Varenna mini gouache study

Thought I'd do a little experimenting with this fun little 5x6" study in gouache.

Colors of Varenna (study) Gouache on Cottonwood Arts Coldpress paper, 5x6"

Here I'm just trying to get an idea about my lights and shadows and the basic shapes, so I've not much detail. For this composition I experimented with using a compositional grid that we studied during Kevin Macpherson's workshop (you can probably make out some of it in pencil beneath the gouache. I mentioned it briefly in my last post, but basically this is a method to achieve an informal subdivision of space, as discussed in Andrew Loomis' book called Creative Illustration:

After I learned more about this "grid thing", I realized that I had often been using this kind of subdivision intuitively. But it is good to have a tool handy to be more deliberate about it when one wants to, or if you are dealing with a complicated subject and are trying to decide what to leave in, what to edit out, and how to arrange a painting for the most pleasing effects.

It's been a while since I have worked with gouache and had forgotten that the colors shift a bit when they dry. Nevertheless I had a good time and really look forward to working with them again.

Lake Como W.I.P. & Demo

I mentioned in my last post that I had a new painting in the works, and I thought I'd attempt a little demo with this one. I say "attempt" because my laptop finally gave up the ghost, and these days I tend to do a lot of my writing via my mobile. Not only am I "all thumbs" (literally) but I have to sneak it in before my phone gets snatched away by the chubby little hands of my daughter who wants to "see pictures" whenever she sees it emerge from my pocket. This will be a painting of the beautiful fishing village of Pescallo. Pescallo is a tiny, sleepy  little place that sits just down the slope from Bellagio (also very beautiful). In fact, I could see Pescallo from the balcony of my Bellagio hotel, and the drama of the light as it poured over the mountains and harbor beckoned me to take a stroll down there many mornings before we started the day's touring.

I begin by sketching out a compositional plan that is also a value plan for the painting. I do this using light, middle, and dark value gray oil paints in my sketchbook. I often do a similar thing with Tombo pens (the grayscale ones), but mostly when I am painting outdoors as a way to quickly hone in and get a handle on my composition (in an environment that is bombarded with stimuli). But it is a good practice with studio work too. The oils are mentioned in Kevin Macpherson's book, "Landscape Painting Inside and Out," and I have long wanted to buy these paints so I could give it a try. They are Portland Gray Light, Medium, and Deep, by Gamblin. Hey, if it's good enough for "KMac", (as my husband calls him) it's good enough for me!

The point of this is to see if your painting has a strong underlying structure with a unifying value plan without getting bogged down in details. This is really supposed to be more of a notan sketch at this stage, which is a very simplified thing and addresses more of the armature of the painting rather than the pinpoint accuracy of objects and shapes. It's been a while since I've done this kind of study, and I realized at some point that I had not allowed much for the fourth value I was working with, which was the white of the paper. Oops! So I had to amend my sketch a little and add in some white for the lightest areas.

Still, I feel that my plan is solid and I'm ready to move forward by sketching out a line drawing on my 24x30" canvas.

For this I am using burnt sienna (Winsor Newton), thinned with Gamsol mineral spirits. I don't much use this earth color in the rest of my painting stages, and while I could mix up  a good earth for such a job using my standard red, yellow, and blue, it is more of a convenience for me to use a premixed paint at this preliminary stage. I also like it because it lends a nice warm undertone to the canvas as I go along, and it doesn't bleed into my other colors (especially the light ones like the sky) when I move beyond the sketching stage.

Now that I have a plan, I am ready to start painting with color! I'll get into that in the next post .

Monet's Garden Painting W.I.P.

While it may appear that my poor blog is suffering from benign neglect, I actually have been working on it, albeit on the back end. Recently my blog has been attacked and completely overrun by comment spammers. Hopefully the issue hasn't  been too evident to readers, but it completely overtook my blog (and my email) for a while . After a few attempts at a "quick fix," I decided I really had to take the time to do a Wordpress upgrade. It's something I should have done a long time ago, but have been loathe to do because it involved a good deal of time that I dearly need in order to attempt any kind of painting these days.  Unfortunately, upgrading has caused me to lose my sitemap and all of my prior post tags, so I am very bummed that I have yet to spend more time trying to figure out what happened to them. Hopefully I can recover them, but otherwise I guess I am looking at manually creating new tags for each post that has been added to my site since the dawn of man. Arrrgh!

Well, thanks for letting me get that off my chest!  I actually do have a painting under way, of Monet's Garden. Still quite a bit of work yet to do on this 18x24" canvas, but at least I've mapped out the main elements:

When I have free time in the evenings (which lately isn't that often) I have been watching a fascinating series of educational videos on the Impressionists produced by the University of Texas at Austin. It's basically a lecture format, which at first, kind of made me feel like I was back in art history class. But after a while it did draw me in, and it is probably the most through and in-depth investigation on this incredible group of artists that I have seen on DVD. It is so inspiring to go back in time and visit with these incredibly innovative masters (Manet, Monet, Pisarro, Renoir, Degas, Morisot, etc.)

So this was the spark that made me want to revisit my photos of Monet's garden. It has been a while since I painted this subject matter. What an amazing place ! Hopefully I can finish this painting soon. However, if the weather cooperates and I can find a chance to paint outside, I may do like the Impressionists and forgo the studio to grab the opportunity. We will see....

French pastoral WIP and art studio WIP, cont'd

The misty painting of the Lot Valley continues....

Still trying to keep things soft, but articulate them at the same time. Today I'm working on the sheep. Meanwhile, I've been told that it's okay to continue my obsessive postings about the new studio ;-) . So here's a little mini tour:

First of all, so much of the furniture in this space came from IKEA that you'd think I had an interest in the company or something (none exists--other than a serious interest in shopping there. ) In fact, we put so many of my "IKEA finds" together that Dave started calling it "I killya" because of how much this stuff weighs. Still, there's no denying that they have some intelligent designs to outfit an office and art studio (and the price is right too!)

Here's a view of my painting area and the sink. At first I was going to go with a regular utility sink and cabinet, until I found the "Udden" sink at IKEA.

That sink nearly DID kill us, actually--trying to lift the coordinating cabinet up to screw it into position in it's nifty little slot. For a while after that little ordeal I seriously thought I had nerve damage in my hand (my "painting hand, too!)

Below is a view from my little sitting/library area looking toward the art bins that Dave built for me. There are some more bins on top temporarily, but they will go up in the loft area when we're finished with them. At this writing, we're still working on studio storage, so I'll write more on that in a future post. A bookcase blocks the view, but the sink sits across from the bins, and my main easel stands across from the full-length mirror pictured, so I can check my work in reverese.

And now flipping my position, here is a view of my sitting/reading area from beside my art bins (still populating the shelves with my many art books!)

I have divided my sitting and office area from the painting/sink area with a large 6 foot room divider with storage cubbies from IKEA's Expedit storage series. I like that it divides the space while still giving me a feeling of openness. What is hard to see is that I've bolted this unit at a right angle to a white bookcase that faces the French doors for added function and stability.

The ladder is actually an old telephone ladder like this one that I bought cheap on Craigslist. We're still working to make it a moving ladder on a track...almost there.

Now we're on the other side of the room divider looking at my table where I do my framing, plein air panel prep, and flat art-mounting. All those little drawers are great for my framing tools and fasteners.

In this same "room" sits my office. Can you tell how much I like paperwork? I've rather been avoiding going through my files, but since it's tax season, it's the task before me:

Note those big squares of light from the windows and how far they come into the room. This is why I opted not to have east-facing windows also on my painting side. I will likely put up some kind of sheer window treatment soon to diffuse this light so it won't be so harsh.

Conspicuously absent from these pictures are my paintings that will in future be on the walls and in the bins. We have yet to get them out of my temporary storage space until we have finalized our art storage solutions....but more on that in a future post.

Annapolis Day 2- A fine morning with guidance from Gruppe

Had a few technical difficulties to overcome before I could post again, but I'm picking up where I last left off writing about the Annapolis paint out. Day two of the paint-out started off great, mainly because I had been able to do a little planning the day before. Painting in an unfamiliar place can always be a little overwhelming. It takes a little bit of time to get your bearings and find locations that appeal to you. This task can also be a little more daunting if you are also painting unfamiliar subject matter. (In my case, not living near a harbor or having much boating experience,  that subject matter would be the preponderance of boats.) To tackle the first obstacle, I spent some time on the first day (in between my morning and afternoon paintings) just wandering around scouting out possible painting locations along the many small harbors. One thing to consider is the path the sun will take across the sky throughout the day from sunrise to sunset. Having already done one morning painting the first day, I began to get a feel for which locations would make good morning setups and which would work better for me in the evenings. (I will also sometimes carry a compass with me to accomplish this task.)  As a result, I found a location in Eastport that I knew would be perfect for an early morning sunrise scene. And in contrast to the first morning when I got started late, I was able to arrive early on day 2 and start painting between 7 and 7:30 a.m.

As for the second obstacle.... the first thing I had to do was to recognize that no matter what I am painting, all I really need to do is paint shapes and the play of light on forms. If you can accurately see what is in front of you as abstract shapes and light patterns (and get a good grasp especially on painting the shapes of the negative space between the forms as well,) form naturally happens.  Having said that, the mind plays tricks on the untrained eye--even sometimes on the eye that has had a bit of training. Boats (like trees and the human face) are some of the things that the mind has long tended to see as symbols. They're some of the things that so many of us drew when we were kids --a sort of half-circle topped with two triangles. So one can easily fall into the trap of painting a symbol of a boat (or a tree or a face) instead of painting the actual shape.

While intellectually I know that all of the above is true, for my own peace of mind, I found it also helpful to consult one of my favorite art books of all time by Emile A. Gruppe. Gruppe was a fine New England painter of landscapes, townscapes and most notably to me, marinescapes . He was active in the 30's on up until the 70's and received training at the Art Students League in New York, and from famed American landscape painters Charles Hawthorne and John F. Carlson. Gruppe was also a wonderful teacher in his own right, both through the school that he established, and through his series of books on painting ("Brushwork," "Gruppe on Color" and "Gruppe on Painting; Direct Techniques in Oil" ).   

All three of these books are fabulous. They are also out of print, making the ones that are still available quite pricey and difficult to acquire. I haven't written much about these books before because there is just sooo much I would want to to say. I can't give proper honor to each of them now without making this post even longer than it already is, but suffice it to say that despite the cost and the regardless of sad quality of the painting reproductions within, they are three incredibly worthwhile and inspiring (if not essential) additions to any landscape painter's library.

For my money, Gruppe was a master of brushwork and composition. Living in New England, he was also a frequent painter of harbors and coastal scenes, which made his book, "Gruppe on Painting; Direct Techniques in Oil," a perfect traveling companion on my trip to Annapolis. I'm glad I grabbed it as I was walking out the door, especially since this particular book has a whole section on painting harbor scenes.  This is not a book of formulas, but rather a thoughtful book with a wealth of things to consider. For instance, here is an excerpt on drawing boats:

"...students have  preconceptions about what a boat should look like. They think of boats they drew as children, boats that were shaped like wooden shoes or bananas, curling up at the bow and stern. And that's how they draw them. But probably no shape could be less like that of a real ocean-going dragger; all those concave lines suggest weakness while the character of the dragger is strong and tough......Remember that the gunwhale of the boat is straight as it nears the bow--it doesn't sweep up like a gondola! And the bow goes into the water in a fairly straight line--it doesn't cut under sharply. Use strong lines to suggest a strong subject."

Just that one snippet helped me immensely, and yet there is so much more in this section alone; on cast shadows, masts, rigging, refraction, smaller boats, and docks and wharves. The conversational tone and the passion in Gruppe's writing helped me to internalize his teachings and carry them with me as I addressed the subjects and painted them from life. Here, finally, is the painting that resulted. I may need to touch it up when I return to the studio, but I was pretty happy about it overall:

 

Daybreak in Annapolis Oil on Multimedia Artboard, 11x14"

On this second day of painting, I was happy to meet more of the artist members of the MAPAPA, so I felt a little more connected and a little less lost. In fact, as I was finishing up the above piece, an artist came up to me with a rather dazed and confused look. She said it was her first day at the paint-out, and she'd been driving around for an hour trying to decide what to paint. I had to chuckle (not at her, but with her.) Been there, done that!

An ideal art studio?

So all of this moving stuff has gotten me working on new studio plans, and I have certain things that I know I want for my next space. Namely these are: lots of storage, lots of light, good ventilation, and enough room to step back and forth while I'm painting. In the book Organizing From The Inside Out by Julie Morgenstern, the author suggests setting up whatever area you're organizing in "stations" by the kinds of activities you do. The Setup

• A painting station, comprised of:
  • Easel, palette, monitor, large mirror (set up across from the easel to check my work).
  • Additional items: Optiona secondary easel for a larger wet painting or WIP, bins or shelves for my paints and supplies, a drying station - preferably a "drying wall" for larger works in progress, and/or some shelving to prop up wet panels after plein air painting.
• A flat work, framing & shipping station (There are several different activities here, but for all of them I use a table with lots of drawers  from IKEA and shelving to store supplies, organized by activity.)
  • Picture framing, matting, and mounting artwork
  • Surface, panel and canvas preparations
  • Packaging/shipping
  • Work surface for watercolors, sketching, printmaking, etc.
• Cleanup- Utility sink, shelves, paper towels, etc.
• Office (computer stuff, desk, files)
• Previously mentioned in the above notations, but bears empahsizing: Storage (of all kinds- shelves & bins for canvases, frames, books, etc.) and as much wall space as possible.

Optional but desired:

• A sitting/viewing area- for reading and assessing my work
• High ceilings (in a smaller space it can provide a more "open" feeling")

I don't ask for much, do I? ;-)

Into the light

Of all of the concerns, good natural lighting is among the biggest wants for me, because for one, working with inadequate light is hard on the eyes, and in my current workspace it has been less than adequate. But you have to be careful because if there's too much of it shining directly on your canvas;  it causes glare problems with oils.

Artists always talk about north light as being the best for the most consistent, even and balanced natural light in the studio.  But a north-facing studio isn't always possible (my northern light is indirect at best because it's blocked by the building across the alley from us.) And any natural lighting will still need to be supplemented by artificial light, for overcast days and evenings when I may need to work, and for this I've found a few options.

Full spectrum lighting mimicks daylight, and it's what I currently use in my studio work area. I have this long flourescent bulb by Ott-Lite installed in a regular shop light that hangs just above and slightly behind me in my painting area. It does a pretty good job on my workspace, but I still feel the need to supplement with additional lamps.

The reason full-spectrum is recommended is that it is more "neutral" than the yellow cast that is often put off by incandescent bulbs. Artist Nita Leland has a good article explaining this further, so if you're an artist you may wish to check it out.

In addition to the above-mentioned option, we're looking into some kind of solar tube lighting. Friends of ours have these installed in their home, and it's amazing how much light it can put out. I light this option better than a skylight for my painting area, as a skylight can cause a more spotlight effect and the solar tube is less directional and more all-over and diffused.

One other option I hope to incorporate is clerestory windows. If I can get ones that open, they can serve number of purposes;  indirect natural light, additional ventilation, and the preservation of precious wall space in the painting area.

What's your ideal studio?

If you're still awake and reading all of this, I'd love to hear your thoughts. Anything I've missed? What's your ideal studio? And while you're mulling that over, check out talented artist Casey Child's blog - in particular his chronicles of the fabulous new (huge) garage/studio in progress- northern lit and all. His early posts on the topic have some great inspiration pictures too. I bookmarked his site some time ago, and in fact, his research is so exhaustive that I might not have bothered with a post of my own. But I'm nearly finished, so I might as well hit the publish button now!

Sketches from France- plus a brag

Just before I left for France my dear friends Jack and Mikki sent me some wonderful books on travel sketching. My favorite from the group is Artist En Routeby Betty Lynch. (A quick look at the price that this book is now going for makes me glad that I got this as a gift!) Betty is a very talented watercolorist, but I am partial to her simple pen and ink sketches, and they inspired me to keep my own little art journal for my trip.

I brought a 5x8" moleskine journal with me, which fit nicely into my carryall bag. Never one to be without as many options as possible, I chose the notebook that would accept watercolors (though most of my sketches were pen and ink.) Here's one with my notes of the Abbey I blogged about yesterday:

Most of these were just quick little jots, but the journal really helped me to lock in the memories in place, and keep track of the places we visited in sequential order. So many times on action packed trips like these, all of the memories start to blend together after a while, so I really recommend this combination of traveling, sketching and journaling. 

On the same day that we visited Abbaye Nouvelle, we also visited the village of Beynac (in the Dordogne), with its fascinating 12th century chateau perched atop dramatic limestone cliffs. Only time for a quick sketch for this part of the itinerary, which I did after our picnic lunch by the river bank. We are steeped deep into Medieval history here; this castle is where Richard the Lionheart met his death!

***And now, we interrupt this art travel log for a quick brag ;-). There is a fine new oil painter in the Young family, and she's got a blog! Check out my very talented niece, Molly Young and her Daily Painting blog.

Molly came all the way up from Texas to take my April workshop this past spring, and I got the chance to see her talent in person. I wish I could say I had something to do with it, but she's been cutting her own path for a while now and I look forward to seeing where she takes it. Her blog is brand new, but she's been painting for a couple of years, and she's a quick study to boot.

The fruit trees of early spring were all abloom while Molly was here visiting, and we took advantage of it by heading up to Monticello for a quick visit.  Here's a shot of the two of us at Monticello:

 

Molly's got some wonderful new paintings from that visit on her blog. Here's one of my faves.

New stuff coming soon, I promise!

I have many notes on things I'd like to blog about, but it seems this whole month has been crammed packed with activity. I'm getting ready for the art walk this Friday, and  a trip to France in just over a couple of  weeks.  But I will post new work this week, even if it's just a few small plein air pieces. And I've plenty of other things I'd like to write about too, if I can find the time:

• More thoughts on color mixing and art mediums
• More on art books I've been enjoying
• Planning and packing all my gear for an overseas trip
• One more "Art for Food" auction before I take a travel hiatus
• Sharing what I'm learning about the beautiful region of the Lot and Dordogne where I'll soon be touring and painting

I may not get to everything, but I will surely get to a number of these topics over the next couple of weeks before I sign off to head for 10 days of computer-free travel.

Last chance to see JMW Turner show in D.C.

Over the holidays I finally seized the opportunity to head up to the National Gallery in Washington D.C. for the Turner show.  This traveling exhibition is a rare opportunity to see some 140 works by a true master of landscape painting (and, I might add, great-grandfather of abstraction). The show was wonderfully comprehensive, and featured so many of his larger scaled oil paintings as well as his intimate watercolors. It's probably an understatement to say that Turner seemed an interesting guy. His work showed a passionate interest in depicting disasters (caused both by nature and by man) in powerful compositions of dramatic color and light.  In painting after painting, one sees snow storms, shipwrecks, thunder, and fire swirling with emotion. The man must have been exhausted! I am not overly fond of the strong narrative element in many of his paintings, but even so, there is much to see and appreciate in these works. Turner was an artist concerned with social and political injustices both past and present and used narrative elements (both visually and in some of his ridiculously long painting titles) to make his points. He had some statements to make, that's for sure.

Turner started out as an architectural draftsman, and mastered drawing at an early age. This was quite evident in his beautiful paintings of Rome and Venice (pictured above). And while paintings of pure landscape were minimal, there were more sublime pieces as well, where the narrative was limited and light was the subject. Some of my favorites of the larger oils were labeled as "studies" or "unfinished". I loved the way these were so fresh and stripped down to their simplified essence of light and color. He was a precursor to the Impressionists and truly ahead of his time. As explained in NGA exhibition supporting materials, these "incomplete" works were just that, and probably not meant for exhibition, but as preparations for "finished" paintings to present to collectors and the Academy. But we can appreciate them with our modern sensibility as works of art in their own right, as well as for their wonderful documentation of this artist's processes.

While the oils were undeniably impressive and painted with skill and bravura, I personally found greatest delight in his watercolors. These just blew me away. Works ranged from highly finished watercolors with a lot of detail  and drawing, to quick expressive sketches (near abstractions) from his sketchbooks.

If you're anywhere near D.C., you can catch this extraordinary show at the National Gallery's West building through January 6th, 2008 . Check out this cool online exhibition preview at the NGA's website! Next stops for the exhibition are Dallas and New York.

Do you Squidoo? My new lens on hanging artwork.

According to Wikipedia,

"Squidoo is a network of user-generated lenses --single pages that highlights one person's point of view, recommendations, or expertise."

According to me, it's pretty addictive! I've really been enjoying surfing it, and I've also created a couple of lenses of my own. My most recent lens is: Hanging Artwork and Caring for Your Art Collection. While I've blogged some of this information before, I've included new content on my lens that I hope will be of interest to art lovers and art collectors. I've also just updated my other lens on landscape painting with new content, so check them out! And if you enjoy my lenses, please consider leaving a star rating for them at the top of the screen.

Art Books; Landscape Painting Inside & Out

In my last post I mentioned Kevin Macpherson's latest book, Landscape Painting Inside & Out. This is a nice companion to his first wonderful book Fill Your Oil Paintings With Light and Color. The latter focuses primarily on plein air painting, while the former encompases both plein air and studio work. In his newest book, the author does a pretty thorough job of describing his supplies and tools of the trade for both his permanent studio and his portable one. Personally I really enjoyed the photos he's included of his indoor studio, (which is dreamy!) as it gives the artist (who likes to dream) some good ideas about how to plan a good setup. It was interesting for me to see that he puts his taboret in front of his easel, so that his color mixing palette is directly in front of him rather than off to the side, mimicking the setup one would have on a smaller scale outdoors. I work in the exact same way, with a mini-taboret on wheels my husband rigged up for me using a small laundry cart.

Subsequent sections touch on the different qualities of light and their effect on your subject, as well as value relationships and shape relationships. He has an interesting way of explaining the importance of describing elements in the landscape in terms of shape rather than rendering every minute detail. Here the book shows various black and white silhouettes to explain that an accurate contour is what describes an object. For example, one should be more concerned with the shape of a tree and largely indicate this  as one mass, using details such as individual leaves sparingly and just to accent and better define the subject.

This book touches on a lot of different concerns for the landscape painter. Aside from the ones I mentioned above, the author addresses edges, color temperature, and includes a very interesting section on planning and designing the painting. Several of these subjects are covered in just one or two pages, but they are well articulated and will give the serious landscape painter a starting point for further investigation.

After this overview comes what I consider the "meat" of the book--a large section on painting outside on location and another substantial one on translating your outdoor studies into larger studio works. In these sections, as in his previous book, Macpherson provides several very well described demonstrations of his processes. These sections appeal to me very much. I personally love demos, as it is easier for me to understand visually than it is having it explained.

What is particularly interesting to me about this part is the way the author encourages experimentation. He includes a few demos using different limited palettes that give the reader some ideas-- experimenting with an earth primary palette, using a strong color palette, or using a set palette with a monochrome (grey) underpainting.

Different from his last book, Macpherson includes a final section on "The Path to Success". This is really a topic worthy of an entire book (or a series of books). Macpherson goes into no detail at all about how to manage one's art career, but merely touches on some things to think about. Largely he writes about things like being inspired, doing what you love, setting goals, blah blah blah. Sure, all of this is important, but it's dealt with in a pretty vague manner and personally this is the least informative section of the book which covers about the last 15 pages. I suppose it is really just meant to be inspiring, so as long as you don't expect more, you may really enjoy this part.

Overall, this is a very interesting book with some very beautiful color reproductions of the artist's lush, impressionistic paintings. The demos are good, and I like that the breakout topics are geared more towards experienced painters who might be looking to experiment or deepen their understanding of landscape painting.  Macpherson does do a  good bit of selling of his other products, such as his other book, video and his "Kevin Macpherson Plein Air Palette" and "Kevin Macpherson Prochade Kit".  But this to me is only mildly annoying because I'd probably do the same thing if I offered these kinds of products. ;-) And heck! It must have worked...I've ordered his Prochade Kit for myself and will probably blog about it once I've had a chance to try it out.

Morning Meadow; Blue Ridge Mountain landscape painting

I have been spending so much time doing small studies lately that it really felt good to do a big-honkin' painting in the studio of the beautiful Blue Ridge mountains. Ahhhh! Big canvas, big brushes, and lots of paint.

Okay, so this painting is 30x40"--not massive but respectably large for me. I've painted other variations of this scene before but they sold before I could get a high quality photograph taken of them. This snapshot is off somewhat and caught a bit of glare but I will post a better image once I've finished the painting (a bit more minor tweaking to do.) ***Update***This painting has sold, but you can see the finshed painting here.

I decided to try this with a limited palette of five colors (ultramarine blue, cadmium red light, alizarin crimson permanent, cadmium yellow light, pthalo green and white.)

Basically this is the palette Kevin Macpherson often cites in his very good book: Landscape Painting Inside & Out, (which I will write about more extensively in my next post.)

This pallette differs from the one that Kenn Backhaus uses that I had been experimenting with a couple of weeks ago painting on location in Easton Md. I rather find myself gravitating more towards the Macpherson palette, which varies the colors and omits the black. The jury is still out though and I will continue to experiment with both, as I do think I am learning a lot about color.