panix.com)
Date: 10/03/01-03:50:06 PM Z
On Wed, 3 Oct 2001, lva wrote:
>[The Wilcox] book is not supposed to replace a hand-brushed color
chart. The
> book's printed in 4-color offset. As you know there's no way in hell one
Of course I realize this, my point (stated more clearly elsewhere), is
that this "design conceit" of the colored tubes, along with the showy
layout in general, giving the overall effect of nothing so much as a tile
wall, practically neutralizes the information -- makes it harder to find,
read, understand, retain, and/or file -- a "show", in other words, that
takes up most of the space in the book and probably a good deal of effort
& time in printing. And also makes me question the man's judgement in
other respects.
Less showy, but a damn sight more useful (tho a good graphic designer
could SURELY have come to a better solution, I bet you could, I bet I
could) and far less effort -- would have been a simple INDEX !!! Even a
more coherent table of contents would have helped. Tho maybe the 2000
edition has an index? (If not, a pox on 2000 !!!)
> could ever reliably represent a range of watercolors in CMYK. He's just
Precisely -- so the scheme is purely for show... like I said.
> .. a guy who sat down and brushed out every watercolor he could possibly
> get his hands on and then scanned the results so the reader can roughly
> see what he's talking about. I, for one, appreciate his efforts and am
> sure his book has an effect on the industry.
Yeah, pardon my New York sarcasm (see, we're coming back)... while walking
barefoot through the snow to school after splitting some logs for
breakfast. Actually I recall reading in Joy Turner Luke's Artists Equity
newsletter (or she may have said that in person) that he had a group of
people making the tests -- not all by himself, like you in the ochre
pits!! I've also spoken to people in "the industry" who dispute his
assessments and statements on archivality... Of course they have a vested
interest, but Wilcox -- as noted -- laces his facts too generously with
personal prejudice. They may jibe with your own feelings but do detract
from overall authority of the work (in my opinion).
And here's another...
> Now I have his book here, so I can quote properly. Especially these
> three comments turned me on to search for the real stuff:
> > Burnt Sienna, Winsor&Newton, Cotman Range
> >
> > The paint handled well giving very good washes.
> > It will also resist damage from the light on a
> > permanent basis. But it is not Burnt Sienna.
> > To offer it as such is a practice only acceptable
> > in this industry.
This is spoken like a watercolorist, NOT like a gum printer. How the paint
handles in a wash isn't anything like the way it handles in a gum
emulsion. In this respect, so what if it's "REAL" burnt sienna or not if
the covering power & additives (aluminum hydrate? whatever) of a single
coat print like there's little or nothing there. Coating emulsion on
paper in a thick layer, then burnishing to smooth it, is a totally
different usage than floating pale veils thinned with water. (I'll also
add that as a watercolorist I was *taught* never to use a pure color. Even
Van Gogh wrote that he admixed some of the compliment as soon as he went
into shadows.)
To labor the point, OUR "handling" of a tube paint is determined by our
mix with gum, and our spread, development, etc. The watercolorist's
"handling" of the paint in lots & lots of water, whether lightly skipped
over dry paper with a dry brush, or flooded on in blurs of wet into wet,
is utterly irrelevant to us.
In the same way I found many other Wilcox comments irrelevant. He also
hasn't (that I noted, maybe the 2000 edition does better) said CLEARLY
that these cheaper "student colors" (& I haven't noticed that term either)
get that way generally speaking by using cheaper pigments, and almost
always less of it. (As noted, that the Rowney "Permanent Rose" is one of
the most egregiously weak paints ever packaged was unmentioned by Wilcox,
who approved it. Interestingly, also, it's a full price "Artists" brand.)
> > There will be a great number of painters who have
> > never experienced true burnt umber because they are
> > loyal to a company offering an undeclared imitation.
Yeah, yeah ... have you ever brushed out the original mix next to the
"same" color after exposing and developing with the gum and the
dichromate? Even after clearing (if you clear, which I rarely do),
they're always different anyway, at least on this side of the Atlantic. So
whether one is better or worse as finally printed (and perhaps inflected
by the paper & gum, usually with other coats under or over) makes the holy
grail of the "true burnt umber experience" probably arguably untrue
anyway.
PS: "Mayer" is Ralph Mayer, author of The Artist's Handbook of Materials &
Techniques, and the source, credited or uncredited, of much info in print
about paint and pigments, including, for instance Scopick, tho there (and
in Schaefer, his escalator) abused, or misused, as a medium for making
your own watercolors, mistakenly given as a medium for gum emulsion from
dry pigment, where it is disaster (and clearly untested, -- must have just
been lifted whole. (But again I repeat myself...More fully explained in
P-F #3 review of the Schaefer book.)
First printing of Mayer was 1940, my revised edition was 1957, Viking
Press, and it's at least twice revised since then. I don't know if it
would be better for your purposes than books you have, because a lot of
the space is given to oil paints, mural painting, and sculpture (but then
again no space of its 721 pages wasted with glitzy graphics). Anyway, it's
the authoritative classic in what it does cover, and a joy forever. ALSO,
26 pages of index, and I mean 26 pages in 8-point type !
There's another classic artists' materials book, Doerner.... less
satisfying (when struggling with it I used to say "not quite translated
from the original German"), but with good info for painters (or classic
painters) not found elsewhere. Don't know if that's been revised or not.
Judy
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