Rule Number One for Artists

Monday was a very strange day, even for a former American who had renounced her citizenship a year ago. I never lived in Boston. I almost took a job once teaching riding just over the city line in Revere, but didn't. So I really have no connection, except that two close friends were at the Boston Marathon (they're fine) and the sister of another was, too. (She's not so fine, but a lot better off than most--just a broken ankle, torn meniscus, chipped tooth and multiple contusions and bruises.)

Yes, strange day. So I didn't write an art blog. I wrote a political one. (You can find it here, at Cafe de Flore, where I discuss modern events as I imagine the Lost Generation probably discussed them, perhaps only tangentially, in the 1920s and 30s.)

I did a bit of painting, though; the Cornish life/portrait of a young woman one is still on the easel, waiting for hair. The portrait of Alex is also still on the easel, also waiting for hair. When I've covered their heads, they'll be done. I went a bit farther yesterday, and today pretty much solved the technical dilemmas.

But why, except for Monday which wasn't really the reason, have I hung back?

I refuse to go into the possible neurotic reasons.

However, I can say with perfect certainty that I held back because I was following a dictum offered by another artist. Something about the colours that SHOULD be used for hair, not including Naples Yellow.

In hindsight, after almost wrecking the young woman's portrait and having to scrape and engage in other nasty processes, I can say with stunning conviction: BULLSHIT.

If I'm painting a blonde, Naples Yellow is just damn well going to come into play. End of story.

From this, I developed Rule Number One for painters:  

Never accept another artist's claims to superior knowledge concerning colour mixing and usage.

Is Naples Yellow simply a shortcut to the results of a cunning mixture of Cadmium Yellow, Titanium White, a bit of a red (rose madder or alizarin crimson?) and a touch of green or a greening brown? Probably. I took a colour class once at the New York School of Interior Design (a deflection from my real intent to study at the Art Students League of New York, rapidly remedied as I had no use for cackling co-eds all atwitter over the shape of a Queen Anne chair leg and/or their boyfriend's hairy one). However, at NYSID, with only six poster paint colours, we were taught to mix any shade in the universe. Really. I found it fairly easy and aced the course.

But if I'm not just making little sketches to prove to an interior designer that I could mix, for example, any shade of teal, why would I want to mess with the mere six or eight tubes of oil paints recommended by that artist for portraits, when I could cut to the chase so easily? I wouldn't. I want to paint, not be a pigment chemist.

Oh, well. Just another stile to cross on the path to becoming, as the New Agers would say, self-actualized as a painter. But it has been so vexing, it's a stile I'm not likely to want to cross again. I'm printing out Rule Number One, and hanging it at the top of both easels.