We have in the past prepared our panels for painting by applying a coat of varnish to the wood. This enables the wood grain to shop through where required and isolates the wood from the oil in our paint.

To help our customers we have experimented with developing a surface with more tooth from the wood panels. We wanted to avoid sanding so that the full beauty of the panels could be used, so how could we do this?

The answer was actually very simple. We remove the panel from the cello wrap, brush over with a dry soft brush to take off the slight film of wood dust, with a hog hair brush we then apply Pebeo Transparent Gesso to the surface in a reasonably heavy application. Leave to dry.

The result is a matt wood surface that feels like fine sand paper. The wood grain is slightly visually enhanced so can be left uncovered in the finak work if required. Oil paint (we genrally use short paint) does not tend to slide as much as is the case on the varnish separator layer we used to use.

Hope this helps but if anyone tries this and has problems please let us know and we will see what we can do to help.

The idea of a list price means nothing in our shop because none of our suppliers try to impose a retail price at which we must sell products. That is why you wont see us advertising “x% below list” or x% below recommended retail price”.

The only thing that matters if you are price conscious is the compartative price against other suppliers (and when you buy over the net that includes packing and postage). For instance you will find that our standard prices are close to the 40 to 50% below List Prices given by Dick Blick and Jerry’s Artarama. By the time the lower postage cost is taken into account it costs more to buy from those US suppliers than from Upside Down Inside Out if you are buying in Australia.

What we are happy about is the interest students are showing in using Sennelier paints, Lana papers and Raphael paint brushes. Our newly added A1 paper sheets and the 220gsm Lana Drawing Paper Pads (A3 and A2 are popular) is making a bit of a hit.

If you are an art teacher and would like to have a demo of Sennelier paints (oils, acrylics, watercolours, inks), Lana drawing and watercolour papers, Raphael paint brushes….. feel free to contact us at contact@upsidedowninsideout.com.au to arrange a date (Sydney to Port Stephens only at this stage).

The price and details will be available on our Shop site this Friday.

In the context of modern art Ruskin was fortunate to know Turner the great colourist and interpreter of his world. Much of what Ruskin found in art and architecture was related to the past but he also attempted to influence the direction of art into the future. In over 40 years of writing he exposed gradual changes in his opinions and in his understanding of the world around him. Not suprisingly he often wrote of an ideal position in art that was then pursued by artists in quite varied ways, to add to the difficulties of his readers he quite often altered his position on all but the most basic technical  levels of observation.

Religion played an important part in much of his writing, in this he often sounds like a religiously oriented modern American. For those of us without a religious bent this preoccupation is quite often confusing if not completely off putting. Even Ruskin’s attitude to religion changed during his life time and this is reflected in his writings, his autobiography perhaps placing his most accurate representation of his move away from religious preoccupation or dominance. For the reader it is not impossible to view Ruskins religious statements as an organised spirituality that promoted the general good and asked his readers to venerate life in a refined uplifting way.

Ruskin was an independently wealthy man as were so many people involved in the arts at the time. His views on some issues are of course quite shocking, such as his questioning the value of education for the less fortunate (a view shared by Dega, Moore etc). In many respects he sought to reject the cancerous nature of the industrial revolution, in particular the reduction of the workers to nothing more than machines producing goods with which their input was the repetition of an action rather than the application of their own thinking. Unfortunately the cynicism of the middle class was to over power his view and by the end of his life he was regarded as a dreamer, despite the obvious degradation of the worker to little more than animals.

We are constantly reminded today that the Impressionists gave us the, at the time, odd idea of colouring shadows in paintings. Ruskin put forward the concept of warmth and colour in shadows long before Monet and co were influential. We have to admit that Goethe put this view long before Ruskin and that German artists used this approach in the 1830s, followed by the Pre-Raphelites (under the influence of Ruskin) in the 1850s. How the Impressionists gained the credit for this is a touch lost on me.

Another of the approaches that the Impressionists are supposed to have given us is to visually reduce scenes they were undertaking to paint to areas of colour to place on the canvas. Ruskin and many before him were fully aware that to bring an image to the canvas this is exactly what the artist had to do. Perhaps this misconception was understandable in France where the five step academic method was an accepted standard approach that limited the use of this principle. The only point on which Ruskin can be seen to differ in this direct colour approach is that he did not abandon the concept of blending to achieve an effect, as did the colour emphasising impressionists.

I’ll return to this occassional series later in the year.

The price of the palettes has been permanently dropped to $17.50.

Book at the Centre, or online or just come along and see if there are free spots in the class. Cost is $35 for non members or $25 for members.

See you there.

This year has flown by with great memories and great paintings being created at every moment. There is only one better feeling in life than finishing a painting or a memory… starting a new one with all the expectation of a dreamer.

May your dreams be good ones and the results be even better.

From Upside Down Inside Out Gallery.

You can book to participate in Neil Miley’s “One Day….. Painting the Face from Life” short course in the Shop look at Courses (our new segmnet of the site) or enroll direct at the Port Stephens Community Arts Centre. The course starts from colour mixing using a limited palette and ends with a completed sketch painted by the students. The students are high school age and up.

You will learn to paint a face without the advantage of a static model. This approach provides a wonderful 3 dimensional understanding to the subject.

Upside Down Inside Out is providing discounted materials packages for those students that don’t have the supplies to undertake the course.

This short course will be run at the Port Stepens Community Arts Centre on 5 January and again on 12 January.  Go to the new Course section of the site to see the details or go direct to the course entry here.