1st of September, back up day. Then working on the new public art project. The brief is for 3 designs, which I like, as this is a good way of wroking, each will compete with each other. I started by printing out some rectangles of the right proportions and have made some idea sketches.
In other news, I discover that Michael Harding has removed the zinc white from his paint formula, making it titanium only. I discovered that I had accidentally bought one of the pure titanium tubes without knowing, wasting £30. I will buy Blockx white from now on, which is almost always better paint (I only say almost because I've not actually tried their titanium-zinc white yet). Blockx are a lot more expensive (expense is generally a good thing), and the tubes are poor and prone to crack at the seams. I hardly buy any Harding paint now. He loves yellow because all of his paint goes yellow, he even makes two 'whites' which are deliberately yellowy! The oil that leaks from his paint is as a dark brown as ear wax or anything from a smoking pipe, but the paint flows well enough, and the colours are generally brighter than the lower, stickier and waxy 25% of a Winsor and Netwon tube. The tops of Winsor and Netwon's colours tend to be brilliant. Of all of the ultramarine blues I tested, including Blockx and Old Holland, Winsor and Netwon's stood out as the best; quite unexpectedly. I've not bought Harding's ultramarine, of course, as he grinds it in linseed.
