Page 22 - George O'Hanlon
George O’Hanlon is the technical director of Natural Pigments, and executive director of Iconofile, a nonprofit educational organization dedicated to promoting understanding of sacred art. George received his fine arts education and apprenticeship in Mexico. Upon return to the United States, he worked as creative director for advertising agencies in Silicon Valley, working on such major accounts as Sony, Hewlett-Packard, and Ricoh. He founded an agency later acquired by the chemical giant, Shin-Etsu. There he served as vice-president of U.S. marketing. In 1992, he studied traditional art techniques abroad. Then in 2001, co-founded Iconofile and in 2003 Natural Pigments to promote an understanding of these practices. Since that time he has formulated hundreds of artists’ paints and materials, including Ceracolors, a waterborne wax paint.
- December 13, 2011 1468
The term balsam has been used to designate the resinous exudate from trees of the order Coniferae, which have also been called resin or turpentine. Balsam is a soft, semi-liquid consisting of terpenes associated with bodies of resinous properties. The balsams most used in varnishes or as paint mediums are Larch balsam (a component of Venice turpentine), Strasbourg turpentine, Canada balsam, and copaiba balsam. Balsams flow easily on a surface and give a lustrous, pleasing quality when applied. However, unless a harder resin is mixed with them, they deteriorate quickly. Here are several formulas incorporating balsams...
- December 12, 2011 4034
The term ‘flake white’ originated from the fact that when basic lead carbonate is made according to the old Dutch method or ‘stack process,’ it falls off the metallic pieces of lead as ‘flakes.’ This is not the case when lead white is made according to modern processes, which is the pigment type used by all artists’ paint manufacturers today...
- December 10, 2011 833
Congo copal is no longer available commercially (at least as it was available in commerce formerly), because the suppliers have long stopped trading due to strife in Africa since the last quarter of the 20th century. Trade of Congo copal was once controlled by the Belgian government, but as this region of Africa gained independence and the demand for copal resins diminished during the last half of the 20th century, the commerce of Congo copal has all but ceased...
- November 05, 2011 511
Ackermann’s Superfine Water Colours were prepared and sold at Rudolph Ackermann’s shop, The Repository of Arts at 101 Strand in London, and also sold through print and booksellers in Great Britain. He published a list of watercolor cakes that appeared in 1801 and was appended to A Treatise on Ackermann’s Superfine Water Colours....
- October 14, 2011 394
The sad news about the recent conviction of Odd Nerdrum for tax evasion made me think about the merchantability of paintings. The 67-year-old Norwegian-born artist was accused of failing to pay taxes on €1.8 million of taxable income from sales between 1998–2002, just before he became an Icelandic citizen. The court defined the crime as aggravated fiscal fraud because the artist “put significant work into hiding his assets, especially by placing a large quantity of money in a safety deposit box.”...
- September 24, 2011 176
The British Library has renovated the search functions for their Online Catalogue of Illuminated Manuscripts. It is worthwhile investigating this vast collection of manuscripts...
- September 08, 2011 207
For some years, I have been studying the palettes of medieval and Renaissance painters and, with many of the same pigments available to me, have started to reproduce their palettes, many of which are depicted in portraits and self-portraits described in painting treatises. This work has led me to more clearly see the tonal and color arrangements in the work of the old masters, which I will be publishing at Natural Pigments...
- September 08, 2011 537
Harley believes that the English word pink referred to a pseudo-lake pigment, differentiating it from lake pigments, for which the English word lake described. Some of the treatises cited in another article describe depositing the dye on alum or chalk. This differs from the process used to make lake pigments, where the dye is precipitated on freshly made aluminum hydroxide. Interestingly, aluminum hydroxide is made by dissolving alum or aluminum sulfate in water and then precipitating it in a chemical reaction with an alkali, such as soda ash or pearl ash, by adding this alkali dissolved in water to the first solution. Aluminum hydroxide precipitates from the solution as a powder, gel, or horny mass, depending upon the temperature and pH of the solutions. This procedure is quite different from the treatises for making Dutch pink...
- September 07, 2011 1498
No manufacturer I know will disclose information about additives because they view it as proprietary information. Natural Pigments and our brand of artists' oils, Rublev Colours, have eliminated this problem by not including any stabilizing or dispersing additives. Hence there is nothing to disclose except for the pigment and vehicle. We believe transparency and disclosure are essential issues for professional artists creating artworks that they expect to have some degree of longevity. We readily disclose ingredients in our products to assist artists in their creative work...
- September 06, 2011 1608
Glycerin (also spelled glycerine and also called glycerol) is a humectant and plasticizer ingredient in commercial watercolors today, but it is not always an ingredient in commercial watercolors. An examination of watercolor paints from the late 18th and early 19th century reveals that glycerin was not a plasticizer and humectant in pan watercolors (called 'cake' colors in that period). For example, Rudolph Ackermann used crystal sugar melted in water as the plasticizer and humectant for many colors. In some cases, the recipes called for vinegar...
