Painting with vodka!

OK - a little light relief.

I am taking a break from sorting my studio out, which is badly needed, and having a cup of tea and checking out the blogs of the artists I follow (which amount to quite a few). Some of these blogs are intermittent (I can be accused of that), some very short - a picture and one sentence at most, but some artists are extremely generous with their time, writing up many times a week and giving fabulous tips.

An American lady, Karen Margulis is one of the latter. She is a pastel painter and not only has a frequently updated blog, but also videos online, giving tips and inspiration. I know I don't do pastels very often - they are, in my case, very time consuming and of course very fugitive in terms of smudging etc. However, I love the results when it works and would like to do more. That is why I went to Sarah Bee's course at West Dean recently.

The difference between Sarah Bee and Karen Margulis is the underpainting. Sarah underpaints with textured gesso and acrylic paint - Karen with pastel. However once the basic underpainting has been put on the page, Karen then applies liquid (generally in the shape of water or rubbing alchohol) to blend across the page. She then puts more layers of soft pastel on top.

I was very amused to see her latest blog, where an online student didn't understand that it was rubbing alchohol that was being used and used vodka instead! Karen then decided to try it out herself and obviously, although drying times were longer, it gave interesting drips and marks, where water and rubbing alcohol weren't so good. Just goes to show that one can use anything in painting - I have to admit to half the kitchen and utility room being up in the studio for some use or other....

This blog reminded me of something I read by David Bellamy, a watercolourist. He often paints en plein air and in unusual locations. When he is up a mountain and it is very cold, he doesn't use water, but vodka, as the freezing level is lower. The suggestion then was that if it got really cold, he could always drink some!

I wonder what else people use in painting that is out of the norm. I know when I was doing my A level at adult education classes and then the OCA degree course, I tried out all sorts of things - just to see what worked. I suppose that was the start of my love of mixed media.

Anyway, in my present sort-out some of the miscellaneous items in the studio are coming back down to the ground floor to their original homes. I need to have a clear view of what I have in the studio, as I am planning a refit in the spring. At present I have no running water (have to go down two floors to clean things) and it is in the eaves, so haven't got any decent shelving, just a pile of plastic boxes from Staples! What is planned is a basin and draining board, but also shelving wherever possible, fitted into the sloping roof. However, what is in there at the moment is too much - but some of the things I have were related to strange lessons during my education period. Now I am a free agent, I know what style I want to do and what equipment is required, so a tarting up of the room is in order, I think.

Going back to the alcohol - I think if I had a bottle up in the studio for painting, no-one would believe that was what I was really using it for!

If any of my readers are interested in pastels - do check Karen's website out : Karen Margulis

Now - back to the mess that is my studio - onwards and upwards.....