Oil Painting

Copper became my love, my addiction of sorts, but it was not love at first sight. When I started to experiment with this surface several years ago, if I knew then what I know now, if I had access to the right copper panels which I have today, I would’ve fallen for it much faster!

The history of painting on copper is rich and long, and it is the only metal that I know of that forms a strong bond with oils, making it a proven and trusted surface for oil painting. While the Tate Museum has some videos online describing copper paintings from their collection, I also recommend the Natural Pigments/Rublev website, where George O’Hanlon and other conservators have written a lot about the subject. This article, however, is about my personal journey, and I hope that it gives some insight to artists and students who are thinking of trying this surface themselves.  

I only knew of etching plates when I started. I ordered several of them, did quite extensive research on preparing them for painting, and started to experiment. The most helpful article on the process was written by Julio Reyes and Candice Bohannon in Realism Today (it’s still available online and was my go-to when I started). The proper way to prepare the etching plates back then was to lightly sand and rub garlic all over them to literally etch the surface of the copper to provide the tooth needed to take on the oils. I ignored the heady smell of garlic in the name of Fine Art! The surface of copper was very smooth, much smoother than the linen I was so used to, and it often took a couple of passes until I had enough oil on the surface to really get into the actual painting. I loved the shine of the copper against the opaque strokes, especially the skin tones, and I wanted to leave the copper surface as the background, but I could see the sanding scratches in certain light, and it bothered me.  My early paintings were tiny, and I made sure to frame them as soon as possible as I was afraid that the soft metal would warp over time.

My initial concerns were alleviated when I discovered the copper panels being made by Artefex and Raymar. Both companies came up with beautiful panels that are essentially copper on top of aluminum backing (with some core in-between these metals to make these panels a bit lighter, but you can get the full description on their websites). These are very strong panels that don’t warp, are fully archival, and what’s brilliant – they are ready to immediately take on the oils; there is no preparation time needed. As there is no sanding, there is no scratching of the surface, which was very important to me as it allowed me to create works with an exposed copper surface. While I personally work exclusively on Raymar copper now, and love it, I tried both panels side by side for years and they are both quite beautiful. (There is just a slight difference in the sheen between them, so I suggest you try both and decide which is right for you).  Of all the copper surfaces I’ve tried, I truly believe both Artefex and Raymar have created the best panels that I’ve worked with, and I wholeheartedly recommend them both!  

If you are just starting to experiment with oils on copper, however, you might want to start out with etching plates, as they are an affordable way to get a feel for copper’s smooth surface, to get to test your brushstrokes on it, and be able to decide for yourself if you want to invest in archival grade panels. Remember, tossing away a messed-up etching plate while you are just getting a feel for copper will probably be less painful than tossing away one of those beautiful panels. Then again, maybe to really fall in love we need to go to the best materials we can get hold of, and just dive in – it’s a personal choice! 

I sketch on copper to get away from linen (my other love), to get away from larger paintings, to play against a shining surface that changes the way the skin tones appear on it.  In certain light the background may be rich and warm, and the skin may appear very light and opaque against the copper. The same painting in a different light may show the background stripped of all the color, and the figure might appear much darker against it. Paintings on copper can change dramatically from different viewpoints! Copper can also change when someone approaches it, as the viewer is reflected in it if he or she gets too close. It’s a beautiful thing, this “participation” in the painting, feeling, and literally seeing our own presence in it. It’s also something that I need to work around, as I can see my own reflection even as I paint (and even taking photos of a painting on exposed copper without seeing my reflection is no easy task).  

Because I want to leave the copper sheen intact, I cannot erase on it. Wiping something off of copper is almost impossible because it will change the uniform beauty of the copper quite a bit – It dulls it, and you can see a trace of the correction on the surface (which is only an issue if you leave the copper background fully exposed). There are a few past pieces of mine where I needed to change something, to reshape the forms, or had to move something compositionally that made me rethink the concept of the piece… and sometimes even demanded that I paint in the background because the wipe would’ve been far too visible. I love the risk taking of working on copper! I feel that I move slower (quite a bit slower actually) when sketching on copper and it’s the same rush that I get when drawing directly with ink, there’s almost no turning back. I have, however, discovered one trick when erasing on copper (although it’s not bullet proof). I wipe an area carefully with a paper towel soaked in Gamsol, followed by a clean paper towel. Then, because the trace of that wipe would still be visible, I literally breathe on it the way one would breathe on eyeglasses to wipe off a smudge and then follow it with a clean paper towel again.  Sometimes this does the trick, sometimes I need to repeat it. And when it doesn’t work I rethink my idea and add elements to cover that area. Quite a few interesting discoveries and compositions have happened this way!

I paint a bit differently on copper than I do on linen, I slow down, and I move to round brushes which I seldom use when I paint on linen.  This wasn’t a conscious decision for me, but one that I discovered I did naturally.  My favorite Master’s Choice long flats from Rosemary & Co don’t quite work on copper for me.  Strangely, when I paint the skin, I start with the lightest areas of the skin first. On linen I would usually start by building out the dark areas, but on copper sketches I almost always go directly with the light areas first. I need to feel the opacity of the skin against the warmth of the copper from the very beginning. It’s akin to sculpting for me, I need to feel it. Also, quite often I leave the shadows as exposed copper, allowing the copper itself to serve as the darks. I don’t use any medium or thinner, as they don’t work on this surface at all for me. Instead, I very lightly touch the brushes against the surface, creating an almost ghost-like image that slowly develops. I do not work like this on linen, as linen is forgiving (it takes my washes, my thick strokes, the knife, all of it), but when I’ve painted on the whole copper panel, as in some of the examples here, I would’ve treated it the same way. But I am talking specifically about the way I sketch on copper while leaving the background exposed.  And that’s where I am trying to be very careful. I am also trying not to touch the copper with my hands before the painting is varnished – any touch may leave a mark. 

A beautiful thing about working on this surface is the ability to hatch through the oil layer to expose the copper itself, so that those glimpses of metal shine through as the light changes – I find that fascinating! It’s something that almost unites both painting and drawing, which I feel I do at the same time when I’m working on copper; you can scrape through the oil, draw beautiful lines, and make interesting marks. While I usually use the tip of a painting knife or the back of a small brush when scraping through the oil, there are many other tools to experiment with. But be careful, never scratch the actual metal, do not affect the copper! I have also heard of some treating the copper plate with a mild acid to achieve a patina to paint on, but you should never do this as the copper will continue to corrode and no longer be of archival quality.  The acid will slowly eat through the layer of oils and destroy your painting.  While the patina may be beautiful now, it will become a disaster in the years to come (maybe not in our lifetime, but at some point) and eventually destroy your creation. Always be very careful with the surface of copper, and never alter the plate in any way! 

Finally, never forget to always varnish your painting (especially if the copper is exposed) as you want to seal the surface so that the copper won’t change over time. I use Conservator’s Products Company’s varnish (I mix their regular varnish with their matte varnish, roughly 50/50) but to the best of my knowledge, any good varnish that you use for your oil paintings on other surfaces should work, just DON’T FORGET TO VARNISH! Once varnished, and provided your copper plate remains intact, your painting is ready for the collector and is now fully archival.

 

“If we don’t always understand animals, they always understand us.” – Rosa Bonheur

When I was 10 years old I painted my cat. Long into adulthood, my mother kept insisting it was the best painting I ever created. Half-jokingly, she compared all my works to The Portrait of Matros (my cat’s name, means “sailor” in Russian). The paintings she liked were praised as “almost as good”. My mom thought in that small watercolor, 40+ years ago, I captured our cat’s soul. 

Up until my 50^th birthday, art was my passion but not a career. In the mid-90s, as a new immigrant with art education, no English, and two young kids, I could only dream of becoming a “real artist”. Learning how to use a computer and getting a full time job in a field of graphic design was a reasonable solution. I took my painting supplies out of storage when my twin sons got behind the wheel — what else could I possibly do with all the extra time I suddenly had? Yet my subjects were anything but animals. Flowers, still life, some figurative works, some landscapes, but almost never animals. I’ve experimented with different styles, trying to invent “my own”. For quite a while, I was playing with elements of cubism, bright colors, sharp angles, and geometrical shapes. I was exhibiting and selling some works, but this was not enough to make it anywhere beyond local art fairs. To completely change my career, or to say it better, to actually start my career as an artist — it took another cat.

My mother was trying to convince me I needed a small short-haired cat. I wanted a Maine Coon, the largest domestic breed with long silky fur. Rio came from a cattery in Ohio during the 2016 Olympics, hence the name. When my mom first saw my new kitten, she said, “It’s meant to be, he looks like Matros.” Needless to say, I was absolutely in love with my new fur baby. Two years later, Rio developed an orthopedic condition and needed surgery. Seeing the poor guy suffer was heartbreaking. I painted his portrait, Furry Beast, as my own art therapy. Immediately, I got a brilliant idea — aha, I’ll do pet portrait commissions to cover the cost of his treatment. I advertised on social media with zero results. However, a few of my friends saw my struggle and ordered portraits of their pets — and up to this day I’m incredibly grateful to them. The most amazing thing happened in the process. Something clicked. That was it. I was completely and totally hooked and in my element. I knew I was going to keep painting animals. 

The change in subject completely changed my painting style. Or it rather took me back to my original traditional good-old-Russian art training. I didn’t need to invent “my own style” anymore, it was naturally driven by my subjects. Faceted shapes and sharp edges did not work for soft fluffy animals. Instead, came bold expressive alla prima brushstrokes, painterly passages along with tighter details, and a need to describe form. I realized that using stylistic embellishments was a convenient way to cover up the lack of knowledge and technical skills in realistic representational painting. It made me work hard on honing my craft — watching other artists, taking workshops, and painting, painting, painting. 

2020 hit hard. Pancreatic cancer took my mom away from us right before the COVID shutdown. She had always been my greatest supporter yet most objective and equitable critic. I’m glad she saw my first animal paintings, and she approved. Her feedback on my Conspirators was, “Absolutely human-looking muzzles. They simply have smart faces.” She didn’t like my title though, she thought it was too descriptive and I should let the viewers come up with their own story.

I remember sharing progress shots of Girlfriends with mom. She said they looked sad. I argued that cows always look sad; they’re simply romantics. Later that year, this painting was accepted into the OPA 2020 Eastern Regional, sold before the official opening date, and selected as a finalist by the 15th ARC Salon. It was my first real success as a painter, a sign that, at last, I was doing something right. I only wished my mother could still be here to see it.

Cows became my most popular animals. Never tired of their faces, I’ve probably painted enough cows for a decent size dairy farm over the last couple years. My creative process behind it is almost always the same: as the snout begins taking shape, I start smiling and keep painting with a silly smile on my face while talking to an imaginary cow, wondering if psychiatrists out there have a name for my condition. I joked that the reason I love painting cows is because they accept their natural beauty — no cow has ever asked me to remove her double chin or to make her nose smaller, and they are also perfectly fine with their facial hair. 

My subjects are mostly farm animals and pets. Pets, I believe, deserve even more attention and recognition in art. They are there for us when we need them, they took us through pandemic, they keep us sane and for sure make us better people. When painting pets, my goal always is to understand and portray their personalities. For commissioned portraits, I ask my clients to share stories about their pets. For my own pieces, I like adding some narrative.  

Why Are You Still Home? was painted in isolation of April, 2020. During this sad and uncertain time, grieving for my mother, I needed all the cuteness and humor I could possibly get to make it through. A friend of mine came up with the title for this piece after I posted it on Facebook. 

I love adding a healthy dose of humor to my paintings. When I see people smile as they look at my works, it makes me happy. Of course the animals can be silly and amusing, but we all know they are also super smart. After taking care of my Rio recovering after his surgeries, I’m in awe of his resilience, persistence, and desire to survive. I have a huge respect for my subjects as there’s so much we all can learn from them. They always have a story to tell, and I’m trying to do my best transcribing their stories and capturing their souls.

Keith Jarret’s Koln Concert was playing in the background the other day as I completed the dreaded task of clearing out my studio. I would so much rather be painting, but since I was moving soon, I had to start the process. As I listened to the jazz pianist maestro, I heard his famed grunts and groans during the recording of his most well-known concert. When I was younger, I thought these expressions came from a place of passion and rapture. After hearing a report on this performance, I now know these are sounds of pure frustration over limitations. It turns out, the only piano available had high and low notes that were not functioning. He was forced to play within a limited range, and the music he made put him on the map.

We all have limitations in our lives. Necessary tasks take away from the endless hours I wish I had to paint. My own lovely children (two boys, ages 12 & 13), have presented limitations in my life that I continue to grapple with. As my mother ages, I have a feeling she will replace my children as a force that draws me away from the easel. However, as I study oil painting more, I realize that there is freedom in limitations. The wisdom and revelations of the Zorn palette is a classic example. I will share here a very real application of limitations, and how it freed my painting to become more nuanced and focused.

During the waning days of lockdown, I decided to further my studies with a year of color theory with Skip Whitcomb (through the Tucson Academy). His research into the lost art of color schemes is invaluable. Concurrently, I was gifted a lifetime collection of oil paints by a former student who could no longer paint. Gazing at the rainbow array of paint tubes that I would normally never purchase, I realized Skip’s class came at the perfect time. How can I make sense of this variety? How can I be intentional with my palette so that my paintings don’t end up looking garish? Skip’s course and this gift gave me some answers.

As I progressed in the class, Skip tasked us with finding the colors that emerge from set color schemes: triads, complementary, double-complementary, split complementary, and so on. I discovered one of my favorite color schemes, a complementary plan of red and green: Cadmium Scarlet, Alizarin Crimson, and Transparent Red Oxide, across from Viridian and Cadmium Green. I completed the prerequisite color map using these hues. In Skip’s class, we used a variety of values to explore what a particular color scheme can produce. If it gives us what we need, we can proceed with a finished piece. The studio piece I finished with this plan is called Wildland Revival.

Fast-forward to this past spring: I got a call to join some friends for a painting trip in Southeast Utah. Wanting to field-test this limited palette idea, I brought the red-green collection of paints. I threw in a full range of hues, just in case I lost my nerve, or if they truly did not provide the needed range. My intention was to explore this red-green scheme to its outer limits, and it did not disappoint.

Just as that rainbow collection of paint tubes presented an overwhelming number of options, so too did the grand beauty of SE Utah give me too many paths to take. By limiting my palette and relying on the grace of color relativity, I was able to control the other wild cards in the landscape. My viridian began to sing of blue skies and cool shadows. The cadmium green offered warm yellow tones to complement the violet canyon walls. What could have been considered stifling became a way to explore the area in bite-size, digestible ways. 

Here are a few paintings completed on that trip, including Tapestry, which was accepted in the OPA Western Regional Exhibit this autumn in Dallas, TX.

Time limitations in my life have spurred a disciplined approach to managing my routine and blocking out my day. Geographic limitations, such as living far from a city center, force me to appreciate what the local landscape has to offer. And, by choosing a limited palette, I can focus on other aspects of a painting, knowing that there will be an inherent harmony in the end. As long as those factors meet my basic needs, I am usually better off keeping things simple. It’s amazing how much I discover within the confines of limitations. I become free from dependence on variety and surplus. 

My first career was as an art director for advertising agencies in New York City in the mid-1980s. Around that time, I took classes at night at the School of Visual Arts. These classes were primarily for aspiring art directors and copywriters, and focused on developing creative, original concepts with strong advertising messages. And as with painting, that was a skill that required practice, experience, and knowledge of what’s been done in the past. 

The title of my article, “What’s the Big Idea?” was actually the title of one of those classes. The class’s instructor did an amazing job of getting across to us—sometimes with humor, and sometimes more bluntly—that the best advertising begins with a very focused concept. 

This instructor and others (all of whom were full-time art directors, copywriters and creative directors at successful agencies) stressed that it’s vitally important to first zero in on one succinct statement, and then develop individual messages from that overall umbrella idea. This is basically how an ad campaign is developed. If the advertising relies too heavily on only catchy phrases or flashy graphics, the message isn’t as powerful as when there’s one specific, overall concept that serves as the driving force behind each individual ad. Clever wordplays, or even humor can sometimes augment the message, but a focused concept is always the most important.

If you’ve ever seen the movie “What Women Want” (a film that came out in 2000 with Mel Gibson and Helen Hunt) the plot is set in an advertising agency, and I think it is one of the few movies that accurately portrays the thought process that advertising creatives use to come up with a “big idea”. Maybe it’s done differently these days, but this is how we did it when I worked in the field. The comical premise of the movie leverages how much of that process of conceptualizing an initial idea is a mental challenge that has to come first before anything visual or written can be developed. Mel Gibson’s career-greedy character suddenly has the magical ability to read the inner thoughts of Helen Hunt’s character. In the movie, they develop an ad campaign concept for Nike directed toward women. Their concept is “No Games. Just Sports.” That concept would become the umbrella idea for the individual advertising messages from Nike to their female demographic. 

Now, after nearly 30 years from when I moved on from my advertising career, I’m realizing that my most successful landscape paintings are those for which I first identify a distinct visual concept. Since I love to paint light in the landscape, my concept usually revolves around light in some way. My goal however, is to pinpoint a very specific visual idea regarding what’s special about the landscape, and how I’m responding to it. Whatever idea I choose to use, that idea becomes the driving force for how I handle each area of the painting, so that the painting as a whole will clearly convey the original big idea. Some areas of the painting will simply serve a supporting role to the main concept. 

For example, if I were to identify light skimming the top of a snow-covered rocky slope as my big idea, I would address the overall composition, and each supporting area of the painting so that it best showcases that light skimming the snow and rocks on the slope (as I did with the painting shown at the top of this article). The composition may also have trees and grasses, and the sky peeking through the trees, but those elements would be edited so they support the central theme.  If instead my concept was to feature the light peeking through the trees, I would create a very different composition that emphasizes that area as the star of the show, with alternative portions of the composition edited to supporting roles. 

To further explain, I’ll show examples of my paintings and describe the big idea behind each:

Big Idea: Radiant light reflected from the rocks and water. I set up the composition for this piece purposely to showcase the patterns of strong light and brilliant blue sky bouncing off of the rocks and water. It’s tempting to define more of the distant area on the other side of the river, but that part of the composition plays only a supporting role so was kept at a minimum.

Big Idea: As stated right in the title, the passage of light. Sometimes the title comes first before I pick up a brush, which helps me stay on track with my concept. This painting’s message revolves around the pull of the sunlit pathway into the trees, summoning the viewer to follow the light and explore further into the landscape. Notice that I continued the light into the distance, but edited it quite a bit to keep the initial passage of light as the main idea.

Okay, so painting concepts aren’t usually as clever as advertising ones (although some certainly can be). And it may seem like my painting concepts are fairly obvious. But when an artist looks across an overwhelming view of a landscape, a distinct painting idea (what to emphasize about the landscape) may not be readily apparent. There are often many different directions the artist can take regarding how to portray a portion of that landscape. The point I hope to make here is that the more you can focus a visual idea, the bigger the impact your painting will have.

I paint outdoors regularly so that I can gain a genuine understanding of my subjects. But many of my own favorite pieces that I feel have a strong visual message resulted from long hikes during which I took many hours to absorb what’s particularly striking about the landscape I explored. Sometimes I bring a small painting kit for mini color studies on these hikes, but more often it’s quick pencil sketches and detailed notes that accompany my reference photos that I bring back to the studio. With this approach, I can hone in on a certain magical element that stuck with me during my outdoor experience. Then back in the studio, I take my time to carefully explore studies that clearly convey that specific observation.

Big Idea: Magical evening light reflected on the mountainside. The colors on the mountain are quite elusive to photograph but breathtakingly magical in person. For this scene, I relied on careful notetaking with color charts along with sketches on location during an all-day hike. I followed that with multiple studio studies. Besides recording the color information firsthand, absorbing the brilliant visual effects throughout that day contributed to how I expressed my response to the subject.

Big Idea: Delicate branches showcased by strong backlighting.  On location, an array of possible compositions presented themselves to me. Some of those compositions would have had me use the long cast shadows as the main idea. However, for this painting, I used the backlighting to feature the delicate edgework of the lacy branches, both in front of the light and within the resulting deep cast shadows. 

Big Idea: Way up high. This one is all about being way up near the top of this mountain, and that feeling one gets when standing on a mountain high above everything else and can see for miles. The arrangement of the grass and snow patterns, and their converging sizes, as they lead toward the sliver of light in the sky all contribute to that feeling.

I have to admit that sometimes when I’m painting outside with my full gear, I can get caught up in the technical particulars as I’m racing against the light. Again, it’s only when I nail down a specific visual idea and use the short window of time wisely that I produce what I feel is a successful field study.

Big Idea: Colorful shadows in the rock. Although I often like to focus on the light hitting the rock structures when I paint at this locale, the large shadow mass here had such varied yet subtle temperature shifts, that I focused on nudging the range of color temperatures to show off those shifts. I kept all else in the composition secondary to this main idea.

Thinking back to my advertising days, I remember poring over the most creative, award-winning ads of the time, aspiring to reach that level. And now, of course, I do the same with the work of my favorite painters. In both fields, I realize that the work that packs the biggest punch always starts with a big ole solid idea!