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DESIGNERS’ OWN HOMES: JIM JENNINGS | 2009
Emphasizing Form and Light in His Elegantly Spare Palm Springs Retreat
The Southern California desert has a sensuality all its own—hot, dry air, strong winds, flash floods, chaparral, fan palms, skies clarified to a molten blue. A house in Palm Springs designed by the San Francisco-based architect Jim Jennings, for himself and his partner, writer Therese Bissell, draws on the vernacular of this landscape in elemental ways. On a plot of virgin land near the San Jacinto Mountains, Jennings built a wall and created a world inside—at once a refuge from the desert and an homage to its spaces and extraordinary light.
He and Bissell bought the land in 1999. “Once we had the property, I couldn’t resist designing a house,” reports Jennings. He had not built a residence for himself from the ground up before. Still, he took his time: “When you’re your own client, you can be as demanding as you like. And you know how difficult everything will be, especially when it appears simple.” The house was completed a decade later, and the couple started spending time at their desert retreat in January 2009.
An eight-foot wall of painted concrete block defines the Jennings house, enclosing 3,000 square feet of space. A flat roof seems to float above the building, just as the entire structure seems to float in the landscape. There is no driveway. You approach across white desert sand, past creosote bush, up to the carport in the north side of the white wall. On a sunny day (Palm Springs normally has more than 350 sunny days a year), light filtering through the carport’s painted-steel trellis roof draws vertical stripes on the horizontal blocks. Then you step from the carport through a clear-anodized-aluminum pivot door into the entrance courtyard and pure astonishment.
From the courtyard you see all the way through the living room to a second courtyard with a lap pool at the far (west) end and a mountain beyond. The east and west walls of the living room are sliding glass doors; on each side, three five-foot-wide panels telescope on separate tracks into a wall recess. (The doors stay entirely open most of the time.) With the privacy afforded by the enclosing wall, Jennings gives new definition to indoor-outdoor living, inverting the idea of 1950s post-and-beam Palm Springs architecture, which was about openness as an extension of the surrounding landscape. The Jennings house is all about enclosure, with the openness inside.
The interior section of the residence occupies just 750 square feet: living room and bedroom separated by an in-line kitchen and a luxuriant bath. “We simply wanted a space for the two of us,” says Bissell. Another 15-foot set of glass doors opens from the bedroom to the 1,730-square-foot courtyard.
The inspired steel-deck roof, supported by steel beams, sits above clerestories facing north and south that effectively float the roof above the house. Eight-foot overhangs cantilevered to the east and west provide essential shade. From the living room sofa, the owners can see the neighboring mountain both through the clerestory to the south and above the wall of the pool courtyard to the west. “The emptiness of the pool courtyard intensifies one’s sense of the mountain,” Jennings notes. “It is a void that works in counterpoint with the solid.”
The décor complements the spare aesthetic of the architecture. The couple bought almost nothing new, using pieces they already owned—architectural drawings, a Parentesi lamp, a Charles Eames splint—and others that Jennings designed: the gel-coated-fiberglass table and benches in the entrance/dining courtyard; a powdercoated-aluminum panel bed set on a wood base. In searching for a chair that would work indoors and out, Bissell looked at hundreds of designs—she wanted “no surface that can’t be sat on in a wet bathing suit”—until she found Cappellini’s Spring plastic chair by Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec: It even has a drain hole of sorts.
Hailing from a family of architects, Bissell has design in her blood. “Architecturally,” says Jennings, “she was my muse. For every other aspect of this project she was my collaborator.” Bissell, for her part, says, “Jim and I think alike. I was very interested in what he was doing. But if he had said, ‘I’m going to build a house for us, and we’ll fly down there in about three years,’ that would have been fine, too.”
Just to clarify - these are superballs, each one is about 1" big.
I took this picture for a weekly assignment for the group "Take a class with Dave & Dave".
Assignment 1. Frozen Time. We’ve played with motion blur, but there is another very powerful way to convey energy, freeze motion in a way that can’t possibly just exist. High shutter speed in plenty of light will give a nice sharp image no matter how fast your subject may be moving. Images will be judged on sharpness. Tag with cwd131
Some of you may have noticed that, unfortunately, owing to the fact that a certain person who sells truck photos on eBay commercially has been lifting my images from this album and selling them I have had to remove 2300 photos that didn't have a watermark. I have now run around 1700 through Lightroom and added a watermark with the intention of bulk uploading them again. Rather than watermark the existing (hidden) files in Flickr one at a time it will be easier to do it this way. I definitely won’t be adding individual tags with the make and model of each vehicle I will just add generic transport tags. Each photo is named after the vehicle and reg in any case. For anyone new to these images there is a chapter and verse explanation below. It is staggering how many times I get asked questions that a quick scan would answer or just as likely I can’t possibly answer – I didn’t take them, but, just to clarify-I do own the copyright- and I do pursue copyright theft.
This is a collection of scanned prints from a collection of photographs taken by the late Jim Taylor A number of years ago I was offered a large number of photographs taken by Jim Taylor, a transport photographer based in Huddersfield. The collection, 30,000 prints, 20,000 negatives – and copyright! – had been offered to me and one of the national transport magazines previously by a friend of Jim's, on behalf of Jim's wife. I initially turned them down, already having over 30,000 of my own prints filed away and taking space up. Several months later the prints were still for sale – at what was, apparently, the going rate. It was a lot of money and I deliberated for quite a while before deciding to buy them. I did however buy them directly from Jim’s wife and she delivered them personally – just to quash the occasional rumour from people who can’t mind their own business. Although some prints were sold elsewhere, particularly the popular big fleet stuff, I should have the negatives, unfortunately they came to me in a random mix, 1200 to a box, without any sort of indexing and as such it would be impossible to match negatives to prints, or, to even find a print of any particular vehicle. I have only ever looked at a handful myself unless I am scanning them. The prints are generally in excellent condition and I initially stored them in a bedroom without ever looking at any of them. In 2006 I built an extension and they had to be well protected from dust and moved a few times. Ultimately my former 6x7 box room office has become their (and my own work’s) permanent home.
I hope to avoid posting images that Jim had not taken his self, however should I inadvertently infringe another photographers copyright, please inform me by email and I will resolve the issue immediately. There are copyright issues with some of the photographs that were sold to me. A Flickr member from Scotland drew my attention to some of his own work amongst the first uploads of Jim’s work. I had a quick look through some of the 30 boxes of prints and decided that for the time being the safest thing for me to do was withdraw the majority of the earlier uploaded scans and deal with the problem – which I did. whilst the vast majority of the prints are Jims, there is a problem defining copyright of some of them, this is something that the seller did not make clear at the time. I am reasonably confident that I have since been successful in identifying Jims own work. His early work consists of many thousands of lustre 6x4 prints which are difficult to scan well, later work is almost entirely 7x5 glossy, much easier to scan. Not all of the prints are pin sharp but I can generally print successfully to A4 from a scan.
You may notice photographs being duplicated in this Album, unfortunately there are multiple copies of many prints (for swapping) and as I have to have a system of archiving and backing up I can only guess - using memory - if I have scanned a print before. The bigger fleets have so many similar vehicles and registration numbers that it is impossible to get it right all of the time. It is easier to scan and process a print than check my files - on three different PC’s - for duplicates. There has not been, nor will there ever be, any intention to knowingly breach anyone else's copyright. I have presented the Jim Taylor collection as exactly that-The Jim Taylor Collection- his work not mine, my own work is quite obviously mine.
Unfortunately, many truck spotters have swapped and traded their work without copyright marking it as theirs. These people never anticipated the ease with which images would be shared online in the future. I would guess that having swapped and traded photos for many years that it is almost impossible to control their future use. Anyone wanting to control the future use of their work would have been well advised to copyright mark their work (as many did) and would be well advised not to post them on photo sharing sites without a watermark as the whole point of these sites is to share the image, it is very easy for those that wish, to lift any image, despite security settings, indeed, Flickr itself, warns you that this is the case. It was this abuse and theft of my material that led me to watermark all of my later uploads. I may yet withdraw non-watermarked photos, I haven’t decided yet. (I did in the end)
To anyone reading the above it will be quite obvious that I can’t provide information regarding specific photos or potential future uploads – I didn’t take them! There are many vehicles that were well known to me as Jim only lived down the road from me (although I didn’t know him), however scanning, titling, tagging and uploading is laborious and time consuming enough, I do however provide a fair amount of information with my own transport (and other) photos. I am aware that there are requests from other Flickr users that are unanswered, I stumble across them months or years after they were posted, this isn’t deliberate. Some weekends one or two “enthusiasts” can add many hundreds of photos as favourites, this pushes requests that are in the comments section ten or twenty pages out of sight and I miss them. I also have notifications switched off, I receive around 50 emails a day through work and I don’t want even more from Flickr. Other requests, like many other things, I just plain forget – no excuses! Uploads of Jim’s photos will be infrequent as it is a boring pastime and I would much rather work on my own output.
(NB : the next photo in colours raised some controversies and I just clarified my point with a new comment there. I'll change the text later on, having to go now).
You met this girl already once (more details about her here, with her mother). As soon as she saw my camera, she started posing this way (with the promise that I would send the photos to her provincial address), I had just to isolate her from her group of friends and place her in front of the beautiful nearby wall.
As if she had done this all her life and was born for this job, she switched of position comfortably and regularly, constantly reinventing herself - I guess that she had played this sort of game very often in front of a large mirror or with friends ! Unfortunately the night was falling and not much light left.
Some of you may have noticed that, unfortunately, owing to the fact that a certain person who sells truck photos on eBay commercially has been lifting my images from this album and selling them I have had to remove 2300 photos that didn't have a watermark. I have now run around 1700 through Lightroom and added a watermark with the intention of bulk uploading them again. Rather than watermark the existing (hidden) files in Flickr one at a time it will be easier to do it this way. I definitely won’t be adding individual tags with the make and model of each vehicle I will just add generic transport tags. Each photo is named after the vehicle and reg in any case. For anyone new to these images there is a chapter and verse explanation below. It is staggering how many times I get asked questions that a quick scan would answer or just as likely I can’t possibly answer – I didn’t take them, but, just to clarify-I do own the copyright- and I do pursue copyright theft.
This is a collection of scanned prints from a collection of photographs taken by the late Jim Taylor A number of years ago I was offered a large number of photographs taken by Jim Taylor, a transport photographer based in Huddersfield. The collection, 30,000 prints, 20,000 negatives – and copyright! – had been offered to me and one of the national transport magazines previously by a friend of Jim's, on behalf of Jim's wife. I initially turned them down, already having over 30,000 of my own prints filed away and taking space up. Several months later the prints were still for sale – at what was, apparently, the going rate. It was a lot of money and I deliberated for quite a while before deciding to buy them. I did however buy them directly from Jim’s wife and she delivered them personally – just to quash the occasional rumour from people who can’t mind their own business. Although some prints were sold elsewhere, particularly the popular big fleet stuff, I should have the negatives, unfortunately they came to me in a random mix, 1200 to a box, without any sort of indexing and as such it would be impossible to match negatives to prints, or, to even find a print of any particular vehicle. I have only ever looked at a handful myself unless I am scanning them. The prints are generally in excellent condition and I initially stored them in a bedroom without ever looking at any of them. In 2006 I built an extension and they had to be well protected from dust and moved a few times. Ultimately my former 6x7 box room office has become their (and my own work’s) permanent home.
I hope to avoid posting images that Jim had not taken his self, however should I inadvertently infringe another photographers copyright, please inform me by email and I will resolve the issue immediately. There are copyright issues with some of the photographs that were sold to me. A Flickr member from Scotland drew my attention to some of his own work amongst the first uploads of Jim’s work. I had a quick look through some of the 30 boxes of prints and decided that for the time being the safest thing for me to do was withdraw the majority of the earlier uploaded scans and deal with the problem – which I did. whilst the vast majority of the prints are Jims, there is a problem defining copyright of some of them, this is something that the seller did not make clear at the time. I am reasonably confident that I have since been successful in identifying Jims own work. His early work consists of many thousands of lustre 6x4 prints which are difficult to scan well, later work is almost entirely 7x5 glossy, much easier to scan. Not all of the prints are pin sharp but I can generally print successfully to A4 from a scan.
You may notice photographs being duplicated in this Album, unfortunately there are multiple copies of many prints (for swapping) and as I have to have a system of archiving and backing up I can only guess - using memory - if I have scanned a print before. The bigger fleets have so many similar vehicles and registration numbers that it is impossible to get it right all of the time. It is easier to scan and process a print than check my files - on three different PC’s - for duplicates. There has not been, nor will there ever be, any intention to knowingly breach anyone else's copyright. I have presented the Jim Taylor collection as exactly that-The Jim Taylor Collection- his work not mine, my own work is quite obviously mine.
Unfortunately, many truck spotters have swapped and traded their work without copyright marking it as theirs. These people never anticipated the ease with which images would be shared online in the future. I would guess that having swapped and traded photos for many years that it is almost impossible to control their future use. Anyone wanting to control the future use of their work would have been well advised to copyright mark their work (as many did) and would be well advised not to post them on photo sharing sites without a watermark as the whole point of these sites is to share the image, it is very easy for those that wish, to lift any image, despite security settings, indeed, Flickr itself, warns you that this is the case. It was this abuse and theft of my material that led me to watermark all of my later uploads. I may yet withdraw non-watermarked photos, I haven’t decided yet. (I did in the end)
To anyone reading the above it will be quite obvious that I can’t provide information regarding specific photos or potential future uploads – I didn’t take them! There are many vehicles that were well known to me as Jim only lived down the road from me (although I didn’t know him), however scanning, titling, tagging and uploading is laborious and time consuming enough, I do however provide a fair amount of information with my own transport (and other) photos. I am aware that there are requests from other Flickr users that are unanswered, I stumble across them months or years after they were posted, this isn’t deliberate. Some weekends one or two “enthusiasts” can add many hundreds of photos as favourites, this pushes requests that are in the comments section ten or twenty pages out of sight and I miss them. I also have notifications switched off, I receive around 50 emails a day through work and I don’t want even more from Flickr. Other requests, like many other things, I just plain forget – no excuses! Uploads of Jim’s photos will be infrequent as it is a boring pastime and I would much rather work on my own output.
A long wonderful day of meetings. A quick break in between meetings for cookie and coffee (which I probably should cut down on, just sayin) Love it when Jon makes my coffee in a red cup perfect for photos, he had no idea!
my other option from this day. i also figured i should translate the a. eglītis poem i added that day, which might also make the picture make more sense. though there's no way i can do it any justice without a lot of work...funny how two lines can contain so much information and be so hard to convey in another language.
To tautu nesalauzt, tā nezudīs nekur,
ko Jāņu vainags zaļš un asins kopā tur.
- A. Eglītis
approximately:
"You will not break this people, they'll never fade away,
who by solstice wreath and blood are bound eternally."
i feel like teh fail.
Just to clarify again - he is outside & really very small, thumbnail size. Totally harmless, just helps with the bugs.
***IMPORTANT NOTICE***
Just to clarify, the Adidas illustrations that I have produced are personal Illustrations created out of my love and respect of the brand. Adidas has in no way any shape or form endorsed these images.
Numerous design blogs have showcased these images and have assumed these are official images for the "Celebrate Originality" campaign. Although this is flattering, It is not true and I do not wished to be sued!!
Although if someone from Adidas is looking...I am available!
DESIGNERS’ OWN HOMES: JIM JENNINGS | 2009
Emphasizing Form and Light in His Elegantly Spare Palm Springs Retreat
The Southern California desert has a sensuality all its own—hot, dry air, strong winds, flash floods, chaparral, fan palms, skies clarified to a molten blue. A house in Palm Springs designed by the San Francisco-based architect Jim Jennings, for himself and his partner, writer Therese Bissell, draws on the vernacular of this landscape in elemental ways. On a plot of virgin land near the San Jacinto Mountains, Jennings built a wall and created a world inside—at once a refuge from the desert and an homage to its spaces and extraordinary light.
He and Bissell bought the land in 1999. “Once we had the property, I couldn’t resist designing a house,” reports Jennings. He had not built a residence for himself from the ground up before. Still, he took his time: “When you’re your own client, you can be as demanding as you like. And you know how difficult everything will be, especially when it appears simple.” The house was completed a decade later, and the couple started spending time at their desert retreat in January 2009.
An eight-foot wall of painted concrete block defines the Jennings house, enclosing 3,000 square feet of space. A flat roof seems to float above the building, just as the entire structure seems to float in the landscape. There is no driveway. You approach across white desert sand, past creosote bush, up to the carport in the north side of the white wall. On a sunny day (Palm Springs normally has more than 350 sunny days a year), light filtering through the carport’s painted-steel trellis roof draws vertical stripes on the horizontal blocks. Then you step from the carport through a clear-anodized-aluminum pivot door into the entrance courtyard and pure astonishment.
From the courtyard you see all the way through the living room to a second courtyard with a lap pool at the far (west) end and a mountain beyond. The east and west walls of the living room are sliding glass doors; on each side, three five-foot-wide panels telescope on separate tracks into a wall recess. (The doors stay entirely open most of the time.) With the privacy afforded by the enclosing wall, Jennings gives new definition to indoor-outdoor living, inverting the idea of 1950s post-and-beam Palm Springs architecture, which was about openness as an extension of the surrounding landscape. The Jennings house is all about enclosure, with the openness inside.
The interior section of the residence occupies just 750 square feet: living room and bedroom separated by an in-line kitchen and a luxuriant bath. “We simply wanted a space for the two of us,” says Bissell. Another 15-foot set of glass doors opens from the bedroom to the 1,730-square-foot courtyard.
The inspired steel-deck roof, supported by steel beams, sits above clerestories facing north and south that effectively float the roof above the house. Eight-foot overhangs cantilevered to the east and west provide essential shade. From the living room sofa, the owners can see the neighboring mountain both through the clerestory to the south and above the wall of the pool courtyard to the west. “The emptiness of the pool courtyard intensifies one’s sense of the mountain,” Jennings notes. “It is a void that works in counterpoint with the solid.”
The décor complements the spare aesthetic of the architecture. The couple bought almost nothing new, using pieces they already owned—architectural drawings, a Parentesi lamp, a Charles Eames splint—and others that Jennings designed: the gel-coated-fiberglass table and benches in the entrance/dining courtyard; a powdercoated-aluminum panel bed set on a wood base. In searching for a chair that would work indoors and out, Bissell looked at hundreds of designs—she wanted “no surface that can’t be sat on in a wet bathing suit”—until she found Cappellini’s Spring plastic chair by Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec: It even has a drain hole of sorts.
Hailing from a family of architects, Bissell has design in her blood. “Architecturally,” says Jennings, “she was my muse. For every other aspect of this project she was my collaborator.” Bissell, for her part, says, “Jim and I think alike. I was very interested in what he was doing. But if he had said, ‘I’m going to build a house for us, and we’ll fly down there in about three years,’ that would have been fine, too.”
Done by using PSP's Clarity multiple times (including some masks) and a tiny bit of Lightroom Clarify at the end. Below is the original and a version done by Topaz Adjust that I liked. The colors are great, but I prefer the PSP version. I think it brings out the grittiness best and I really like those clouds. Which version do you like?
DESIGNERS’ OWN HOMES: JIM JENNINGS | 2009
Emphasizing Form and Light in His Elegantly Spare Palm Springs Retreat
The Southern California desert has a sensuality all its own—hot, dry air, strong winds, flash floods, chaparral, fan palms, skies clarified to a molten blue. A house in Palm Springs designed by the San Francisco-based architect Jim Jennings, for himself and his partner, writer Therese Bissell, draws on the vernacular of this landscape in elemental ways. On a plot of virgin land near the San Jacinto Mountains, Jennings built a wall and created a world inside—at once a refuge from the desert and an homage to its spaces and extraordinary light.
He and Bissell bought the land in 1999. “Once we had the property, I couldn’t resist designing a house,” reports Jennings. He had not built a residence for himself from the ground up before. Still, he took his time: “When you’re your own client, you can be as demanding as you like. And you know how difficult everything will be, especially when it appears simple.” The house was completed a decade later, and the couple started spending time at their desert retreat in January 2009.
An eight-foot wall of painted concrete block defines the Jennings house, enclosing 3,000 square feet of space. A flat roof seems to float above the building, just as the entire structure seems to float in the landscape. There is no driveway. You approach across white desert sand, past creosote bush, up to the carport in the north side of the white wall. On a sunny day (Palm Springs normally has more than 350 sunny days a year), light filtering through the carport’s painted-steel trellis roof draws vertical stripes on the horizontal blocks. Then you step from the carport through a clear-anodized-aluminum pivot door into the entrance courtyard and pure astonishment.
From the courtyard you see all the way through the living room to a second courtyard with a lap pool at the far (west) end and a mountain beyond. The east and west walls of the living room are sliding glass doors; on each side, three five-foot-wide panels telescope on separate tracks into a wall recess. (The doors stay entirely open most of the time.) With the privacy afforded by the enclosing wall, Jennings gives new definition to indoor-outdoor living, inverting the idea of 1950s post-and-beam Palm Springs architecture, which was about openness as an extension of the surrounding landscape. The Jennings house is all about enclosure, with the openness inside.
The interior section of the residence occupies just 750 square feet: living room and bedroom separated by an in-line kitchen and a luxuriant bath. “We simply wanted a space for the two of us,” says Bissell. Another 15-foot set of glass doors opens from the bedroom to the 1,730-square-foot courtyard.
The inspired steel-deck roof, supported by steel beams, sits above clerestories facing north and south that effectively float the roof above the house. Eight-foot overhangs cantilevered to the east and west provide essential shade. From the living room sofa, the owners can see the neighboring mountain both through the clerestory to the south and above the wall of the pool courtyard to the west. “The emptiness of the pool courtyard intensifies one’s sense of the mountain,” Jennings notes. “It is a void that works in counterpoint with the solid.”
The décor complements the spare aesthetic of the architecture. The couple bought almost nothing new, using pieces they already owned—architectural drawings, a Parentesi lamp, a Charles Eames splint—and others that Jennings designed: the gel-coated-fiberglass table and benches in the entrance/dining courtyard; a powdercoated-aluminum panel bed set on a wood base. In searching for a chair that would work indoors and out, Bissell looked at hundreds of designs—she wanted “no surface that can’t be sat on in a wet bathing suit”—until she found Cappellini’s Spring plastic chair by Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec: It even has a drain hole of sorts.
Hailing from a family of architects, Bissell has design in her blood. “Architecturally,” says Jennings, “she was my muse. For every other aspect of this project she was my collaborator.” Bissell, for her part, says, “Jim and I think alike. I was very interested in what he was doing. But if he had said, ‘I’m going to build a house for us, and we’ll fly down there in about three years,’ that would have been fine, too.”
Architects; Stirling & Wilford.
The following abstract taken from an article by Hugh Pearman in Times of 14th April 1991 (would help to clarify some historical references).
"The fact that the site is the quintessence of London was, of course, also a major plank of the conservation case against his scheme. Why should a fine group of listed buildings have to go at all? But Stirling's contribution, unique though it is, is positively reticent compared with Palumbo's previous dream for the site, a steel and glass tower dominating a new plaza, designed in 1967 by the modernist guru Ludwig Mies van der Rohe shortly before his death, and finally vetoed in 1985 after a public inquiry. Palumbo promptly appointed Stirling and abandoned the tower/plaza idea completely.
But Stirling has not forgotten it. He flicks through photos of his neighbouring buildings, pointing out how the compositions of Lutyens at the 1924 Midland Bank, or Dance at the 1734 Mansion House, can be explained as a series of separately readable pieces - base, pediment, rooftop pavilions and so on - and that his own building will be composed of individual pieces to achieve the same effect of human scale. "All of which contrasts with this," he says, pulling out a photo of the Mies tower with its sheer, unbroken facade. "I supported it, and I still would. I would have liked to see a Mies building in the City, but it's only one aspect of modern architecture."
KOM League
Flash Report for Week of
October 16—22, 2016
On October 13 a notice was sent to the “purported” reading audience that the Flash Report would be carried on the Flickr site www.flickr.com/photos/60428361@N07 as each segment was written. Wow!!! What a rousing success that turned out to be. There were three people who liked it and one person opted to be taken off the report distribution list, forever. A few more weeks like that and I’ll be getting as many e-mails as some of the third party candidates will get votes. I’ll be on the same popularity level with Johnson and Stein.
If you ignored my first missive of the week, which obviously most recipients did, I need to clarify how this report was constructed. The sequence of the writing was the bulk of the report and then updates as the week progressed. As this full report reveals, there weren’t many updates
Second update of Flash Report for week of October 16
October 14. Not much has happened on the KOM front since the first batch of information was posted on the Flickr site earlier in the week. It was mentioned on Oct. 13 that the family was celebrating our daughter’s birthday. At lunch we tipped the waitress off to the fact that it was a birthday gathering. When the waitress brought the special birthday treat I asked if she could guess under what presidential term my daughter was born. In about this order she replied “Clinton, Bush, Carter, Ford, Johnson and Nixon.” To each I kept telling her to go further back. Instead of saying Eisenhower, Truman or even Roosevelt she replied “Rutherford B. Hays.”
I had to remind the waitress that not even my daughter’s grandmother was alive in the mid-1800’s. I was struck by the lack of the knowledge of history the waitress possessed but giving her credit she did remember the former Ohio senator and president of these here United States from 1877-1881.
Back home I figured some work needed to be done on the topic of the KOM league, for this report, and I took another look at the two-week career of Don Fitzgerald. I recall that he was one of nine young men who allegedly grabbed a trappers mitt and played first base for that club in 1950. The fellows playing the most games at that position were basically in this order; Gary Plant Hildebrand, Mike Stelma, Charles Robert Mann, Don Fitzgerald, John Eldon Yung, Danny Kantor, Vernon Cray and Bob Jenkins. As yet, I haven’t figured out who that 9th guy was.
And that brings to mind another vivid memory. One night I was the visiting team batboy for that team. Jim Oglesby was a former big leaguer and managed the club. He was sitting in the dugout during batting practice and one of the aforementioned, first basemen, came back to the dugout after taking his batting practice swings. He was felling his oats and boasted to Oglesby, pointing to the right field scoreboard, that he was going to hit a home run over it during the game. Although I’ve related this story a number of times it is relevant in this election cycle. Oglesby turned to his young first baseman and said “Son, you have as much chance of hitting a ball over that scoreboard as Abraham Lincoln has of rising from the dead, running for the presidency and winning.”
First update of Flash Report for week of October 16,
October 13: It was sort of inferred that I would update each Flash Report frequently. Well on this date in, 1961, I became a father for the first time. We had a daughter we named Cynthia Lynn over my wife’s objections. She wanted to name her Johnnie Gale so that she would have the same first name and middle initial of her father. Obviously, I won that battle. Today the would have been “Johnnie Gale” is a grandmother and my wife and I are taking her to lunch.
By this time, in 1961, the World Series had been over for four days and the New York Yankees dispatched the Cincinnati Reds in five games. Things some times change for the better and other times, they just change. Fifty-five years ago today I was finishing up college, pastoring a church and listening to the political ads on the radio extoling the virtues and shortcomings of the candidates—Nixon and Kenndy. I didn’t watch the World Series or the political debates that year for I didn’t have a television set capable of picking up either event. Gee, if only that was true in 2016.
I didn’t have much time to worry about baseball or politics back in 1961 for with having a new child, going to college and pastoring a church, I was doing a remote noon hour radio show out of Chandler, Oklahoma for radio station KUSH in Cushing, Oklahoma on a part-time basis.
As I said, some things change for the better and others just change. Eisehnower was replaced by Kennedy and 23.9 cents a gallon of gasoline has been replaced by prices no one in 1961 would have thought anyone would fork over for such a commodity. But, one thing stays constant. Back in the 1961 campaign there was speculation as to whether a Catholic could be president and the current political climate is filled with questioning the judgment of either Catholics or Protestants to to vote for either presidential candidate, neither of which appear to be tied to the core principles of either of those religious systems.
Obituary for Don Fitzgerald
Donald Wayne Fitzgerald, 85, passed away peacefully Sunday, June 28th 2015 in his home surrounded by his family. Services were held at St. Ann's Catholic Church in Coppell, TX. on Thursday July 2nd, 2015. Graveside services will be held at Columbus City Cemetery in Columbus Kansas at a future date.
Donald "Wayne" was born on September 11th 1929 in Sherwin Junction, Kansas. He graduated from Cherokee County Community High School in Columbus Kansas and furthered his education at Kansas State University. There he received an undergraduate degree in Agriculture and his masters and doctorate in Veterinary Medicine. He served two years in the Air Force during the Korean War. Returning to Columbus Kansas, he married Joan Francis Saporito. He was offered a job with a veterinarian in Albuquerque, New Mexico where he took up residence and had a successful practice for approximately 35 years. He enjoyed playing baseball, football, golf and spending time with family and friends. He delighted in taking care of his garden and listening to his favorite big band tunes. Wayne resided in Albuquerque with his family until his wife passed away in 2009. He then moved to Highland Village, TX. with his son Bryan and daughter-in-law Cindy until his passing.
Donald Wayne Fitzgerald was preceded in death by his wife Joan, his son Steven Wayne Fitzgerald, and brother Charles Junior Fitzgerald. He is survived by his son Bryan Wayne Fitzgerald and wife Cindy, of Highland Village, Texas; daughter-in-law Mimi Fitzgerald from Chicago, IL; his brother Lyndell Worth Fitzgerald and wife Rosita in Reston, VA; and seven grandchildren.
All who wish may make a donation to American Parkinson Disease Association or to Home At Last Animal Sanctuary, P.O. Box 271 Highland Park, Il. 60035-0271 in his honor.
Published in Albuquerque Journal on Aug. 2, 2015.
Ed comment:
Donald Wayne Fitzgerald was a right handed hitting and throwing first baseman for the 1950 Miami, Oklahoma Eagles. He replaced Eldon Yung at that position when Pug Griffin cast away the original roster members of that team in an austerity move. Thus, Griffin brought in a number of players from the Tri-State mining area of Missouri, Kansas and Oklahoma. That group included:
George Beaver—Granby, Mo.
Bill Bunch—Tulsa, Okla.
Max Burgett—Rolla, Mo.
Max Buzzard—Seneca, Mo.
George Garrison—Joplin, Mo.
Bennie Maxwell Lee—Treece, Kans.
Billy Joe Pace—Treece, Kans. Later coached at Vanderbilt Univ.
Charles Mann—Moffitt, Okla.
Bill Sartain—Although born in Chicago he was living in Columbus, Kans. at the time,
Jack Hartley Williams—Weaubleau, Mo.
Willard Winslow—Parsons, Kans.
Carl Zellar—Alderson, Okla.
Fitzgerald played Cardinal Junior league baseball against Mickey Mantle, et. al. back in 1947-48 and Southeast Kansas Ban Johnson league ball in 1949. He played for nearby Columbus, Kansas. His hometown, when he was born, was Sherwin Junction but the little mining town, founded February 10, 1887, was truncated to be simply, Sherwin, on September 1, 1950.
I would suspect that anyone who played in the KOM league would look at you askance if told they were either in Sherwin or Sherwin Junction but most everyone was. That town is located on U. S. 160 and every team passed through there at one time or another going to and from league games. Look it up on your Charles Atlas road map if curious. Sherwin is west of Carthage, southwest of Pittsburg, south of Iola and Chanute, northwest of Miami, east of Independence and northeast of Ponca City, Bartlesville and Blackwell in Oklahoma. www.mapquest.com/us/ks/sherwin-282896244
How most former KOM league members would get the place fixed in their minds that it was located just a few miles south of the world’s largest coal shovel at the time, Big Brutus.
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Reading opportunities for insomniacs
Eleven years ago I had just finished writing Mickey Mantle-Before the Glory. The draft had been sent “way far off” to have the appendix built by a real pro. The real pro wrote back about bases such as first, second and third be referred to as being of “dubious composition.” The lady writing the appendix had some other comments and this was Flash Report containing her thoughts. If everyone liked that book as much as she did it might have sold a lot more copies. Of course, she may have had affection for it since she made more money for her part than I did in writing it.
classdkomleague.blogspot.com/2005/03/bases-of-dubious-com...
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Overwhelming response to last week’s request
Last time we met I requested input from readers. The input being solicited was questions that I could use in addressing a service club that is facing me on December 1, 2016. I can talk about a lot of subjects for hours on end and not enlighten anyone. In an attempt to make the 30 minute speaking time more endurable I wanted questions from the readership they might ask if they were forced to sit through an early morning speech.
As I surmised I got precious little input with my request but I’ll take what I can extract from the readership. Here are the only questions received and they came from one person. Thus, he is the winner of the large cash prize for his effort.
From Jerry Hogan
If I understood correctly, you're going to give a talk about the KOM soon and were asking for some possible questions on topics that your audience might want to hear about? If I'm on the right track, I would want to ask this fellow who's been working on the KOM for about a zillion years one or more of the following questions:
1) Who are the best known KOMers to make the Major Leagues?
2) Did anyone ever win the triple crown in the KOM?
3) What pitcher had the most wins in a season?
4) How long did Adolph "Buzz" Arlett (sp? was it Arlitt?) play/manage in the KOM? [Had to ask that for my ASL/A-ML fan base.😊] (Ed note: Those acronyms stand for Arkansas State and Arkansas Missouri leagues, the forerunners to the KOM league. Buzz did spell his last name “Arlitt.”)
5) Did one team or another dominate the league overall or during a particular time span?
Those are just some of the questions that a young cub reporter might ask of the veteran KOM scribe!—Jerry Hogan, Fayetteville, Ark.
Ed reply:
Good questions, all. Never gave any thought to triple crown winners since that was never mentioned around Class D circles. But, to answer your question, no one accomplished that feat.
Joe Vilk won the most games, for Iola, in 1952 for Woody Fair, his manager, knew how to manipulate the situation. He was trying to keep Jim Owens of Miami from winning it, and did so by two wins. Owens was by far the more dominating pitcher of the two. Owens made it to the big leagues.
The most famous KOM leaguers to make it to the majors were: Jake Thies, Harry Bright, Bob Mahoney, Charlie Locke, Jim Pisoni, Bill Upton, R, T. Upright, Jim Finigan, Bill Pierro, Al Pilarcik, Ed Wolfe, Ronnie Kline, Joe Stanka, Christopher Kitsos, John Gabler, Don Taussig, Seth Morehead, Bill Upton, Cloyd Boyer, Lou Skizas, Bob Wiesler, Steve Kraly, Bob Speake, and Jim Baxes. There are a few more but those are the big names, right? (Ed note: Notice how I cleverly left out some obvious names—like Mantle and Virdon.
Buzz Arlitt played for 20 years in the KOM league but he is only credited with being there in 1946. He couldn't wait to get out of the Cardinal organization even though they offered him the Carthage job in 1947. (Ed note: Notice how I exaggerated. The KOM only operated for seven seasons.)
The most dominant teams were Chanute and Miami in 1946 and 1947 when they were affiliated with the Topeka Owls. After the Independence Yankees and Ponca City Dodgers joined the league, in 1947, they generally ruled the roost for the rest of the history of the league.
Again, thanks for sending along those questions. The answers to all your suggestions are in the big green book but I don't have any left to give to the people at the upcoming Rotary meeting. The last time I was there I gave everyone a Mantle book. Bad move. One guy went out and told scores of people I was giving away Mantle books and I had free loaders calling me incessantly. I put a quick end to that.
Hogan’s reply:
I knew you'd know those answers immediately! Good luck with your talk - if I read you right.
Ed reply:
More...Joe Vilk won 26 games in a 126 game season for Iola in 1952.. At today's major league schedule had he put up those kind of numbers he would have won 36 games.
The closest anyone ever came to winning the triple crown was Bill Stumborg of the 1948 Pittsburg, Kansas Browns. He tied with Joe Beran for home runs with 13, had a league leading 78 RBIs and hit .317 to .327 for Bill Fox of Chanute. That was the year of the dead Worth baseball where all pitchers had ERA's at 3.00 or below and all but a dozen players hit below .300
Hogan’s reply:
Cool numbers. Bill Stumborg had a mighty good 1948 season! And Vilk's 26 wins is really impressive.
Ed reply:
Stumborg was a bull of a guy who had played pro ball prior to WW II. He was an Illinois native who stayed in Kansas and worked for the State at the same time I did. Problem was, I didn't know it at the time. He died in 1978 about the time I was packing up to leave the Sunflower State.
Vilk was a 5' 10", 150 pounder from Footedale, Pennsylvania and died in the Cleveland Clinic at age 48. The guy with 24 wins that same year was Jim Owens at Miami. Owens was around long enough to make it to the big leagues. After leaving baseball he worked on building the Alaska pipeline.
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Comment about 2006 article written by Bill Clark regarding KOM reunion
John, I don’t remember ever having read that article from the 2006 reunion. Wow, that was great reading. I am trying to remember what year it was when I drove over to Carthage in the a.m. prior to a (Pittsburg, KS Univ.) Gorilla game? Met lots of nice folks though, that I do remember. And hooked up with Coach Sam (Dixon) again. You have certainly filled a huge void in the lives of those old-timers John, one for which there is no way to pay you back except all the comments and compliments you receive from those players themselves, and/or surviving family members, and friends. Thanks for all you do, again!!! Casey—in Metro. Kansas City
Ed reply:
You were there in 2006. You drove over before the football game. I remember it like yesterday. I gave you a hard time for snubbing the reunion for an old football game. I know it was 2006 for that was the only year we had a September reunion.
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Really appreciate the comments, but I should clarify that this shot is not in fact of a wild owl. That surely would be too good to be true at my level and with the photographic equipment currently available to me! Rest assured, this shot typifies exactly what I 'd like my photography to exhibit on a consistent basis in years to come. So in any case, I too am very pleased with it!
See the second comment for a bit more info.
This morning these were the first 12 on my iPad and despite wanting to not draw a couple I carried on with no messing about.
They were to clarify anything
1. Glenda Collins - It's Hard To Believe It
2. Genesis - The Waiting Room
3. Aphex Twin -Ptolomy
4. Earl Okin - Mango
5 - The Apples - Upskirt
6- The Louvin Brothers - Satan is Real
7. Cleaners From Venus - Terrible Old Lizard
8. The Beatles -Yer Blues (Esher sessions)
9. Rob Heron and the Tea Pad Orchestra - She Don't Like The Fish
10. Eddie Giles - Losing Boy
11. Port Isaac Fisherman's Friends - Sweet Ladies of Plymouth
12. The Mutton Birds - Nature
So a Joe Meek song from Jovike to start and the last one was from him too, the first a mad 60's song the last I guess 60's influenced pop, Genesis was a strange prog tune, not unlike Ghost Box releases, Aphex Twin, electronica from Cornwall, eaRL Okin, comedy bossa nova, the Apples a Funk Hip Hop thing, the Louvin brothers Country song with a warning, The Cleaners from Venus a demo sounding song from Newell a bit of a blues tune, unusual for him with comedy lyrics which segued really well into the Beatles demo of Yer Blues (thanks iPod shuffle) then the newish old timey band from the North East Rob Heron and band, excellent song - check it out on youtube there is a great video too where the band are ghosts in a shop singing the song then a good soul tune from Eddie Giles, a sea shanty from the Cornish Fisherman's friends about Prozzies in Plymouth and back to the pop tune mentioned earlier. Diverse choices from the iPod this morning.
This is much better big on black - click the link at the end to see!
Still working with my new 50mm lens, I love it and never want to be apart from it. Although I still want to add a new gizmo to my box of tricks, namely an external flash. I feel like it's the missing link. Still, I have plenty enough to learn so maybe it's a good thing that I don't have a flash right now.
This is one of the (many) shots I've done where I started out with no ideas whatsoever and this just . . . happened. I sort of had the idea to include the clock in the shot as I was setting up - after all, when I started my 365 it was all about documenting me leaving my twenties behind and entering the thirty zone. So time was always going to be a theme to explore.
The passing of time is something I think about a lot. I'm quite contradictory about it, I suppose a lot of people are, in terms of wishing the working week away and focusing on the next weekend or holiday that's coming up. And while I'm busy doing that the weeks, months and years are dropping away more and more quickly.
I'm terrified of getting old. I'm worried about the things I'll have to give up because the mind is willing but the body's no longer capable or vice-versa, which probably terrifies me more. I'm mortified at the thought that I might not be able to look after myself one day. And all this is stuff I think about a lot of the time. It's a dumb thing to get hung up about really, I should be enjoying today instead of thinking ahead to what may or may not be. But no matter how hard I try to ignore it, that clock keeps ticking.
Maybe that's why photography has become so fascinating to me, it gives me the ability to freeze a moment in time.
I got this shot with the 50mm, as mentioned earlier. I ramped up the exposure quite a lot and used a preset in Lightroom to get the basic picture how I wanted it. The texture (by billionstrang) and TTV border were Photoshopped in, and then I erased the layers over the clock to bring out the white face, blurring the edges where I erased to make them less obvious. I used a bit of dodging on my face to lighten it a bit and erased the layers and used the dodge tool over my eye to give it a bit of sparkle.
The title is from Time by Pink Floyd. An obvious choice but fitting.
IT'S NOT THAT BEAUTIFUL.
(to anybody else. but me.)
the exasperation. the exhaustion (though since i've been running on four hours of sleep every night that's accounted for). the "i'm so fucking sick of this world." (also, the "i need a fucking haircut.")
one thing i've been waiting to clarify, and i think that i should clarify it here, is that i am absolutely NOT pro-anorexia or pro-eating disorder. i do not endorse losing so much weight you look like an ugly bag of bones like i do (but i love it lolz :( sort of :(). if you are hungry for control, power--and aren't we all?--i suggest growing a garden or meditating or writing about it or doing something you CAN control instead of focusing on your intake. there's always something you can do instead of focus on food. i feel like it's all been taken away from me but i know better. i can't think of anything really, though. my anorexia is my favourite defense mechanism but dear god stay away from it!
ANYWAY. there has been a lot of ~publicity~ lately pertaining to pro-anorexia websites. the thing i've noticed about them is that unfortunately, they contain some people who have seemingly exhausted their options when it comes to losing weight and see anorexia or bulimia as their ONLY option. i can't imagine anybody coming into this intentionally. (in all honesty, my first flirtation with an eating disorder was because i wanted to die by starvation. i was fourteen. so i was irrational.) after a while you just get so empty. through all the hospitalisations and the doctor's appointments and the dietitians and the friends being afraid to eat around you or hug you or say fat or skinny and the therapists and the 'why can't you EAT?' it's like any other "part" of you that may have tried to exist is just thwarted. i think a lot of my defense mechanisms had been eradicated prior to my eating disorder--people made fun of my drawing, people didn't understand my writing, we didn't have the money to buy yarn for knitting, i felt uncomfortable around my friends, etc--and i developed one out of consequence, out of emptiness, to fill some gaping void by creating more emptiness. i know psychologically where my eating disorder came from and i think without it i'd still be an awful shell of a human being, an empty creature wanting to restore something that is beyond restoration (ooh, ambiguous!). but why would anybody want to get into this? anorexia is more than being skinny or losing your period like they talk about in magazines. it's guilt, and once you've shut that off, a weird sort of emptiness that you can pretend is happiness. it's numbing. a sedative. i wish that everybody wanted to be part of their world. it hurts me to see other anorexic girls (and guys, but i've never met an anorexic guy. i'm kind of going off on a tangent here) because i know how they feel. not exactly but enough. i mean... i know what i went through to get here. i can't imagine the equivalent for somebody else. there is always a trigger. wanting to lose weight may be the disguise but there's definitely a trigger.
we put ourselves through it because to us, it feels good, like we deserve it. but nobody does. i guess i just need to accept that.
This is image real? To clarify, I mean straight from the camera, or even a real photograph for that matter... Next week I will answer that question. Please, comment on this image if you like and what you think of it's origin. You are welcome to share your thoughts... But until then it is your guess. Copyright (c) D.M.S Studios, DanMar Creations... -------ANSWER------ Last week I posed this question “Is this real”? The comments some of you made where great and insightful... So as I said, I’m going to divulge the truth about this image, here it is… for those of you who believed this image was all a real photograph, possibly taken with some post processing applied to it, the answer is NO. It contains only two photographic elements added from a photo I've taken in Fremont CA. But it’s not all a real photograph and it’s not your typical photomanipulation either. The best way to describe this image is: a mixed media, hand painted landscape. I attempted to make this artwork look as if it was a real photograph and put allot of details into it, even down to the lens flair on the bottom right hand corner for added realism. For those who've assumed it was a real photograph, don’t feel bad… As I said, I was trying to make it look as close to a photograph as possible. Although, most of what you’re seeing in this image is what I've painted in PaintShop Pro. I am mostly proud of how the sky came out; specifically the sun enveloped in the clouds and the clouds also came out good too… To create the sky, I began with a larger standard circle bush and then used a blend brush over the entire background layer. Next, I hand painted in the sun and the clouds using several custom brushes. I was carefully selecting colors and changing brush opacities, to look as natural to sunlight as possible. Also, I used several different adjustment layers and brushes strokes to the sky to give it an HDR look. All of this was to challenge myself, to create a real looking photograph possibly taken with an ND filter and HDR applied. By having photographed many late afternoon captures at the DENWR, I believed I could simulate this look by painting it. What do you think? When I paint or take photos, I usually always learn something new. Creating this artwork was both fun and challenging. Hope you like it! Copyright © D.M.S Studios, DanMar Creations.
anyone out there clarify this as I can't see this listed on pages about RUF. On the back it says 3.8 turbo and BTr4. No RUF badge on the rear.
Some of you may have noticed that, unfortunately, owing to the fact that a certain person who sells truck photos on eBay commercially has been lifting my images from this album and selling them I have had to remove 2300 photos that didn't have a watermark. I have now run around 1700 through Lightroom and added a watermark with the intention of bulk uploading them again. Rather than watermark the existing (hidden) files in Flickr one at a time it will be easier to do it this way. I definitely won’t be adding individual tags with the make and model of each vehicle I will just add generic transport tags. Each photo is named after the vehicle and reg in any case. For anyone new to these images there is a chapter and verse explanation below. It is staggering how many times I get asked questions that a quick scan would answer or just as likely I can’t possibly answer – I didn’t take them, but, just to clarify-I do own the copyright- and I do pursue copyright theft.
This is a collection of scanned prints from a collection of photographs taken by the late Jim Taylor A number of years ago I was offered a large number of photographs taken by Jim Taylor, a transport photographer based in Huddersfield. The collection, 30,000 prints, 20,000 negatives – and copyright! – had been offered to me and one of the national transport magazines previously by a friend of Jim's, on behalf of Jim's wife. I initially turned them down, already having over 30,000 of my own prints filed away and taking space up. Several months later the prints were still for sale – at what was, apparently, the going rate. It was a lot of money and I deliberated for quite a while before deciding to buy them. I did however buy them directly from Jim’s wife and she delivered them personally – just to quash the occasional rumour from people who can’t mind their own business. Although some prints were sold elsewhere, particularly the popular big fleet stuff, I should have the negatives, unfortunately they came to me in a random mix, 1200 to a box, without any sort of indexing and as such it would be impossible to match negatives to prints, or, to even find a print of any particular vehicle. I have only ever looked at a handful myself unless I am scanning them. The prints are generally in excellent condition and I initially stored them in a bedroom without ever looking at any of them. In 2006 I built an extension and they had to be well protected from dust and moved a few times. Ultimately my former 6x7 box room office has become their (and my own work’s) permanent home.
I hope to avoid posting images that Jim had not taken his self, however should I inadvertently infringe another photographers copyright, please inform me by email and I will resolve the issue immediately. There are copyright issues with some of the photographs that were sold to me. A Flickr member from Scotland drew my attention to some of his own work amongst the first uploads of Jim’s work. I had a quick look through some of the 30 boxes of prints and decided that for the time being the safest thing for me to do was withdraw the majority of the earlier uploaded scans and deal with the problem – which I did. whilst the vast majority of the prints are Jims, there is a problem defining copyright of some of them, this is something that the seller did not make clear at the time. I am reasonably confident that I have since been successful in identifying Jims own work. His early work consists of many thousands of lustre 6x4 prints which are difficult to scan well, later work is almost entirely 7x5 glossy, much easier to scan. Not all of the prints are pin sharp but I can generally print successfully to A4 from a scan.
You may notice photographs being duplicated in this Album, unfortunately there are multiple copies of many prints (for swapping) and as I have to have a system of archiving and backing up I can only guess - using memory - if I have scanned a print before. The bigger fleets have so many similar vehicles and registration numbers that it is impossible to get it right all of the time. It is easier to scan and process a print than check my files - on three different PC’s - for duplicates. There has not been, nor will there ever be, any intention to knowingly breach anyone else's copyright. I have presented the Jim Taylor collection as exactly that-The Jim Taylor Collection- his work not mine, my own work is quite obviously mine.
Unfortunately, many truck spotters have swapped and traded their work without copyright marking it as theirs. These people never anticipated the ease with which images would be shared online in the future. I would guess that having swapped and traded photos for many years that it is almost impossible to control their future use. Anyone wanting to control the future use of their work would have been well advised to copyright mark their work (as many did) and would be well advised not to post them on photo sharing sites without a watermark as the whole point of these sites is to share the image, it is very easy for those that wish, to lift any image, despite security settings, indeed, Flickr itself, warns you that this is the case. It was this abuse and theft of my material that led me to watermark all of my later uploads. I may yet withdraw non-watermarked photos, I haven’t decided yet. (I did in the end)
To anyone reading the above it will be quite obvious that I can’t provide information regarding specific photos or potential future uploads – I didn’t take them! There are many vehicles that were well known to me as Jim only lived down the road from me (although I didn’t know him), however scanning, titling, tagging and uploading is laborious and time consuming enough, I do however provide a fair amount of information with my own transport (and other) photos. I am aware that there are requests from other Flickr users that are unanswered, I stumble across them months or years after they were posted, this isn’t deliberate. Some weekends one or two “enthusiasts” can add many hundreds of photos as favourites, this pushes requests that are in the comments section ten or twenty pages out of sight and I miss them. I also have notifications switched off, I receive around 50 emails a day through work and I don’t want even more from Flickr. Other requests, like many other things, I just plain forget – no excuses! Uploads of Jim’s photos will be infrequent as it is a boring pastime and I would much rather work on my own output.
The droideka fits snuggly inside the bubble with not much space to spare. Note that it is quite difficult to take a good photo of the bubble with all its glares and little, otherwise invisible defects. It does look far better with naked eye. And just to clarify - the bubble is an official Lego piece - look at the part that touches the floor. You can see snowflakes, which will give you a hint on the original use of the bubble :-)
So I would like to clarify this is not meant in any way to empower him, all the contrary this is a way of showing him as what he really is: the embodiment of evil, a disgusting creature that unfortunately was elected as the president of the US.
Now I'm Mexican but most of my followers and clients are Xicanos and paisanos that live in the USA and I really feel for you guys I just wanted to send all my love to you❣And to the minorities that now will live in fear for themselves and their loved ones please stay strong and keep on fighting for your human rights. I didn't wanted to post anything else before addressing in some way my thoughts on the matter and if you want to share this please remember to add trigger warnings. #tw #triggerwarning #rape #abuse #sexualassualt
Some of you may have noticed that, unfortunately, owing to the fact that a certain person who sells truck photos on eBay commercially has been lifting my images from this album and selling them I have had to remove 2300 photos that didn't have a watermark. I have now run around 1700 through Lightroom and added a watermark with the intention of bulk uploading them again. Rather than watermark the existing (hidden) files in Flickr one at a time it will be easier to do it this way. I definitely won’t be adding individual tags with the make and model of each vehicle I will just add generic transport tags. Each photo is named after the vehicle and reg in any case. For anyone new to these images there is a chapter and verse explanation below. It is staggering how many times I get asked questions that a quick scan would answer or just as likely I can’t possibly answer – I didn’t take them, but, just to clarify-I do own the copyright- and I do pursue copyright theft.
This is a collection of scanned prints from a collection of photographs taken by the late Jim Taylor A number of years ago I was offered a large number of photographs taken by Jim Taylor, a transport photographer based in Huddersfield. The collection, 30,000 prints, 20,000 negatives – and copyright! – had been offered to me and one of the national transport magazines previously by a friend of Jim's, on behalf of Jim's wife. I initially turned them down, already having over 30,000 of my own prints filed away and taking space up. Several months later the prints were still for sale – at what was, apparently, the going rate. It was a lot of money and I deliberated for quite a while before deciding to buy them. I did however buy them directly from Jim’s wife and she delivered them personally – just to quash the occasional rumour from people who can’t mind their own business. Although some prints were sold elsewhere, particularly the popular big fleet stuff, I should have the negatives, unfortunately they came to me in a random mix, 1200 to a box, without any sort of indexing and as such it would be impossible to match negatives to prints, or, to even find a print of any particular vehicle. I have only ever looked at a handful myself unless I am scanning them. The prints are generally in excellent condition and I initially stored them in a bedroom without ever looking at any of them. In 2006 I built an extension and they had to be well protected from dust and moved a few times. Ultimately my former 6x7 box room office has become their (and my own work’s) permanent home.
I hope to avoid posting images that Jim had not taken his self, however should I inadvertently infringe another photographers copyright, please inform me by email and I will resolve the issue immediately. There are copyright issues with some of the photographs that were sold to me. A Flickr member from Scotland drew my attention to some of his own work amongst the first uploads of Jim’s work. I had a quick look through some of the 30 boxes of prints and decided that for the time being the safest thing for me to do was withdraw the majority of the earlier uploaded scans and deal with the problem – which I did. whilst the vast majority of the prints are Jims, there is a problem defining copyright of some of them, this is something that the seller did not make clear at the time. I am reasonably confident that I have since been successful in identifying Jims own work. His early work consists of many thousands of lustre 6x4 prints which are difficult to scan well, later work is almost entirely 7x5 glossy, much easier to scan. Not all of the prints are pin sharp but I can generally print successfully to A4 from a scan.
You may notice photographs being duplicated in this Album, unfortunately there are multiple copies of many prints (for swapping) and as I have to have a system of archiving and backing up I can only guess - using memory - if I have scanned a print before. The bigger fleets have so many similar vehicles and registration numbers that it is impossible to get it right all of the time. It is easier to scan and process a print than check my files - on three different PC’s - for duplicates. There has not been, nor will there ever be, any intention to knowingly breach anyone else's copyright. I have presented the Jim Taylor collection as exactly that-The Jim Taylor Collection- his work not mine, my own work is quite obviously mine.
Unfortunately, many truck spotters have swapped and traded their work without copyright marking it as theirs. These people never anticipated the ease with which images would be shared online in the future. I would guess that having swapped and traded photos for many years that it is almost impossible to control their future use. Anyone wanting to control the future use of their work would have been well advised to copyright mark their work (as many did) and would be well advised not to post them on photo sharing sites without a watermark as the whole point of these sites is to share the image, it is very easy for those that wish, to lift any image, despite security settings, indeed, Flickr itself, warns you that this is the case. It was this abuse and theft of my material that led me to watermark all of my later uploads. I may yet withdraw non-watermarked photos, I haven’t decided yet. (I did in the end)
To anyone reading the above it will be quite obvious that I can’t provide information regarding specific photos or potential future uploads – I didn’t take them! There are many vehicles that were well known to me as Jim only lived down the road from me (although I didn’t know him), however scanning, titling, tagging and uploading is laborious and time consuming enough, I do however provide a fair amount of information with my own transport (and other) photos. I am aware that there are requests from other Flickr users that are unanswered, I stumble across them months or years after they were posted, this isn’t deliberate. Some weekends one or two “enthusiasts” can add many hundreds of photos as favourites, this pushes requests that are in the comments section ten or twenty pages out of sight and I miss them. I also have notifications switched off, I receive around 50 emails a day through work and I don’t want even more from Flickr. Other requests, like many other things, I just plain forget – no excuses! Uploads of Jim’s photos will be infrequent as it is a boring pastime and I would much rather work on my own output.
Apologies in advance for a lengthy attempted description and interpretation. I am most happy for our Dutch contacts to clarify and correct any points!
It was most fascinating to see this route map of the 1933 Elf-Steden-Tocht, a skating tour, almost 200 kilometres (120 mi) long, which is both as a speed skating competition and a leisure tour. Depending on the severity of winter ice conditions, it is irregularly held in the province of Friesland in the north of the Netherlands, leading past all eleven historical cities of the province. It was last held in 1997, though there was a "near miss" and late cancellation in 2012. The 1933 route is shown by bold black lines. You can read about the event in detail courtesy of WikiWhoKnowsAlmostEverything en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elfstedentocht
However there is lots more of interest on the plan. The railways (spoorwegen) are shown in bold dotted red lines. All those to the south of Leeuwarden still exist. I am not sure of the translation for "Tramwegen", somewhat difficult to see in a faded brown colour. There were at least some classic 'trams' as I saw a photo of one. However I do not know the date until which they ran. I would venture that buses have replaced the tramways for at least the last half century and in some cases, much longer.
Google Translate tells me "Stroomsluizen" means "power locks". One is marked at Harlingen and to this day there are indeed canal type locks leading from that harbour area inland. The lighter black lines are "other channels", many of which probably still exist as modern day waterways mostly for pleasure craft in this part of the world. Some may be drainage channels.
Anyways, back to the skating. Just imagine the excitement and huge crowds there will be for the next Elfstedentocht whenever that will be!!
it doesn't snow much in seattle, so when it started, i sprung from the cafe i was in and shot some photos.
this was move in day for our new apartment on eastlake ave. and some welcome it was.
i think it may have snowed to help make me feel more at home here. if so, it worked.
Number 27, a Renault Clio 182 Cup driven by Derek Rothnie, seen after a practice run at Doune Hill Climb, April 2019.
Any additional information clarifying the vehicle's make, model, modifications made and its specific history will be welcomed.
Press "L" to view large.
Watercolor (American English) or watercolour (Commonwealth and Ireland), also aquarelle from French, is a painting method in which the paints are made of pigments suspended in a water-soluble vehicle. The term "watercolor" refers to both the medium and the resulting artwork. The traditional and most common support for watercolor paintings is paper; other supports include papyrus, bark papers, plastics, vellum or leather, fabric, wood, and canvas. Watercolors are usually transparent, and appear luminous because the pigments are laid down in a relatively pure form with few fillers obscuring the pigment colors. Watercolor can also be made opaque by adding Chinese white. In East Asia, watercolor painting with inks is referred to as brush painting or scroll painting. In Chinese, Korean, and Japanese painting it has been the dominant medium, often in monochrome black or browns. India, Ethiopia and other countries also have long traditions. Fingerpainting with watercolor paints originated in China.Although watercolor painting is extremely old, dating perhaps to the cave paintings of paleolithic Europe, and has been used for manuscript illumination since at least Egyptian times but especially in the European Middle Ages, its continuous history as an art medium begins in the Renaissance. The German Northern Renaissance artist Albrecht Dürer (1471–1528) who painted several fine botanical, wildlife and landscape watercolors, is generally considered among the earliest exponents of the medium. An important school of watercolor painting in Germany was led by Hans Bol (1534–1593) as part of the Dürer Renaissance.Despite this early start, watercolors were generally used by Baroque easel painters only for sketches, copies or cartoons (full-scale design drawings). Among notable early practitioners of watercolor painting were Van Dyck (during his stay in England), Claude Lorrain, Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione, and many Dutch and Flemish artists. However, Botanical illustrations and those depicting wildlife are perhaps the oldest and most important tradition in watercolor painting. Botanical illustrations became popular in the Renaissance, both as hand tinted woodblock illustrations in books or broadsheets and as tinted ink drawings on vellum or paper. Botanical artists have always been among the most exacting and accomplished watercolor painters, and even today watercolors—with their unique ability to summarize, clarify and idealize in full color—are used to illustrate scientific and museum publications. Wildlife illustration reached its peak in the 19th century with artists such as John James Audubon, and today many naturalist field guides are still illustrated with watercolor paintings. Many watercolors are more vibrant in pigment if they are higher quality. Some British market watercolors can be found in many craft stores In America and in other countries too.Materials
Paint
Watercolor paint consists of four principal ingredients:
pigments, natural or synthetic, mineral or organic;
gum arabic as a binder to hold the pigment in suspension and fix the pigment to the painting surface;
additives like glycerin, ox gall, honey, preservatives: to alter the viscosity, hiding, durability or color of the pigment and vehicle mixture; and
solvent, the substance used to thin or dilute the paint for application and that evaporates when the paint hardens or dries.
The term "watermedia" refers to any painting medium that uses water as a solvent and that can be applied with a brush, pen or sprayer; this includes most inks, watercolors, temperas, gouaches and modern acrylic paints.
The term watercolor refers to paints that use water soluble, complex carbohydrates as a binder. Originally (16th to 18th centuries) watercolor binders were sugars and/or hide glues, but since the 19th century the preferred binder is natural gum arabic, with glycerin and/or honey as additives to improve plasticity and dissolvability of the binder, and with other chemicals added to improve product shelf life.
Bodycolor refers to paint that is opaque rather than transparent, usually opaque watercolor, which is also known as gouache.[2] Modern acrylic paints are based on a completely different chemistry that uses water soluble acrylic resin as a binder.
Commercial watercolors
Watercolor painters before c.1800 had to make paints themselves using pigments purchased from an apothecary or specialized "colourman"; the earliest commercial paints were small, resinous blocks that had to be wetted and laboriously "rubbed out" in water. William Reeves (1739–1803) set up in business as a colorman about 1766. In 1781 he and his brother, Thomas Reeves, were awarded the Silver Palette of the Society of Arts, for the invention of the moist watercolor paint-cake, a time-saving convenience the introduction of which coincides with the "golden age" of English watercolor painting.
Modern commercial watercolor paints are available in two forms: tubes or pans. The majority of paints sold are in collapsible metal tubes in standard sizes (typically 7.5, 15 or 37 ml.), and are formulated to a consistency similar to toothpaste. Pan paints (actually, small dried cakes or bars of paint in an open plastic container) are usually sold in two sizes, full pans (approximately 3 cc of paint) and half pans (favored for compact paint boxes). Pans are historically older but commonly perceived as less convenient; they are most often used in portable metal paint boxes, also introduced in the mid 19th century, and are preferred by landscape or naturalist painters.
Among the most widely used brands of commercial watercolors today are Daler Rowney, Daniel Smith, DaVinci, Holbein, Maimeri, M. Graham. Reeves, Schmincke, Sennelier, Talens, and Winsor & Newton.
Thanks to modern industrial organic chemistry, the variety, saturation (brilliance) and permanence of artists' colors available today is greater than ever before. However, the art materials industry is far too small to exert any market leverage on global dye or pigment manufacture. With rare exceptions, all modern watercolor paints utilize pigments that were manufactured for use in printing inks, automotive and architectural paints, wood stains, concrete, ceramics and plastics colorants, consumer packaging, foods, medicines, textiles and cosmetics. Paint manufacturers buy very small supplies of these pigments, mill (mechanically mix) them with the vehicle, solvent and additives, and package them.
Color names
Many artists are confused or misled by labeling practices common in the art materials industry. The marketing name for a paint, such as "indian yellow" or "emerald green", is often only a poetic color evocation or proprietary moniker; there is no legal requirement that it describe the pigment that gives the paint its color. More popular color names are "viridian hue" and " chinese white"
To remedy this confusion, in 1990 the art materials industry voluntarily began listing pigment ingredients on the paint packaging, using the common pigment name (such as "cobalt blue" or "cadmium red"), and/or a standard pigment identification code, the generic color index name (PB28 for cobalt blue, PR108 for cadmium red) assigned by the Society of Dyers and Colourists (UK) and the American Association of Textile Chemists and Colorists (USA) and known as the Colour Index International. This allows artists to choose paints according to their pigment ingredients, rather than the poetic labels assigned to them by marketers. Paint pigments and formulations vary across manufacturers, and watercolor paints with the same color name (e.g., "sap green") from different manufacturers can be formulated with completely different ingredients.
Transparency
Watercolor paints are customarily evaluated on a few key attributes. In the partisan debates of the 19th-century English art world, gouache was emphatically contrasted to traditional watercolors and denigrated for its high hiding power or lack of "transparency"; "transparent" watercolors were exalted. Paints with low hiding power are valued because they allow an underdrawing or engraving to show in the image, and because colors can be mixed visually by layering paints on the paper (which itself may be either white or tinted). The resulting color will change depending on the layering order of the pigments. In fact, there are very few genuinely transparent watercolors, neither are there completely opaque watercolors (with the exception of gouache); and any watercolor paint can be made more transparent simply by diluting it with water.
"Transparent" colors do not contain titanium dioxide (white) or most of the earth pigments (sienna, umber, etc.) which are very opaque. The 19th-century claim that "transparent" watercolors gain "luminosity" because they function like a pane of stained glass laid on paper[citation needed] – the color intensified because the light passes through the pigment, reflects from the paper, and passes a second time through the pigment on its way to the viewer—is false: watercolor paints do not form a cohesive paint layer, as do acrylic or oil paints, but simply scatter pigment particles randomly across the paper surface; the transparency consists in the paper being directly visible between the particles.[3] Watercolors appear more vivid than acrylics or oils because the pigments are laid down in a more pure form with no or fewer fillers (such as kaolin) obscuring the pigment colors. Furthermore, typically most or all of the gum binder will be absorbed by the paper, preventing it from changing the visibility of the pigment.[3] Even multiple layers of watercolor do achieve a very luminous effect without fillers or binder obscuring the pigment particles.
Pigments characteristics
Staining is a characteristic assigned to watercolor paints: a staining paint is difficult to remove or lift from the painting support after it has been applied or dried. Less staining colors can be lightened or removed almost entirely when wet, or when rewetted and then "lifted" by stroking gently with a clean, wet brush and then blotted up with a paper towel. In fact, the staining characteristics of a paint depend in large part on the composition of the support (paper) itself, and on the particle size of the pigment. Staining is increased if the paint manufacturer uses a dispersant to reduce the paint milling (mixture) time, because the dispersant acts to drive pigment particles into crevices in the paper pulp, dulling the finished color.
Granulation refers to the appearance of separate, visible pigment particles in the finished color, produced when the paint is substantially diluted with water and applied with a juicy brush stroke; pigments notable for their watercolor granulation include viridian (PG18), cerulean blue (PB35), cobalt violet (PV14) and some iron oxide pigments (PBr7).
Flocculation refers to a peculiar clumping typical of ultramarine pigments (PB29 or PV15). Both effects display the subtle effects of water as the paint dries, are unique to watercolors, and are deemed attractive by accomplished watercolor painters. This contrasts with the trend in commercial paints to suppress pigment textures in favor of homogeneous, flat color.
Grades
Commercial watercolor paints come in three grades: "Artist" (or "Professional"), "Student", and "Scholastic".
Artist Watercolors contain a full pigment load, suspended in a binder, generally natural gum arabic. Artist quality paints are usually formulated with fewer fillers (kaolin or chalk) which results in richer color and vibrant mixes. Conventional watercolors are sold in moist form, in a tube, and are thinned and mixed on a dish or palette. Use them on paper and other absorbent surfaces that have been primed to accept water-based paint.
Student grade paints have less pigment, and often are formulated using two or more less expensive pigments. Student Watercolors have working characteristics similar to professional watercolors, but with lower concentrations of pigment, less expensive formulas, and a smaller range of colors. More expensive pigments are generally replicated by hues. Colors are designed to be mixed, although color strength is lower. Hues may not have the same mixing characteristics as regular full-strength colors.
Scholastic watercolors come in pans rather than tubes, and contain inexpensive pigments and dyes suspended in a synthetic binder. Washable formulations feature colors that are chosen to be non-staining, easily washable, suitable for use even by young children with proper supervision. They are an excellent choice for teaching beginning artists the properties of color and the techniques of painting.
Reserves
As there is no transparent white watercolor, the white parts of a watercolor painting are most often areas of the paper "reserved" (left unpainted) and allowed to be seen in the finished work. To preserve these white areas, many painters use a variety of resists, including masking tape, clear wax or a liquid latex, that are applied to the paper to protect it from paint, then pulled away to reveal the white paper. Resist painting can also be an effective technique for beginning watercolor artists. The painter can use wax crayons or oil pastels prior to painting the paper. The wax or oil mediums repel, or resist the watercolor paint. White paint (titanium dioxide PW6 or zinc oxide PW4) is best used to insert highlights or white accents into a painting. If mixed with other pigments, white paints may cause them to fade or change hue under light exposure. White paint (gouache) mixed with a "transparent" watercolor paint will cause the transparency to disappear and the paint to look much duller. White paint will always appear dull and chalky next to the white of the paper; however this can be used for some effects.
Brushes
A brush consists of three parts: the tuft, the ferrule and the handle.
The tuft is a bundle of animal hairs or synthetic fibers tied tightly together at the base;
The ferrule is a metal sleeve that surrounds the tuft, gives the tuft its cross sectional shape, provides mechanical support under pressure, and protects from water wearing down the glue joint between the trimmed, flat base of the tuft and the handle;
The lacquered wood handle, which is typically shorter in a watercolor brush than in an oil painting brush, has a distinct shape—widest just behind the ferrule and tapering to the tip.
When painting, painters typically hold the brush just behind the ferrule for the smoothest brushstrokes.
Hairs and fibers
Brushes hold paint (the "bead") through the capillary action of the small spaces between the tuft hairs or fibers; paint is released through the contact between the wet paint and the dry paper and the mechanical flexing of the tuft, which opens the spaces between the tuft hairs, relaxing the capillary restraint on the liquid. Because thinned watercolor paint is far less viscous than oil or acrylic paints, the brushes preferred by watercolor painters have a softer and denser tuft. This is customarily achieved by using natural hair harvested from farm raised or trapped animals, in particular sable, squirrel or mongoose. Less expensive brushes, or brushes designed for coarser work, may use horsehair or bristles from pig or ox snouts and ears.
However, as with paints, modern chemistry has developed many synthetic and shaped fibers that rival the stiffness of bristle and mimic the spring and softness of natural hair. Until fairly recently, nylon brushes could not hold a reservoir of water at all so they were extremely inferior to brushes made from natural hair. In recent years, improvements in the holding and pointing properties of synthetic filaments have gained them much greater acceptance among watercolorists.
There is no market regulation on the labeling applied to artists' brushes, but most watercolorists prize brushes from kolinsky (Russian or Chinese) sable. The best of these hairs have a characteristic reddish brown color, darker near the base, and a tapering shaft that is pointed at the tip but widest about halfway toward the root. Squirrel hair is quite thin, straight and typically dark, and makes tufts with a very high liquid capacity; mongoose has a characteristic salt and pepper coloring. Bristle brushes are stiffer and lighter colored. "Camel" is sometimes used to describe hairs from several sources (none of them a camel).
In general, natural hair brushes have superior snap and pointing, a higher capacity (hold a larger bead, produce a longer continuous stroke, and wick up more paint when moist) and a more delicate release. Synthetic brushes tend to dump too much of the paint bead at the beginning of the brush stroke and leave a larger puddle of paint when the brush is lifted from the paper, and they cannot compete with the pointing of natural sable brushes and are much less durable. On the other hand they are typically much cheaper than natural hair, and the best synthetic brushes are now very serviceable; they are also excellent for texturing, shaping, or lifting color, and for the mechanical task of breaking up or rubbing paint to dissolve it in water.
A high quality sable brush has five key attributes: pointing (in a round, the tip of the tuft comes to a fine, precise point that does not splay or split; in a flat, the tuft forms a razor thin, perfectly straight edge); snap (or "spring"; the tuft flexes in direct response to the pressure applied to the paper, and promptly returns to its original shape); capacity (the tuft, for its size, holds a large bead of paint and does not release it as the brush is moved in the air); release (the amount of paint released is proportional to the pressure applied to the paper, and the paint flow can be precisely controlled by the pressure and speed of the stroke as the paint bead is depleted); and durability (a large, high quality brush may withstand decades of daily use).
Most natural hair brushes are sold with the tuft cosmetically shaped with starch or gum, so brushes are difficult to evaluate before purchasing, and durability is only evident after long use. The most common failings of natural hair brushes are that the tuft sheds hairs (although a little shedding is acceptable in a new brush), the ferrule becomes loosened, or the wood handle shrinks, warps, cracks or flakes off its lacquer coating.
Shapes
Natural and synthetic brushes are sold with the tuft shaped for different tasks. Among the most popular are:
Rounds. The tuft has a round cross section but a tapering profile, widest near the ferrule (the "belly") and tapered at the tip (the "point"). These are general purpose brushes that can address almost any task.
Flats. The tuft is compressed laterally by the ferrule into a flat wedge; the tuft appears square when viewed from the side and has a perfectly straight edge. "Brights" are flats in which the tuft is as long as it is wide; "one stroke" brushes are longer than their width. "Sky brushes" or "wash brushes" look like miniature housepainting brushes; the tuft is usually 3 cm to 7 cm wide and is used to paint large areas.
Mops (natural hair only). A round brush, usually of squirrel hair and, decoratively, with a feather quill ferrule that is wrapped with copper wire; these have very high capacity for their size, especially good for wet in wet or wash painting; when moist they can wick up large quantities of paint.
Filbert (or "Cat's Tongue", hair only). A hybrid brush: a flat that comes to a point, like a round, useful for specially shaped brush strokes.
Rigger (hair only). An extremely long, thin tuft, originally used to paint the rigging in nautical portraits.
Fan. A small flat in which the tuft is splayed into a fan shape; used for texturing or painting irregular, parallel hatching lines.
Acrylic. A flat brush with synthetic bristles, attached to a (usually clear) plastic handle with a beveled tip used for scoring or scraping.
A single brush can produce many lines and shapes. A "round" for example, can create thin and thick lines, wide or narrow strips, curves, and other painted effects. A flat brush when used on end can produce thin lines or dashes in addition to the wide swath typical with these brushes, and its brushmarks display the characteristic angle of the tuft corners.
Every watercolor painter works in specific genres and has a personal painting style and "tool discipline", and these largely determine his or her preference for brushes. Artists typically have a few favorites and do most work with just one or two brushes. Brushes are typically the most expensive component of the watercolorist's tools, and a minimal general purpose brush selection would include:
4 round (for detail and drybrush)
8 round
12 or 14 round (for large color areas or washes)
1/2" or 1" flat
12 mop (for washes and wicking)
1/2" acrylic (for dissolving or mixing paints, and scrubbing paints before lifting from the paper)
Major watercolor brush manufacturers include DaVinci, Escoda, Isabey, Raphael, Kolonok, Robert Simmons, Daler-Rowney, Arches, and Winsor & Newton. As with papers and paints, it is common for retailers to commission brushes under their own label from an established manufacturer. Among these are Cheap Joe's, Daniel Smith, Dick Blick and Utrecht.
Sizes
The size of a round brush is designated by a number, which may range from 0000 (for a very tiny round) to 0, then from 1 to 24 or higher. These numbers refer to the size of the brass brushmakers' mould used to shape and align the hairs of the tuft before it is tied off and trimmed, and as with shoe lasts, these sizes vary from one manufacturer to the next. In general a #12 round brush has a tuft about 2 to 2.5 cm long; tufts are generally fatter (wider) in brushes made in England than in brushes made on the Continent: a German or French #14 round is approximately the same size as an English #12. Flats may be designated either by a similar but separate numbering system, but more often are described by the width of the ferrule, measured in centimeters or inches.
Watercolor pencil
Watercolor pencil is another important tool in watercolors techniques. This water-soluble color pencil allows to draw fine details and to blend them with water. Noted artists who use watercolor pencils include illustrator Travis Charest.[4] A similar tool is the watercolor pastel, broader than watercolor pencil, and able to quickly cover a large surface.
Paper
Most watercolor painters before c.1800 had to use whatever paper was at hand: Thomas Gainsborough was delighted to buy some paper used to print a Bath tourist guide, and the young David Cox preferred a heavy paper used to wrap packages. James Whatman first offered a wove watercolor paper in 1788, and the first machinemade ("cartridge") papers from a steam powered mill in 1805.
All art papers can be described by eight attributes: furnish, color, weight, finish, sizing, dimensions, permanence and packaging. Watercolor painters typically paint on paper specifically formulated for watermedia applications. Fine watermedia papers are manufactured under the brand names Arches, Bockingford, Cartiera Magnani, Fabriano, Hahnemühle, Lanaquarelle, The Langton, The Langton Prestige, Millford, Saunders Waterford, Strathmore, Winsor & Newton and Zerkall; and there has been a recent remarkable resurgence in handmade papers, notably those by Twinrocker, Velke Losiny, Ruscombe Mill and St. Armand.
Watercolor paper is essentially Blotting paper marketed and sold as an art paper, and the two can be used interchangeably, as watercolor paper is more easily obtainable than blotter and can be used as a substitute for blotter. Lower end watercolor papers can resemble heavy paper more while higher end varieties are usually entirely cotton and more porous like blotter. Watercolor paper is traditionally torn and not cut.
Furnish
The traditional furnish or material content of watercolor papers is cellulose, a structural carbohydrate found in many plants. The most common sources of paper cellulose are cotton, linen, or alpha cellulose extracted from wood pulp. To make paper, the cellulose is wetted, mechanically macerated or pounded, chemically treated, rinsed and filtered to the consistency of thin oatmeal, then poured out into paper making moulds. In handmade papers, the pulp is hand poured ("cast") into individual paper moulds (a mesh screen stretched within a wood frame) and shaken by hand into an even layer. In industrial paper production, the pulp is formed by large papermaking machines that spread the paper over large cylinders—either heated metal cylinders that rotate at high speed (machinemade papers) or wire mesh cylinders that rotate at low speed (mouldmade papers). Both types of machine produce the paper in a continuous roll or web, which is then cut into individual sheets.
Weight
The basis weight of the paper is a measure of its density and thickness. It is described as the gram weight of one square meter of a single sheet of the paper, or grams per square meter (gsm). Most watercolor papers sold today are in the range between 280gsm to 640gsm. (The previous Imperial system, expressed as the weight in pounds of one ream or 500 sheets of the paper, regardless of its size, obsolete in some areas, is still used in the United States. The most common weights under this system are 300 lb (heaviest), 200 lb 140 lb, and 90 lb.) Heavier paper is sometimes preferred over lighter weight or thinner paper because it does not buckle and can hold up to scrubbing and extremely wet washes. Watercolor papers are typically almost a pure white, sometimes slightly yellow (called natural white), though many tinted or colored papers are available. An important diagnostic is the rattle of the paper, or the sound it makes when held aloft by one corner and shaken vigorously. Papers that are dense and made from heavily macerated pulp have a bright, metallic rattle, while papers that are spongy or made with lightly macerated pulp have a muffled, rubbery rattle.
Finish
All papers obtain a texture from the mold used to make them: a wove finish results from a uniform metal screen (like a window screen); a laid finish results from a screen made of narrowly spaced horizontal wires separated by widely spaced vertical wires. The finish is also affected by the methods used to wick and dry the paper after it is "couched" (removed) from the paper mold or is pulled off the papermaking cylinder.
Watercolor papers come in three basic finishes: hot pressed (HP), cold press (CP, or in the UK "Not", for "not hot pressed"), and rough (R). These vary greatly from manufacturer to manufacturer.
Rough papers are typically dried by hanging them like laundry ("loft drying") so that the sheets are not exposed to any pressure after they are couched; the wove finish has a pitted, uneven texture that is prized for its ability to accent the texture of watercolor pigments and brushstrokes.
Cold pressed papers are dried in large stacks, between absorbent felt blankets; this acts to flatten out about half of the texture found in the rough sheets. CP papers are valued for their versatility.
Hot pressed papers are cold pressed sheets that are passed through heated, compressing metal cylinders (called "calendering"), which flattens almost all the texture in the sheets. HP papers are valued because they are relatively nonabsorbent: pigments remain on the paper surface, brightening the color, and water is not absorbed, so it can produce a variety of water stains or marks as it dries.
These designations are only relative; the CP paper from one manufacturer may be rougher than the R paper from another manufacturer. Fabriano even offers a "soft press" (SP) sheet intermediate between CP and HP.
Sizing
Watercolor papers are traditionally sized, or treated with a substance to reduce the cellulose absorbency. Internal sizing is added to the paper pulp after rinsing and before it is cast in the paper mould; external or "tub" sizing is applied to the paper surface after the paper has dried. The traditional sizing has been gelatin, gum arabic or rosin, though modern synthetic substitutes (alkyl ketene dimers such as Aquapel) are now used instead. The highly absorbent papers that contain no sizing are designated waterleaf.
Dimensions
Most art papers are sold as single sheets of paper in standard sizes. Most common is the full sheet (22" x 30"), and half sheets (15" x 22") or quarter sheets (15" x 11") derived from it. Larger (and less standardized) sheets include the double elephant (within an inch or two of 30" x 40") and emperor (40" x 60"), which are the largest sheets commercially available. Papers are also manufactured in rolls, up to about 60" wide and 30 feet long. Finally, papers are also sold as watercolor "blocks"—a pad of 20 or so sheets of paper, cut to identical dimensions and glued on all four sides, which provides high dimensional stability and portability, though block papers tend to have subdued finishes. The painter simply works on the exposed sheet and, when finished, uses a knife to cut the adhesive around the four sides, separating the painting and revealing the fresh paper underneath.
Watercolor (American English) or watercolour (Commonwealth and Ireland), also aquarelle from French, is a painting method in which the paints are made of pigments suspended in a water-soluble vehicle. The term "watercolor" refers to both the medium and the resulting artwork. The traditional and most common support for watercolor paintings is paper; other supports include papyrus, bark papers, plastics, vellum or leather, fabric, wood, and canvas. Watercolors are usually transparent, and appear luminous because the pigments are laid down in a relatively pure form with few fillers obscuring the pigment colors. Watercolor can also be made opaque by adding Chinese white. In East Asia, watercolor painting with inks is referred to as brush painting or scroll painting. In Chinese, Korean, and Japanese painting it has been the dominant medium, often in monochrome black or browns. India, Ethiopia and other countries also have long traditions. Fingerpainting with watercolor paints originated in China.Although watercolor painting is extremely old, dating perhaps to the cave paintings of paleolithic Europe, and has been used for manuscript illumination since at least Egyptian times but especially in the European Middle Ages, its continuous history as an art medium begins in the Renaissance. The German Northern Renaissance artist Albrecht Dürer (1471–1528) who painted several fine botanical, wildlife and landscape watercolors, is generally considered among the earliest exponents of the medium. An important school of watercolor painting in Germany was led by Hans Bol (1534–1593) as part of the Dürer Renaissance.Despite this early start, watercolors were generally used by Baroque easel painters only for sketches, copies or cartoons (full-scale design drawings). Among notable early practitioners of watercolor painting were Van Dyck (during his stay in England), Claude Lorrain, Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione, and many Dutch and Flemish artists. However, Botanical illustrations and those depicting wildlife are perhaps the oldest and most important tradition in watercolor painting. Botanical illustrations became popular in the Renaissance, both as hand tinted woodblock illustrations in books or broadsheets and as tinted ink drawings on vellum or paper. Botanical artists have always been among the most exacting and accomplished watercolor painters, and even today watercolors—with their unique ability to summarize, clarify and idealize in full color—are used to illustrate scientific and museum publications. Wildlife illustration reached its peak in the 19th century with artists such as John James Audubon, and today many naturalist field guides are still illustrated with watercolor paintings. Many watercolors are more vibrant in pigment if they are higher quality. Some British market watercolors can be found in many craft stores In America and in other countries too.Materials
Paint
Watercolor paint consists of four principal ingredients:
pigments, natural or synthetic, mineral or organic;
gum arabic as a binder to hold the pigment in suspension and fix the pigment to the painting surface;
additives like glycerin, ox gall, honey, preservatives: to alter the viscosity, hiding, durability or color of the pigment and vehicle mixture; and
solvent, the substance used to thin or dilute the paint for application and that evaporates when the paint hardens or dries.
The term "watermedia" refers to any painting medium that uses water as a solvent and that can be applied with a brush, pen or sprayer; this includes most inks, watercolors, temperas, gouaches and modern acrylic paints.
The term watercolor refers to paints that use water soluble, complex carbohydrates as a binder. Originally (16th to 18th centuries) watercolor binders were sugars and/or hide glues, but since the 19th century the preferred binder is natural gum arabic, with glycerin and/or honey as additives to improve plasticity and dissolvability of the binder, and with other chemicals added to improve product shelf life.
Bodycolor refers to paint that is opaque rather than transparent, usually opaque watercolor, which is also known as gouache.[2] Modern acrylic paints are based on a completely different chemistry that uses water soluble acrylic resin as a binder.
Commercial watercolors
Watercolor painters before c.1800 had to make paints themselves using pigments purchased from an apothecary or specialized "colourman"; the earliest commercial paints were small, resinous blocks that had to be wetted and laboriously "rubbed out" in water. William Reeves (1739–1803) set up in business as a colorman about 1766. In 1781 he and his brother, Thomas Reeves, were awarded the Silver Palette of the Society of Arts, for the invention of the moist watercolor paint-cake, a time-saving convenience the introduction of which coincides with the "golden age" of English watercolor painting.
Modern commercial watercolor paints are available in two forms: tubes or pans. The majority of paints sold are in collapsible metal tubes in standard sizes (typically 7.5, 15 or 37 ml.), and are formulated to a consistency similar to toothpaste. Pan paints (actually, small dried cakes or bars of paint in an open plastic container) are usually sold in two sizes, full pans (approximately 3 cc of paint) and half pans (favored for compact paint boxes). Pans are historically older but commonly perceived as less convenient; they are most often used in portable metal paint boxes, also introduced in the mid 19th century, and are preferred by landscape or naturalist painters.
Among the most widely used brands of commercial watercolors today are Daler Rowney, Daniel Smith, DaVinci, Holbein, Maimeri, M. Graham. Reeves, Schmincke, Sennelier, Talens, and Winsor & Newton.
Thanks to modern industrial organic chemistry, the variety, saturation (brilliance) and permanence of artists' colors available today is greater than ever before. However, the art materials industry is far too small to exert any market leverage on global dye or pigment manufacture. With rare exceptions, all modern watercolor paints utilize pigments that were manufactured for use in printing inks, automotive and architectural paints, wood stains, concrete, ceramics and plastics colorants, consumer packaging, foods, medicines, textiles and cosmetics. Paint manufacturers buy very small supplies of these pigments, mill (mechanically mix) them with the vehicle, solvent and additives, and package them.
Color names
Many artists are confused or misled by labeling practices common in the art materials industry. The marketing name for a paint, such as "indian yellow" or "emerald green", is often only a poetic color evocation or proprietary moniker; there is no legal requirement that it describe the pigment that gives the paint its color. More popular color names are "viridian hue" and " chinese white"
To remedy this confusion, in 1990 the art materials industry voluntarily began listing pigment ingredients on the paint packaging, using the common pigment name (such as "cobalt blue" or "cadmium red"), and/or a standard pigment identification code, the generic color index name (PB28 for cobalt blue, PR108 for cadmium red) assigned by the Society of Dyers and Colourists (UK) and the American Association of Textile Chemists and Colorists (USA) and known as the Colour Index International. This allows artists to choose paints according to their pigment ingredients, rather than the poetic labels assigned to them by marketers. Paint pigments and formulations vary across manufacturers, and watercolor paints with the same color name (e.g., "sap green") from different manufacturers can be formulated with completely different ingredients.
Transparency
Watercolor paints are customarily evaluated on a few key attributes. In the partisan debates of the 19th-century English art world, gouache was emphatically contrasted to traditional watercolors and denigrated for its high hiding power or lack of "transparency"; "transparent" watercolors were exalted. Paints with low hiding power are valued because they allow an underdrawing or engraving to show in the image, and because colors can be mixed visually by layering paints on the paper (which itself may be either white or tinted). The resulting color will change depending on the layering order of the pigments. In fact, there are very few genuinely transparent watercolors, neither are there completely opaque watercolors (with the exception of gouache); and any watercolor paint can be made more transparent simply by diluting it with water.
"Transparent" colors do not contain titanium dioxide (white) or most of the earth pigments (sienna, umber, etc.) which are very opaque. The 19th-century claim that "transparent" watercolors gain "luminosity" because they function like a pane of stained glass laid on paper[citation needed] – the color intensified because the light passes through the pigment, reflects from the paper, and passes a second time through the pigment on its way to the viewer—is false: watercolor paints do not form a cohesive paint layer, as do acrylic or oil paints, but simply scatter pigment particles randomly across the paper surface; the transparency consists in the paper being directly visible between the particles.[3] Watercolors appear more vivid than acrylics or oils because the pigments are laid down in a more pure form with no or fewer fillers (such as kaolin) obscuring the pigment colors. Furthermore, typically most or all of the gum binder will be absorbed by the paper, preventing it from changing the visibility of the pigment.[3] Even multiple layers of watercolor do achieve a very luminous effect without fillers or binder obscuring the pigment particles.
Pigments characteristics
Staining is a characteristic assigned to watercolor paints: a staining paint is difficult to remove or lift from the painting support after it has been applied or dried. Less staining colors can be lightened or removed almost entirely when wet, or when rewetted and then "lifted" by stroking gently with a clean, wet brush and then blotted up with a paper towel. In fact, the staining characteristics of a paint depend in large part on the composition of the support (paper) itself, and on the particle size of the pigment. Staining is increased if the paint manufacturer uses a dispersant to reduce the paint milling (mixture) time, because the dispersant acts to drive pigment particles into crevices in the paper pulp, dulling the finished color.
Granulation refers to the appearance of separate, visible pigment particles in the finished color, produced when the paint is substantially diluted with water and applied with a juicy brush stroke; pigments notable for their watercolor granulation include viridian (PG18), cerulean blue (PB35), cobalt violet (PV14) and some iron oxide pigments (PBr7).
Flocculation refers to a peculiar clumping typical of ultramarine pigments (PB29 or PV15). Both effects display the subtle effects of water as the paint dries, are unique to watercolors, and are deemed attractive by accomplished watercolor painters. This contrasts with the trend in commercial paints to suppress pigment textures in favor of homogeneous, flat color.
Grades
Commercial watercolor paints come in three grades: "Artist" (or "Professional"), "Student", and "Scholastic".
Artist Watercolors contain a full pigment load, suspended in a binder, generally natural gum arabic. Artist quality paints are usually formulated with fewer fillers (kaolin or chalk) which results in richer color and vibrant mixes. Conventional watercolors are sold in moist form, in a tube, and are thinned and mixed on a dish or palette. Use them on paper and other absorbent surfaces that have been primed to accept water-based paint.
Student grade paints have less pigment, and often are formulated using two or more less expensive pigments. Student Watercolors have working characteristics similar to professional watercolors, but with lower concentrations of pigment, less expensive formulas, and a smaller range of colors. More expensive pigments are generally replicated by hues. Colors are designed to be mixed, although color strength is lower. Hues may not have the same mixing characteristics as regular full-strength colors.
Scholastic watercolors come in pans rather than tubes, and contain inexpensive pigments and dyes suspended in a synthetic binder. Washable formulations feature colors that are chosen to be non-staining, easily washable, suitable for use even by young children with proper supervision. They are an excellent choice for teaching beginning artists the properties of color and the techniques of painting.
Reserves
As there is no transparent white watercolor, the white parts of a watercolor painting are most often areas of the paper "reserved" (left unpainted) and allowed to be seen in the finished work. To preserve these white areas, many painters use a variety of resists, including masking tape, clear wax or a liquid latex, that are applied to the paper to protect it from paint, then pulled away to reveal the white paper. Resist painting can also be an effective technique for beginning watercolor artists. The painter can use wax crayons or oil pastels prior to painting the paper. The wax or oil mediums repel, or resist the watercolor paint. White paint (titanium dioxide PW6 or zinc oxide PW4) is best used to insert highlights or white accents into a painting. If mixed with other pigments, white paints may cause them to fade or change hue under light exposure. White paint (gouache) mixed with a "transparent" watercolor paint will cause the transparency to disappear and the paint to look much duller. White paint will always appear dull and chalky next to the white of the paper; however this can be used for some effects.
Brushes
A brush consists of three parts: the tuft, the ferrule and the handle.
The tuft is a bundle of animal hairs or synthetic fibers tied tightly together at the base;
The ferrule is a metal sleeve that surrounds the tuft, gives the tuft its cross sectional shape, provides mechanical support under pressure, and protects from water wearing down the glue joint between the trimmed, flat base of the tuft and the handle;
The lacquered wood handle, which is typically shorter in a watercolor brush than in an oil painting brush, has a distinct shape—widest just behind the ferrule and tapering to the tip.
When painting, painters typically hold the brush just behind the ferrule for the smoothest brushstrokes.
Hairs and fibers
Brushes hold paint (the "bead") through the capillary action of the small spaces between the tuft hairs or fibers; paint is released through the contact between the wet paint and the dry paper and the mechanical flexing of the tuft, which opens the spaces between the tuft hairs, relaxing the capillary restraint on the liquid. Because thinned watercolor paint is far less viscous than oil or acrylic paints, the brushes preferred by watercolor painters have a softer and denser tuft. This is customarily achieved by using natural hair harvested from farm raised or trapped animals, in particular sable, squirrel or mongoose. Less expensive brushes, or brushes designed for coarser work, may use horsehair or bristles from pig or ox snouts and ears.
However, as with paints, modern chemistry has developed many synthetic and shaped fibers that rival the stiffness of bristle and mimic the spring and softness of natural hair. Until fairly recently, nylon brushes could not hold a reservoir of water at all so they were extremely inferior to brushes made from natural hair. In recent years, improvements in the holding and pointing properties of synthetic filaments have gained them much greater acceptance among watercolorists.
There is no market regulation on the labeling applied to artists' brushes, but most watercolorists prize brushes from kolinsky (Russian or Chinese) sable. The best of these hairs have a characteristic reddish brown color, darker near the base, and a tapering shaft that is pointed at the tip but widest about halfway toward the root. Squirrel hair is quite thin, straight and typically dark, and makes tufts with a very high liquid capacity; mongoose has a characteristic salt and pepper coloring. Bristle brushes are stiffer and lighter colored. "Camel" is sometimes used to describe hairs from several sources (none of them a camel).
In general, natural hair brushes have superior snap and pointing, a higher capacity (hold a larger bead, produce a longer continuous stroke, and wick up more paint when moist) and a more delicate release. Synthetic brushes tend to dump too much of the paint bead at the beginning of the brush stroke and leave a larger puddle of paint when the brush is lifted from the paper, and they cannot compete with the pointing of natural sable brushes and are much less durable. On the other hand they are typically much cheaper than natural hair, and the best synthetic brushes are now very serviceable; they are also excellent for texturing, shaping, or lifting color, and for the mechanical task of breaking up or rubbing paint to dissolve it in water.
A high quality sable brush has five key attributes: pointing (in a round, the tip of the tuft comes to a fine, precise point that does not splay or split; in a flat, the tuft forms a razor thin, perfectly straight edge); snap (or "spring"; the tuft flexes in direct response to the pressure applied to the paper, and promptly returns to its original shape); capacity (the tuft, for its size, holds a large bead of paint and does not release it as the brush is moved in the air); release (the amount of paint released is proportional to the pressure applied to the paper, and the paint flow can be precisely controlled by the pressure and speed of the stroke as the paint bead is depleted); and durability (a large, high quality brush may withstand decades of daily use).
Most natural hair brushes are sold with the tuft cosmetically shaped with starch or gum, so brushes are difficult to evaluate before purchasing, and durability is only evident after long use. The most common failings of natural hair brushes are that the tuft sheds hairs (although a little shedding is acceptable in a new brush), the ferrule becomes loosened, or the wood handle shrinks, warps, cracks or flakes off its lacquer coating.
Shapes
Natural and synthetic brushes are sold with the tuft shaped for different tasks. Among the most popular are:
Rounds. The tuft has a round cross section but a tapering profile, widest near the ferrule (the "belly") and tapered at the tip (the "point"). These are general purpose brushes that can address almost any task.
Flats. The tuft is compressed laterally by the ferrule into a flat wedge; the tuft appears square when viewed from the side and has a perfectly straight edge. "Brights" are flats in which the tuft is as long as it is wide; "one stroke" brushes are longer than their width. "Sky brushes" or "wash brushes" look like miniature housepainting brushes; the tuft is usually 3 cm to 7 cm wide and is used to paint large areas.
Mops (natural hair only). A round brush, usually of squirrel hair and, decoratively, with a feather quill ferrule that is wrapped with copper wire; these have very high capacity for their size, especially good for wet in wet or wash painting; when moist they can wick up large quantities of paint.
Filbert (or "Cat's Tongue", hair only). A hybrid brush: a flat that comes to a point, like a round, useful for specially shaped brush strokes.
Rigger (hair only). An extremely long, thin tuft, originally used to paint the rigging in nautical portraits.
Fan. A small flat in which the tuft is splayed into a fan shape; used for texturing or painting irregular, parallel hatching lines.
Acrylic. A flat brush with synthetic bristles, attached to a (usually clear) plastic handle with a beveled tip used for scoring or scraping.
A single brush can produce many lines and shapes. A "round" for example, can create thin and thick lines, wide or narrow strips, curves, and other painted effects. A flat brush when used on end can produce thin lines or dashes in addition to the wide swath typical with these brushes, and its brushmarks display the characteristic angle of the tuft corners.
Every watercolor painter works in specific genres and has a personal painting style and "tool discipline", and these largely determine his or her preference for brushes. Artists typically have a few favorites and do most work with just one or two brushes. Brushes are typically the most expensive component of the watercolorist's tools, and a minimal general purpose brush selection would include:
4 round (for detail and drybrush)
8 round
12 or 14 round (for large color areas or washes)
1/2" or 1" flat
12 mop (for washes and wicking)
1/2" acrylic (for dissolving or mixing paints, and scrubbing paints before lifting from the paper)
Major watercolor brush manufacturers include DaVinci, Escoda, Isabey, Raphael, Kolonok, Robert Simmons, Daler-Rowney, Arches, and Winsor & Newton. As with papers and paints, it is common for retailers to commission brushes under their own label from an established manufacturer. Among these are Cheap Joe's, Daniel Smith, Dick Blick and Utrecht.
Sizes
The size of a round brush is designated by a number, which may range from 0000 (for a very tiny round) to 0, then from 1 to 24 or higher. These numbers refer to the size of the brass brushmakers' mould used to shape and align the hairs of the tuft before it is tied off and trimmed, and as with shoe lasts, these sizes vary from one manufacturer to the next. In general a #12 round brush has a tuft about 2 to 2.5 cm long; tufts are generally fatter (wider) in brushes made in England than in brushes made on the Continent: a German or French #14 round is approximately the same size as an English #12. Flats may be designated either by a similar but separate numbering system, but more often are described by the width of the ferrule, measured in centimeters or inches.
Watercolor pencil
Watercolor pencil is another important tool in watercolors techniques. This water-soluble color pencil allows to draw fine details and to blend them with water. Noted artists who use watercolor pencils include illustrator Travis Charest.[4] A similar tool is the watercolor pastel, broader than watercolor pencil, and able to quickly cover a large surface.
Paper
Most watercolor painters before c.1800 had to use whatever paper was at hand: Thomas Gainsborough was delighted to buy some paper used to print a Bath tourist guide, and the young David Cox preferred a heavy paper used to wrap packages. James Whatman first offered a wove watercolor paper in 1788, and the first machinemade ("cartridge") papers from a steam powered mill in 1805.
All art papers can be described by eight attributes: furnish, color, weight, finish, sizing, dimensions, permanence and packaging. Watercolor painters typically paint on paper specifically formulated for watermedia applications. Fine watermedia papers are manufactured under the brand names Arches, Bockingford, Cartiera Magnani, Fabriano, Hahnemühle, Lanaquarelle, The Langton, The Langton Prestige, Millford, Saunders Waterford, Strathmore, Winsor & Newton and Zerkall; and there has been a recent remarkable resurgence in handmade papers, notably those by Twinrocker, Velke Losiny, Ruscombe Mill and St. Armand.
Watercolor paper is essentially Blotting paper marketed and sold as an art paper, and the two can be used interchangeably, as watercolor paper is more easily obtainable than blotter and can be used as a substitute for blotter. Lower end watercolor papers can resemble heavy paper more while higher end varieties are usually entirely cotton and more porous like blotter. Watercolor paper is traditionally torn and not cut.
Furnish
The traditional furnish or material content of watercolor papers is cellulose, a structural carbohydrate found in many plants. The most common sources of paper cellulose are cotton, linen, or alpha cellulose extracted from wood pulp. To make paper, the cellulose is wetted, mechanically macerated or pounded, chemically treated, rinsed and filtered to the consistency of thin oatmeal, then poured out into paper making moulds. In handmade papers, the pulp is hand poured ("cast") into individual paper moulds (a mesh screen stretched within a wood frame) and shaken by hand into an even layer. In industrial paper production, the pulp is formed by large papermaking machines that spread the paper over large cylinders—either heated metal cylinders that rotate at high speed (machinemade papers) or wire mesh cylinders that rotate at low speed (mouldmade papers). Both types of machine produce the paper in a continuous roll or web, which is then cut into individual sheets.
Weight
The basis weight of the paper is a measure of its density and thickness. It is described as the gram weight of one square meter of a single sheet of the paper, or grams per square meter (gsm). Most watercolor papers sold today are in the range between 280gsm to 640gsm. (The previous Imperial system, expressed as the weight in pounds of one ream or 500 sheets of the paper, regardless of its size, obsolete in some areas, is still used in the United States. The most common weights under this system are 300 lb (heaviest), 200 lb 140 lb, and 90 lb.) Heavier paper is sometimes preferred over lighter weight or thinner paper because it does not buckle and can hold up to scrubbing and extremely wet washes. Watercolor papers are typically almost a pure white, sometimes slightly yellow (called natural white), though many tinted or colored papers are available. An important diagnostic is the rattle of the paper, or the sound it makes when held aloft by one corner and shaken vigorously. Papers that are dense and made from heavily macerated pulp have a bright, metallic rattle, while papers that are spongy or made with lightly macerated pulp have a muffled, rubbery rattle.
Finish
All papers obtain a texture from the mold used to make them: a wove finish results from a uniform metal screen (like a window screen); a laid finish results from a screen made of narrowly spaced horizontal wires separated by widely spaced vertical wires. The finish is also affected by the methods used to wick and dry the paper after it is "couched" (removed) from the paper mold or is pulled off the papermaking cylinder.
Watercolor papers come in three basic finishes: hot pressed (HP), cold press (CP, or in the UK "Not", for "not hot pressed"), and rough (R). These vary greatly from manufacturer to manufacturer.
Rough papers are typically dried by hanging them like laundry ("loft drying") so that the sheets are not exposed to any pressure after they are couched; the wove finish has a pitted, uneven texture that is prized for its ability to accent the texture of watercolor pigments and brushstrokes.
Cold pressed papers are dried in large stacks, between absorbent felt blankets; this acts to flatten out about half of the texture found in the rough sheets. CP papers are valued for their versatility.
Hot pressed papers are cold pressed sheets that are passed through heated, compressing metal cylinders (called "calendering"), which flattens almost all the texture in the sheets. HP papers are valued because they are relatively nonabsorbent: pigments remain on the paper surface, brightening the color, and water is not absorbed, so it can produce a variety of water stains or marks as it dries.
These designations are only relative; the CP paper from one manufacturer may be rougher than the R paper from another manufacturer. Fabriano even offers a "soft press" (SP) sheet intermediate between CP and HP.
Sizing
Watercolor papers are traditionally sized, or treated with a substance to reduce the cellulose absorbency. Internal sizing is added to the paper pulp after rinsing and before it is cast in the paper mould; external or "tub" sizing is applied to the paper surface after the paper has dried. The traditional sizing has been gelatin, gum arabic or rosin, though modern synthetic substitutes (alkyl ketene dimers such as Aquapel) are now used instead. The highly absorbent papers that contain no sizing are designated waterleaf.
Dimensions
Most art papers are sold as single sheets of paper in standard sizes. Most common is the full sheet (22" x 30"), and half sheets (15" x 22") or quarter sheets (15" x 11") derived from it. Larger (and less standardized) sheets include the double elephant (within an inch or two of 30" x 40") and emperor (40" x 60"), which are the largest sheets commercially available. Papers are also manufactured in rolls, up to about 60" wide and 30 feet long. Finally, papers are also sold as watercolor "blocks"—a pad of 20 or so sheets of paper, cut to identical dimensions and glued on all four sides, which provides high dimensional stability and portability, though block papers tend to have subdued finishes. The painter simply works on the exposed sheet and, when finished, uses a knife to cut the adhesive around the four sides, separating the painting and revealing the fresh paper underneath.
Gateway Camp Verse
(Pin1) Ging1 Mahn4
Isaiah 62:10
What Dale instructed about going out of our way to treat the Mainland Chinese well resonated within me. To be sure, just as the Koreans have gone out of their way to bless me so I must step out to bless and to love my Mainland brethren.
After the first meeting, Ed and I wandered off campus and found inside a shopping mall a cha chaan teng where we had a late-night snack. And hardly had we tucked into our meals when in walked several dozen volunteers, all locals, who were overcome, it seemed, by the same munchies that infected Ed and me. It’s surprising how such a primal urge, at such a time, drives everyone to no less than the same, impossibly far location.
I thus far have met so many people that, had I not brought along my iPod, I would have already lost track of the multitudinous names flying around like fireflies at night, sparkling luminously one moment and then disappearing the next. And this is only the beginning: more and more people will arrive both today and tomorrow so I had better stay awake, alert, and writing.
I am working with a partner who really challenges me, and indeed that is why I chose to work with him. From the first words that came streaming out of his mouth, I knew he would be a special one, and as if to conifrm my conjecture, indeed, the more he spoke, the more confused I became. The challenge, I have realized after much ruminating, isn’t so much the pace of his speech as his choice of words, which fall outside a normal lexical range; that is, at least with me, when he talks, he doesn’t use familiar collocations to communicate; besides, he has an uncanny Tin Shui Wai accent; those, along with his amazing resistance to Chinglish, which impresses me, by the way, have made our communication tedious, since I am bombarded by peculiar lexical constructions that I generally never encounter in Cantonese conversation and must therefore stop our flow to clarify his speech. It’s too bad that he doesn’t speak English as I would love to hear how he structures ideas in my native language to determine whether or not this strange lexis has spilled over into his other modes of communication.
Regardless, in being with him, I have learned to be patient, and if I am truly to walk away from resentment, I must continue rather to engage him than to keep him at arm’s length. It helps us, then, that he is a congenial fellow, prone more to expressing love, much in the same way that I do by warmly grabbing a forearm or a shoulder, than to venting his frustration, which with me could certainly be great. He is verily a good guy, and so long as the Lord keeps him — I am sure Daddy will — Tin Shui Wai, that small patch of concrete moon colony, is in capable, faithful human hands.
Sau2 muhn6 je2
Mihng6 dihng6
Kyuhn4 lihk6
Lihk6 leuhng6
Chong3 yi3 adjective
Chong3 jouh6 verb
Romans 5:3-5
Not only so, but we rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom He has given us.
I cried this morning when I read these words, because they are true, and comfort my soul as water to a dry, parched land. However many times I’ve lamented this place and its people, I am still inextricably tied to this rock, per God’s will for my life; and God really is faithful in providing a way out not from this place but from these spiritual hindrances. These past few days, what with communication failures and fatigue setting in, I could have more easily give into my rationality, in defense of my weaknesses, than resisted this bait of satan. Thank God, hence, for the words which are like fuel for the refiner’s fire that burns up all my expectations, my pride and my flesh. I can survive, nay, rejoice, indeed, because of God, who, in me, day by day teaches me to suffer long with a smile.
This is what the gateway is all about, I believe: jumping head-first out of my comfort zone to confront the nations, for my brothers and sisters and I must face each other if we are to raise the banners together. Battling through enemy strongholds of mistrust ad resentment, we demolish carnal thoughts and dig deep in the Spirit for the unity that shall overcome as much language as culture; God, after all, is bigger, even, than the battlefield. In these ways can my brethren and I love each other as ourselves, as we shall be one in the Father, with audacious power and boldness laying hands on His kingdom which advances, in this kairos moment, over all of China, including, no doubt, Hong Kong. No longer will there be curses thrown upon the nations; but rather the river of life will flow through the city, and the leaves of the tree on each side of the river will be for the healing of the nations.
1) Welcoming the Father
2) Unifying the body
3) Partnering with the Chinese
4) Serving the city
5) Supporting the Chinese
Isaac and I have worked quite hard this morning, putting up signs all over campus, and as if to reward me for my assiduity, he offered to buy me a drink, an offer which I took up. Indeed, this man’s care and concern for others, genuine, doubtlessly, fills me with joy, for, to be sure, the joy of the lord is his strength. My friend is indefatigable, always encouraging and never slighting, no matter the circumstances, rain (that has happened a lot today) or shine. Praise God!
Much like my relationship with Isaac, my relationships with my other team members have improved considerably since, even, this morning’s briefing during which, the code-switching, happening too fast and too furiously for my comfort, vexed me so terribly that if Isaac had not put a generous arm around my shoulder immediately afterwards, I surely would have blown my top in frustration at the perplexing language option. Thankfully, my team and I settled our language arrangements: Isaac, Dorcas and I will intractably speak Cantonese to each other whereas my other group mates and I will use English with as little code-switching as possible; and I, along with Ed, no doubt, am satisfied. It’s best to avoid misunderstandings.
Lihng4 Mahn4 (soul)
Sihng4 jeung2
Muhng6 Seung2 (dreams)
The Lord’s mercies are new everyday. Just now, during the morning rally, by His Spirit, hundreds of brothers and sisters received a new anointing, to be spiritual mothers and fathers of a new generation so as to minister to the next. This outpouring of the Spirit was sudden, and so captivated me that when the call came to reap, I rushed to the front to ask my father for this anointing, and naturally, my life was transformed. In the same way, the pastor called up a new generation of spiritual children to receive the love, care and support of these new parents; and likewise, so many young men and women heeded this call that verily, the pit in front of the stage was soon awash in hugs and tears between generations that, once lost, were now found. Indeed, no sooner did these people embrace their father than Dad immediately swept them up in his strong arms and showered them with audacious encouragement and support. Praise God!
An Outburst
I was angry this morning during our team time. I temporarily lost my ability to be merciful and to live in God’s grace. When my team leader began to address me in English, yet again, I couldn’t help but berate him for doing so when Cantonese, I argued, would be a more economical medium of delivery. And then I compounded this already incendiary situation by ranting about the hypocrisy of Hong Kong being a gateway to China but not a gateway into its own neighborhoods teeming with Chinese people, 97% of whom, according to one of the pastors at this camp, do not know the Lord Jesus. Cantonese will matter, I posit, if anyone dares to take on the onerous mission in this vexing place.
To be sure, even my brother announced that language was a prohibitive barrier to closer relationships with these local people, and therefore, since he neither speaks Cantonese nor is going to give learning the language a go, he is relegated to the outer walls of the gates into Hong Kong.
In hindsight, I thought I cared enough about God’s purposes for me in Hong Kong, but I realize now that I still care a lot about myself, and resentment. Though I have prayed and declared boldly that God is bigger than language and culture, I know I don’t believe it; and that’s upsetting. For the time being, I don’t verily believe in my heart that I can have deeper, closer relationships with Chinese people without the benefit of language and culture, patterns of action.
OK. This is actually an opportune start for my spiritual parentship, for now I have an opportunity to put aside my very compelling arguments for the necessity of language and culture in deep and close relationships, these conclusions born out of my reason, and to step out in faith, to trust in the Lord who, I pray, will show me deep and close relationships sans language and culture, and with whom my deep and close relationship shall obviously be the key to this victory.
I’m thinking about events at this camp that heretofore demonstrated loving relationships without language and culture, and I recalled two acts: the first happened yesterday when I spontaneously joined a line of ushers to high-five and to cheer the audience as they flooded out of the auditorium, the morning rally having scarcely finished; and the second, this was my meeting Yao, a man from the Ivory Coast, whom I befriended in those first, fleeting, if not frantic moments before the opening rally on Friday evening. That encounter was immediate and sudden, neither words nor habits needed; Yao and I simply high-fived, hugged and sat beside each other; and wow, that was terrific companionship — praise God!
Finally, however hard my diatribe may have struck my team members’ hearts, my merciful group mates still forgave me, not only on an personal level, but also, as I had sought forgiveness on behalf of all foreigners who have ever cursed locals or stood passively outside the gateway, on a corporate level, thereby releasing countless non-Chinese people into the freedom of these Hong Kong people’s forgiveness; just as brothers and sisters had so recently been reconciled to each other in my church, so local and non-local people have received the others’ freedom of forgiveness; more than a homecoming, that, indeed, is a breakthrough.
In listening to this morning’s sermon, I hear such verses as I know God is speaking to me through His word. 2Corinthians 4:16-18, this scripture in particular carries a buoyant, hopeful currency in my heart. My spirit soaks in this divine revelation as a sponge soaks in water and thus becomes malleable, able to be formed and shaped according to its holder’s will: Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.
Disagreeable
I don’t know why my brother and I undermine each others’ comments; why we no more know consensus than the deaf music. Our interactions have been especially abrasive recently since we have spent so much time together without the benefit of our other brother to act as a natural, vociferous buffer; and as a result we argue like pieces of sand paper being rubbed against flesh, which inevitably leads to significant soreness. I feel sore now.
I think back to my outburst this morning and can appreciate my role in this evening’s embarrassing outcome; I am certainly not without fault, for I choose these days not only to venture my opinions but to do so passionately, if not emotionally. People consequently who otherwise are phlegmatic at best are put in a discomfiting position by my impassioned pleas. Besides, I recall Interrupting my brother prolifically, which understandably would not make him a happy camper; just as a hyperactive child doesn’t know when to stop pestering his sibling, so I don’t know nowadays when to hold my tongue. Indeed, I would rather not respond at all to my brother, even after he has fired off his rejoinder, than to strike him down in mid-speech.
In view of this latest incident, I have resolved to take the former course of action. To be sure, I simply stopped our petty dispute about a stupid basketball game by, awkward as it was, taking out my book and perusing it as fixedly as my tattered mind would allow. I will try my best to stay away from my brother for a spell, to create physical and spiritual space between us, so hopefully, in this way at least one of us will be able to come to his senses about this matter; better yet, now would be an opportune time for our father in his mercy to reveal to us the fault lines in our flesh so that we could surrender these tremulous spots in our soul, crucifying them to the father for our healing and the redemption of our relationship. I will pray about this.
…Praise God. If I had not separated myself from my brother’s presence, I wouldn’t have been sitting at that bench at the exact moment when Isaac came over to me in a plaintive mood. Obviously upset, he had been so recently wronged, he lamented on the verge of tears. And at that, mercy swept over my countenance, for my brother felt as aggrieved as I did earlier; and this appointment, per God’s unfailing, obstinate love, had at last come for me, convicting me to be very, very agreeable, sympathetic and kind to my fellow long-suffering brother. In this instance, thank God, language did not matter so much as empathy, carrying each others’ burdens and thus fulfilling the rule of Christ. We prayed and blessed each other in Jesus’ name, and then boldly went forward into the rally.
I suspect the enemy has infiltrated our team what with my outbursts and Isaac’s failing out as evidence. My group mates and I must be more vigilant in prayer and in digging deep into the Father’s word if we are to overcome the spies in our camp that have planted incendiary devices in our mouths and in our hearts. We certainly need such encouragement as the Lord provides for the edification and encouragement of each other, even more so, in fact, in the face of adversity, despite our fatigue and other physical ills that befall us like a hail of arrows. In faith, I’m sure, faith will see us through; and per what the pastors exhorted at the rally, we will become as if the smooth stone in David’s sling, ready to fly into the air to crush the Goliath in this world.
Sihng4 jauh6 achievement
Ngwuih misunderstanding
Nggaai2 to misunderstand
Yuhn4 leuhng6 forgive
Gaan2syun2 chosen
The Security Guard
At the morning rally, a security guard left an indelible impression on my heart what with her showing of unconditional support and her proffering of words of encouragement, which like a waterfall fell in force and power over my friends and me. To my amazement, I first saw her out of the corner of my eye stepping out of her role as a security guard to pray as a spiritual parent to two spiritual children during the morning rally’s prayer time; there she was, clad in her blue uniform, laying hands on those weeping kids; finally, I had witnessed someone courageous enough to step out of that rule of law, her boundary in Hong Kong, to be bound to that which is ethereal, the rule of Christ to carry each others’ burdens. Later, as the audience passed through the exit, I had time to confirm her love for the Lord and at that, we broke into a torrent of encouragement and followed this with a flurry of picture-taking. Indeed, never have I stumbled upon such good will from a dragon security guard in HK so I am hopeful, therefore, that this is but the the start of a greater movement within that particular demon-worshipping core, that at this time, God is opening up the heavenly armory and placing his prayer warriors inside that particular stronghold in Hong Kong to demolish every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God and placing in its stead a profusion of love, gentleness and kindness. I look forward to the day when wisdom, and not languid stares, shall emanate from all the people who man the facilities in these universities.
Reconciliation
This is special. No sooner had Isaac and I stepped into the auditorium than we heard the plaintive cry of the mainland Chinese on the stage forgiving the Hong Kong people for their trespasses against their brethren from the north. A flurry of hugs, replete with a few tears, ensued. That was, as Dale announced from the stage, a delicious moment. Jesus must have been breaking out the good champagne in heaven for a rousing celebration in view of this victory.
Sex Talk – Part One
The kids finally received the sex talk this morning; a fiery pastor delivered the message which was as much shocking as informative; and gasps and wincing abounded in the audience.
While I have recently heard the sex talk at the men’s retreat, and have furthermore by God’s grace been inoculated against this particular area of struggle, it was nonetheless refreshing to hear the news, as shocking and as sensational as it was. I am willing, in addition, to believe that some of the atrocious acts that the pastor referenced, such as gruesome abortions and bizarre sexual acts, are more prevalent than my reason will believe, because my scope is limited by experience, but as the Father witnesses everything, if the Spirit has convicted this man and has told him that the world is heading closer and closer into the mouth of Jezebel in this way, I accept this. In fact, believing this is important if I am to be a good spiritual parent who will not only protect but educate the new generation from the prowling enemy that lurks these days, even, in our computers.
Prayer
The Holy Spirit fell over me this morning during my group’s team time. He convicted me to pray in Cantonese for the first time, and so I did without fear, those Chinese words pouring out of me as if perfume from an alabaster jar. Praise God: he is good; and this was the moment I have been waiting for.
I think about what happened, and am amazed at the Father’s favor; despite my critiques against this culture, and in spite of my recent lamentations, the Lord, ever faithfully, provided a way out under which I could stand and by which I could be protected from the bait of Satan. Little did I know that the escape route would, in fact, ironically, direct me to the very thing that heretofore has stood as an obstruction, a spiritual roadblock, in my mind.
A missionary on the stage just spoke into my life when she said about her experience learning Putonghua in China: the difficult part was not learning the language but learning to love those people as Jesus loves them. This will always be my mission, no matter where I am.
Keuhng4 jong3
Lai1 hei2 (pull up)
In the afternoon, my team had a reconciliation meeting during which, in small groups, each team member at last was given an opportunity to share alternately their joys and struggles. At that time, though having staved off an open rebuke for several days, I could no longer hold back this challenge to my small group: to step out in faith to be a gateway to the nations; and second, per the morning’s message, to on their guard against the sexually explicit, insidious media. I laid out my argument with much cogency, and such a response as I saw fit knocked my group mates into a stupor, because they certainly didn’t have much to say afterwards.
Oscillate between…and…
Vacillate…
Equivocated
Prevaricate
Sex Talk – Part Two
1) Jesus came to show us the Father; John1:18
2) Grace First, Truth Second; John 1:24:25; 16-18
Pahn4 mohng6 (hope)
Do you believe that Jesus can heal you? Then lay hands.
Dale and I are men who have shared similar struggles. His testimony is riveting.
Suddenly, I realized that this rally is, in fact, a continuation of yesterday morning’s sex talk, because we ended the previous rally praying more against the shame of abortion than against personal sexual immorality. Notionally, what is being discussed will enable people to really experience the love of the Father such that to change permanently our behavior. So when we are tempted:
1) Call for help; Romans 10:13
2) Escape Plan; 1Corinthians 10:13
Remember not to stand and rebuke the enemy with your own strength; move physically from the situation.
3) Run Away; 2Timothy 2:22
4) Into the Father’s Arms; Hebrews 4:14
I like this talk. This might be the first time that these young people get straight sex talk from their leaders; and there is no better time than now for these young people to break through in this particular area of struggle, just as the young men of SP broke through these obstinate barriers during our men’s retreat.
5) Confess and be Healed; James 5:16
I hope these young people find faithful accountability brothers and sisters in this service.
6) Walk in Transparent Accountable Relationships; 1John 1:7
7) Resist the Enemy; James 4:7
Watercolor (American English) or watercolour (Commonwealth and Ireland), also aquarelle from French, is a painting method in which the paints are made of pigments suspended in a water-soluble vehicle. The term "watercolor" refers to both the medium and the resulting artwork. The traditional and most common support for watercolor paintings is paper; other supports include papyrus, bark papers, plastics, vellum or leather, fabric, wood, and canvas. Watercolors are usually transparent, and appear luminous because the pigments are laid down in a relatively pure form with few fillers obscuring the pigment colors. Watercolor can also be made opaque by adding Chinese white. In East Asia, watercolor painting with inks is referred to as brush painting or scroll painting. In Chinese, Korean, and Japanese painting it has been the dominant medium, often in monochrome black or browns. India, Ethiopia and other countries also have long traditions. Fingerpainting with watercolor paints originated in China.Although watercolor painting is extremely old, dating perhaps to the cave paintings of paleolithic Europe, and has been used for manuscript illumination since at least Egyptian times but especially in the European Middle Ages, its continuous history as an art medium begins in the Renaissance. The German Northern Renaissance artist Albrecht Dürer (1471–1528) who painted several fine botanical, wildlife and landscape watercolors, is generally considered among the earliest exponents of the medium. An important school of watercolor painting in Germany was led by Hans Bol (1534–1593) as part of the Dürer Renaissance.Despite this early start, watercolors were generally used by Baroque easel painters only for sketches, copies or cartoons (full-scale design drawings). Among notable early practitioners of watercolor painting were Van Dyck (during his stay in England), Claude Lorrain, Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione, and many Dutch and Flemish artists. However, Botanical illustrations and those depicting wildlife are perhaps the oldest and most important tradition in watercolor painting. Botanical illustrations became popular in the Renaissance, both as hand tinted woodblock illustrations in books or broadsheets and as tinted ink drawings on vellum or paper. Botanical artists have always been among the most exacting and accomplished watercolor painters, and even today watercolors—with their unique ability to summarize, clarify and idealize in full color—are used to illustrate scientific and museum publications. Wildlife illustration reached its peak in the 19th century with artists such as John James Audubon, and today many naturalist field guides are still illustrated with watercolor paintings. Many watercolors are more vibrant in pigment if they are higher quality. Some British market watercolors can be found in many craft stores In America and in other countries too.Materials
Paint
Watercolor paint consists of four principal ingredients:
pigments, natural or synthetic, mineral or organic;
gum arabic as a binder to hold the pigment in suspension and fix the pigment to the painting surface;
additives like glycerin, ox gall, honey, preservatives: to alter the viscosity, hiding, durability or color of the pigment and vehicle mixture; and
solvent, the substance used to thin or dilute the paint for application and that evaporates when the paint hardens or dries.
The term "watermedia" refers to any painting medium that uses water as a solvent and that can be applied with a brush, pen or sprayer; this includes most inks, watercolors, temperas, gouaches and modern acrylic paints.
The term watercolor refers to paints that use water soluble, complex carbohydrates as a binder. Originally (16th to 18th centuries) watercolor binders were sugars and/or hide glues, but since the 19th century the preferred binder is natural gum arabic, with glycerin and/or honey as additives to improve plasticity and dissolvability of the binder, and with other chemicals added to improve product shelf life.
Bodycolor refers to paint that is opaque rather than transparent, usually opaque watercolor, which is also known as gouache.[2] Modern acrylic paints are based on a completely different chemistry that uses water soluble acrylic resin as a binder.
Commercial watercolors
Watercolor painters before c.1800 had to make paints themselves using pigments purchased from an apothecary or specialized "colourman"; the earliest commercial paints were small, resinous blocks that had to be wetted and laboriously "rubbed out" in water. William Reeves (1739–1803) set up in business as a colorman about 1766. In 1781 he and his brother, Thomas Reeves, were awarded the Silver Palette of the Society of Arts, for the invention of the moist watercolor paint-cake, a time-saving convenience the introduction of which coincides with the "golden age" of English watercolor painting.
Modern commercial watercolor paints are available in two forms: tubes or pans. The majority of paints sold are in collapsible metal tubes in standard sizes (typically 7.5, 15 or 37 ml.), and are formulated to a consistency similar to toothpaste. Pan paints (actually, small dried cakes or bars of paint in an open plastic container) are usually sold in two sizes, full pans (approximately 3 cc of paint) and half pans (favored for compact paint boxes). Pans are historically older but commonly perceived as less convenient; they are most often used in portable metal paint boxes, also introduced in the mid 19th century, and are preferred by landscape or naturalist painters.
Among the most widely used brands of commercial watercolors today are Daler Rowney, Daniel Smith, DaVinci, Holbein, Maimeri, M. Graham. Reeves, Schmincke, Sennelier, Talens, and Winsor & Newton.
Thanks to modern industrial organic chemistry, the variety, saturation (brilliance) and permanence of artists' colors available today is greater than ever before. However, the art materials industry is far too small to exert any market leverage on global dye or pigment manufacture. With rare exceptions, all modern watercolor paints utilize pigments that were manufactured for use in printing inks, automotive and architectural paints, wood stains, concrete, ceramics and plastics colorants, consumer packaging, foods, medicines, textiles and cosmetics. Paint manufacturers buy very small supplies of these pigments, mill (mechanically mix) them with the vehicle, solvent and additives, and package them.
Color names
Many artists are confused or misled by labeling practices common in the art materials industry. The marketing name for a paint, such as "indian yellow" or "emerald green", is often only a poetic color evocation or proprietary moniker; there is no legal requirement that it describe the pigment that gives the paint its color. More popular color names are "viridian hue" and " chinese white"
To remedy this confusion, in 1990 the art materials industry voluntarily began listing pigment ingredients on the paint packaging, using the common pigment name (such as "cobalt blue" or "cadmium red"), and/or a standard pigment identification code, the generic color index name (PB28 for cobalt blue, PR108 for cadmium red) assigned by the Society of Dyers and Colourists (UK) and the American Association of Textile Chemists and Colorists (USA) and known as the Colour Index International. This allows artists to choose paints according to their pigment ingredients, rather than the poetic labels assigned to them by marketers. Paint pigments and formulations vary across manufacturers, and watercolor paints with the same color name (e.g., "sap green") from different manufacturers can be formulated with completely different ingredients.
Transparency
Watercolor paints are customarily evaluated on a few key attributes. In the partisan debates of the 19th-century English art world, gouache was emphatically contrasted to traditional watercolors and denigrated for its high hiding power or lack of "transparency"; "transparent" watercolors were exalted. Paints with low hiding power are valued because they allow an underdrawing or engraving to show in the image, and because colors can be mixed visually by layering paints on the paper (which itself may be either white or tinted). The resulting color will change depending on the layering order of the pigments. In fact, there are very few genuinely transparent watercolors, neither are there completely opaque watercolors (with the exception of gouache); and any watercolor paint can be made more transparent simply by diluting it with water.
"Transparent" colors do not contain titanium dioxide (white) or most of the earth pigments (sienna, umber, etc.) which are very opaque. The 19th-century claim that "transparent" watercolors gain "luminosity" because they function like a pane of stained glass laid on paper[citation needed] – the color intensified because the light passes through the pigment, reflects from the paper, and passes a second time through the pigment on its way to the viewer—is false: watercolor paints do not form a cohesive paint layer, as do acrylic or oil paints, but simply scatter pigment particles randomly across the paper surface; the transparency consists in the paper being directly visible between the particles.[3] Watercolors appear more vivid than acrylics or oils because the pigments are laid down in a more pure form with no or fewer fillers (such as kaolin) obscuring the pigment colors. Furthermore, typically most or all of the gum binder will be absorbed by the paper, preventing it from changing the visibility of the pigment.[3] Even multiple layers of watercolor do achieve a very luminous effect without fillers or binder obscuring the pigment particles.
Pigments characteristics
Staining is a characteristic assigned to watercolor paints: a staining paint is difficult to remove or lift from the painting support after it has been applied or dried. Less staining colors can be lightened or removed almost entirely when wet, or when rewetted and then "lifted" by stroking gently with a clean, wet brush and then blotted up with a paper towel. In fact, the staining characteristics of a paint depend in large part on the composition of the support (paper) itself, and on the particle size of the pigment. Staining is increased if the paint manufacturer uses a dispersant to reduce the paint milling (mixture) time, because the dispersant acts to drive pigment particles into crevices in the paper pulp, dulling the finished color.
Granulation refers to the appearance of separate, visible pigment particles in the finished color, produced when the paint is substantially diluted with water and applied with a juicy brush stroke; pigments notable for their watercolor granulation include viridian (PG18), cerulean blue (PB35), cobalt violet (PV14) and some iron oxide pigments (PBr7).
Flocculation refers to a peculiar clumping typical of ultramarine pigments (PB29 or PV15). Both effects display the subtle effects of water as the paint dries, are unique to watercolors, and are deemed attractive by accomplished watercolor painters. This contrasts with the trend in commercial paints to suppress pigment textures in favor of homogeneous, flat color.
Grades
Commercial watercolor paints come in three grades: "Artist" (or "Professional"), "Student", and "Scholastic".
Artist Watercolors contain a full pigment load, suspended in a binder, generally natural gum arabic. Artist quality paints are usually formulated with fewer fillers (kaolin or chalk) which results in richer color and vibrant mixes. Conventional watercolors are sold in moist form, in a tube, and are thinned and mixed on a dish or palette. Use them on paper and other absorbent surfaces that have been primed to accept water-based paint.
Student grade paints have less pigment, and often are formulated using two or more less expensive pigments. Student Watercolors have working characteristics similar to professional watercolors, but with lower concentrations of pigment, less expensive formulas, and a smaller range of colors. More expensive pigments are generally replicated by hues. Colors are designed to be mixed, although color strength is lower. Hues may not have the same mixing characteristics as regular full-strength colors.
Scholastic watercolors come in pans rather than tubes, and contain inexpensive pigments and dyes suspended in a synthetic binder. Washable formulations feature colors that are chosen to be non-staining, easily washable, suitable for use even by young children with proper supervision. They are an excellent choice for teaching beginning artists the properties of color and the techniques of painting.
Reserves
As there is no transparent white watercolor, the white parts of a watercolor painting are most often areas of the paper "reserved" (left unpainted) and allowed to be seen in the finished work. To preserve these white areas, many painters use a variety of resists, including masking tape, clear wax or a liquid latex, that are applied to the paper to protect it from paint, then pulled away to reveal the white paper. Resist painting can also be an effective technique for beginning watercolor artists. The painter can use wax crayons or oil pastels prior to painting the paper. The wax or oil mediums repel, or resist the watercolor paint. White paint (titanium dioxide PW6 or zinc oxide PW4) is best used to insert highlights or white accents into a painting. If mixed with other pigments, white paints may cause them to fade or change hue under light exposure. White paint (gouache) mixed with a "transparent" watercolor paint will cause the transparency to disappear and the paint to look much duller. White paint will always appear dull and chalky next to the white of the paper; however this can be used for some effects.
Brushes
A brush consists of three parts: the tuft, the ferrule and the handle.
The tuft is a bundle of animal hairs or synthetic fibers tied tightly together at the base;
The ferrule is a metal sleeve that surrounds the tuft, gives the tuft its cross sectional shape, provides mechanical support under pressure, and protects from water wearing down the glue joint between the trimmed, flat base of the tuft and the handle;
The lacquered wood handle, which is typically shorter in a watercolor brush than in an oil painting brush, has a distinct shape—widest just behind the ferrule and tapering to the tip.
When painting, painters typically hold the brush just behind the ferrule for the smoothest brushstrokes.
Hairs and fibers
Brushes hold paint (the "bead") through the capillary action of the small spaces between the tuft hairs or fibers; paint is released through the contact between the wet paint and the dry paper and the mechanical flexing of the tuft, which opens the spaces between the tuft hairs, relaxing the capillary restraint on the liquid. Because thinned watercolor paint is far less viscous than oil or acrylic paints, the brushes preferred by watercolor painters have a softer and denser tuft. This is customarily achieved by using natural hair harvested from farm raised or trapped animals, in particular sable, squirrel or mongoose. Less expensive brushes, or brushes designed for coarser work, may use horsehair or bristles from pig or ox snouts and ears.
However, as with paints, modern chemistry has developed many synthetic and shaped fibers that rival the stiffness of bristle and mimic the spring and softness of natural hair. Until fairly recently, nylon brushes could not hold a reservoir of water at all so they were extremely inferior to brushes made from natural hair. In recent years, improvements in the holding and pointing properties of synthetic filaments have gained them much greater acceptance among watercolorists.
There is no market regulation on the labeling applied to artists' brushes, but most watercolorists prize brushes from kolinsky (Russian or Chinese) sable. The best of these hairs have a characteristic reddish brown color, darker near the base, and a tapering shaft that is pointed at the tip but widest about halfway toward the root. Squirrel hair is quite thin, straight and typically dark, and makes tufts with a very high liquid capacity; mongoose has a characteristic salt and pepper coloring. Bristle brushes are stiffer and lighter colored. "Camel" is sometimes used to describe hairs from several sources (none of them a camel).
In general, natural hair brushes have superior snap and pointing, a higher capacity (hold a larger bead, produce a longer continuous stroke, and wick up more paint when moist) and a more delicate release. Synthetic brushes tend to dump too much of the paint bead at the beginning of the brush stroke and leave a larger puddle of paint when the brush is lifted from the paper, and they cannot compete with the pointing of natural sable brushes and are much less durable. On the other hand they are typically much cheaper than natural hair, and the best synthetic brushes are now very serviceable; they are also excellent for texturing, shaping, or lifting color, and for the mechanical task of breaking up or rubbing paint to dissolve it in water.
A high quality sable brush has five key attributes: pointing (in a round, the tip of the tuft comes to a fine, precise point that does not splay or split; in a flat, the tuft forms a razor thin, perfectly straight edge); snap (or "spring"; the tuft flexes in direct response to the pressure applied to the paper, and promptly returns to its original shape); capacity (the tuft, for its size, holds a large bead of paint and does not release it as the brush is moved in the air); release (the amount of paint released is proportional to the pressure applied to the paper, and the paint flow can be precisely controlled by the pressure and speed of the stroke as the paint bead is depleted); and durability (a large, high quality brush may withstand decades of daily use).
Most natural hair brushes are sold with the tuft cosmetically shaped with starch or gum, so brushes are difficult to evaluate before purchasing, and durability is only evident after long use. The most common failings of natural hair brushes are that the tuft sheds hairs (although a little shedding is acceptable in a new brush), the ferrule becomes loosened, or the wood handle shrinks, warps, cracks or flakes off its lacquer coating.
Shapes
Natural and synthetic brushes are sold with the tuft shaped for different tasks. Among the most popular are:
Rounds. The tuft has a round cross section but a tapering profile, widest near the ferrule (the "belly") and tapered at the tip (the "point"). These are general purpose brushes that can address almost any task.
Flats. The tuft is compressed laterally by the ferrule into a flat wedge; the tuft appears square when viewed from the side and has a perfectly straight edge. "Brights" are flats in which the tuft is as long as it is wide; "one stroke" brushes are longer than their width. "Sky brushes" or "wash brushes" look like miniature housepainting brushes; the tuft is usually 3 cm to 7 cm wide and is used to paint large areas.
Mops (natural hair only). A round brush, usually of squirrel hair and, decoratively, with a feather quill ferrule that is wrapped with copper wire; these have very high capacity for their size, especially good for wet in wet or wash painting; when moist they can wick up large quantities of paint.
Filbert (or "Cat's Tongue", hair only). A hybrid brush: a flat that comes to a point, like a round, useful for specially shaped brush strokes.
Rigger (hair only). An extremely long, thin tuft, originally used to paint the rigging in nautical portraits.
Fan. A small flat in which the tuft is splayed into a fan shape; used for texturing or painting irregular, parallel hatching lines.
Acrylic. A flat brush with synthetic bristles, attached to a (usually clear) plastic handle with a beveled tip used for scoring or scraping.
A single brush can produce many lines and shapes. A "round" for example, can create thin and thick lines, wide or narrow strips, curves, and other painted effects. A flat brush when used on end can produce thin lines or dashes in addition to the wide swath typical with these brushes, and its brushmarks display the characteristic angle of the tuft corners.
Every watercolor painter works in specific genres and has a personal painting style and "tool discipline", and these largely determine his or her preference for brushes. Artists typically have a few favorites and do most work with just one or two brushes. Brushes are typically the most expensive component of the watercolorist's tools, and a minimal general purpose brush selection would include:
4 round (for detail and drybrush)
8 round
12 or 14 round (for large color areas or washes)
1/2" or 1" flat
12 mop (for washes and wicking)
1/2" acrylic (for dissolving or mixing paints, and scrubbing paints before lifting from the paper)
Major watercolor brush manufacturers include DaVinci, Escoda, Isabey, Raphael, Kolonok, Robert Simmons, Daler-Rowney, Arches, and Winsor & Newton. As with papers and paints, it is common for retailers to commission brushes under their own label from an established manufacturer. Among these are Cheap Joe's, Daniel Smith, Dick Blick and Utrecht.
Sizes
The size of a round brush is designated by a number, which may range from 0000 (for a very tiny round) to 0, then from 1 to 24 or higher. These numbers refer to the size of the brass brushmakers' mould used to shape and align the hairs of the tuft before it is tied off and trimmed, and as with shoe lasts, these sizes vary from one manufacturer to the next. In general a #12 round brush has a tuft about 2 to 2.5 cm long; tufts are generally fatter (wider) in brushes made in England than in brushes made on the Continent: a German or French #14 round is approximately the same size as an English #12. Flats may be designated either by a similar but separate numbering system, but more often are described by the width of the ferrule, measured in centimeters or inches.
Watercolor pencil
Watercolor pencil is another important tool in watercolors techniques. This water-soluble color pencil allows to draw fine details and to blend them with water. Noted artists who use watercolor pencils include illustrator Travis Charest.[4] A similar tool is the watercolor pastel, broader than watercolor pencil, and able to quickly cover a large surface.
Paper
Most watercolor painters before c.1800 had to use whatever paper was at hand: Thomas Gainsborough was delighted to buy some paper used to print a Bath tourist guide, and the young David Cox preferred a heavy paper used to wrap packages. James Whatman first offered a wove watercolor paper in 1788, and the first machinemade ("cartridge") papers from a steam powered mill in 1805.
All art papers can be described by eight attributes: furnish, color, weight, finish, sizing, dimensions, permanence and packaging. Watercolor painters typically paint on paper specifically formulated for watermedia applications. Fine watermedia papers are manufactured under the brand names Arches, Bockingford, Cartiera Magnani, Fabriano, Hahnemühle, Lanaquarelle, The Langton, The Langton Prestige, Millford, Saunders Waterford, Strathmore, Winsor & Newton and Zerkall; and there has been a recent remarkable resurgence in handmade papers, notably those by Twinrocker, Velke Losiny, Ruscombe Mill and St. Armand.
Watercolor paper is essentially Blotting paper marketed and sold as an art paper, and the two can be used interchangeably, as watercolor paper is more easily obtainable than blotter and can be used as a substitute for blotter. Lower end watercolor papers can resemble heavy paper more while higher end varieties are usually entirely cotton and more porous like blotter. Watercolor paper is traditionally torn and not cut.
Furnish
The traditional furnish or material content of watercolor papers is cellulose, a structural carbohydrate found in many plants. The most common sources of paper cellulose are cotton, linen, or alpha cellulose extracted from wood pulp. To make paper, the cellulose is wetted, mechanically macerated or pounded, chemically treated, rinsed and filtered to the consistency of thin oatmeal, then poured out into paper making moulds. In handmade papers, the pulp is hand poured ("cast") into individual paper moulds (a mesh screen stretched within a wood frame) and shaken by hand into an even layer. In industrial paper production, the pulp is formed by large papermaking machines that spread the paper over large cylinders—either heated metal cylinders that rotate at high speed (machinemade papers) or wire mesh cylinders that rotate at low speed (mouldmade papers). Both types of machine produce the paper in a continuous roll or web, which is then cut into individual sheets.
Weight
The basis weight of the paper is a measure of its density and thickness. It is described as the gram weight of one square meter of a single sheet of the paper, or grams per square meter (gsm). Most watercolor papers sold today are in the range between 280gsm to 640gsm. (The previous Imperial system, expressed as the weight in pounds of one ream or 500 sheets of the paper, regardless of its size, obsolete in some areas, is still used in the United States. The most common weights under this system are 300 lb (heaviest), 200 lb 140 lb, and 90 lb.) Heavier paper is sometimes preferred over lighter weight or thinner paper because it does not buckle and can hold up to scrubbing and extremely wet washes. Watercolor papers are typically almost a pure white, sometimes slightly yellow (called natural white), though many tinted or colored papers are available. An important diagnostic is the rattle of the paper, or the sound it makes when held aloft by one corner and shaken vigorously. Papers that are dense and made from heavily macerated pulp have a bright, metallic rattle, while papers that are spongy or made with lightly macerated pulp have a muffled, rubbery rattle.
Finish
All papers obtain a texture from the mold used to make them: a wove finish results from a uniform metal screen (like a window screen); a laid finish results from a screen made of narrowly spaced horizontal wires separated by widely spaced vertical wires. The finish is also affected by the methods used to wick and dry the paper after it is "couched" (removed) from the paper mold or is pulled off the papermaking cylinder.
Watercolor papers come in three basic finishes: hot pressed (HP), cold press (CP, or in the UK "Not", for "not hot pressed"), and rough (R). These vary greatly from manufacturer to manufacturer.
Rough papers are typically dried by hanging them like laundry ("loft drying") so that the sheets are not exposed to any pressure after they are couched; the wove finish has a pitted, uneven texture that is prized for its ability to accent the texture of watercolor pigments and brushstrokes.
Cold pressed papers are dried in large stacks, between absorbent felt blankets; this acts to flatten out about half of the texture found in the rough sheets. CP papers are valued for their versatility.
Hot pressed papers are cold pressed sheets that are passed through heated, compressing metal cylinders (called "calendering"), which flattens almost all the texture in the sheets. HP papers are valued because they are relatively nonabsorbent: pigments remain on the paper surface, brightening the color, and water is not absorbed, so it can produce a variety of water stains or marks as it dries.
These designations are only relative; the CP paper from one manufacturer may be rougher than the R paper from another manufacturer. Fabriano even offers a "soft press" (SP) sheet intermediate between CP and HP.
Sizing
Watercolor papers are traditionally sized, or treated with a substance to reduce the cellulose absorbency. Internal sizing is added to the paper pulp after rinsing and before it is cast in the paper mould; external or "tub" sizing is applied to the paper surface after the paper has dried. The traditional sizing has been gelatin, gum arabic or rosin, though modern synthetic substitutes (alkyl ketene dimers such as Aquapel) are now used instead. The highly absorbent papers that contain no sizing are designated waterleaf.
Dimensions
Most art papers are sold as single sheets of paper in standard sizes. Most common is the full sheet (22" x 30"), and half sheets (15" x 22") or quarter sheets (15" x 11") derived from it. Larger (and less standardized) sheets include the double elephant (within an inch or two of 30" x 40") and emperor (40" x 60"), which are the largest sheets commercially available. Papers are also manufactured in rolls, up to about 60" wide and 30 feet long. Finally, papers are also sold as watercolor "blocks"—a pad of 20 or so sheets of paper, cut to identical dimensions and glued on all four sides, which provides high dimensional stability and portability, though block papers tend to have subdued finishes. The painter simply works on the exposed sheet and, when finished, uses a knife to cut the adhesive around the four sides, separating the painting and revealing the fresh paper underneath.
Following the UK parliament's rejection of the Brexit deal in a vote last evening, members of the European Parliament have underlined that the EU will remain united and that citizens’ rights are Europe's priority.
Speaking in a debate in Parliament today, Commission Vice-President Frans Timmermans said commitments on the peace process and the border in Ireland or on citizens’ rights cannot be watered down.
Parliament's lead member on Brexit @guyverhofstadt called on UK politicians to build a positive majority to break the Brexit deadlock.
READ MORE ►► epinsta.eu/qfU5
This photo is free to use under Creative Commons license CC-BY-4.0 and must be credited: "CC-BY-4.0: © European Union 2019 – Source: EP". (creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) No model release form if applicable. For bigger HR files please contact: webcom-flickr(AT)europarl.europa.eu
The scallops were seared in clarified butter.
The stone ground grits were seasoned with milk solids left over from the clarified butter and some delicate white cheese.
Title: Act of July 4, 1966, Public Law 89-487, 80 STAT 250, which amended section 3 of the Administrative Procedure Act, chapter 324, of the Act of June 11, 1916, to clarify and protect the right of the public to information., 07/04/1966 (Page 1 of 3)
Creator(s): National Archives and Records Administration. Office of the Federal Register. (04/01/1985 - ) (Most Recent) Department of State. (09/1789 - ) (Predecessor)
From: Series : Enrolled Acts and Resolutions of Congress, compiled 1789 - 2008
HMS Entry Number(s): A-1 5A (1789-1823 segment) A-1 5B (1824-1956 segment) (...)
Record Group 11: General Records of the United States Government, 1778 - 2006
Production Date: 07/04/1966
Persistant URL(s): research.archives.gov/description/299930
Access Restriction(s): Unrestricted
Use Restriction(s): Unrestricted
Contact(s): Archives I Reference Section, Textual Archives Services Division (NWCT1R), National Archives Building, 7th and Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20408, Phone: 202-357-5385, Fax: 202-357-5936, Email: Archives1reference@nara.gov
Found this old photo while cleaning out my photo gallery. Thought the amended sign below was quite funny!
Those of you who are kind enough to follow my uploads (and read my detailed captions!) may remember that I already wrote a couple of times in the past about one of the greatest mysteries of society in the Middle Ages, one almost no one talks about: how were the “careers” of expert craftsmen organized?
Let me take one example to clarify what I mean: when you go to some Romanesque church famous for, say, its sculpted tympanum, such as Moissac or Conques in France (there are of course examples in other countries!), you marvel at the technical and artistic maturity of the artist who spent years sculpting those masterpieces, at the depth of his inspiration and the trueness of his faith, sometimes even at his humor, his audacity: what a master sculptor that guy was! But where was that master sculptor schooled? With whom and where did he train? Certainly, achieving such mastery as one can witness in Moissac or Conques took years (decades?) of practice, and earlier pieces could and should be found elsewhere, recognizable traces of a budding craftsmanship which would, one day, blossom into the full-blown wonder that you are currently beholding?
Yet, no such traces can be found anywhere. It is as if the master had just been born, instantly armed with the whole extent of his expertise and hired in a leap of faith (and without a résumé!) by patrons and sponsors to sculpt the tympanum that would become his one masterpiece...
Even more puzzling: after the master completed that masterpiece, he obviously enjoyed a tremendous reputation and could pick the projects he wanted, right? True, in some cases, one can imagine that by the time he completed his chef-d’œuvre, the master was tired and could not go on and undertake another such project; in some cases, he may have been near death. But surely not in all cases! Then, how come no further works by the same master can ever be found? How is it that he was seemingly born fully mature and in full possession of his masterful expertise, without any discernible schooling or training, and then vanished into thin air once his (truly) once-in-a-lifetime masterpiece had been finished? I have come to accept that I shall not, at least in this lifetime, know the answers to those questions.
The so-called “Master of Cabestany” is, at least in part, a welcome exception. His name is not known to us, unlike the very few who signed their work with a So-and-so me fecit mention, but his career can be traced to many churches he worked on during the second half of the 12th century. Revealed in the 1930s with the unearthing of a Romanesque tympanum during works on the parochial (and otherwise uninteresting) church of the village of Cabestany in the département of Aude (province of Roussillon, southern France), he was thus christened “The Master of Cabestany”. His works have been tracked throughout Europe, thanks to his very specific and original manner, as we will see. As of this day, more than 120 pieces have been attributed to the Master or people working with him (as sculptors of that caliber were always accompanied in their travels by an entourage of pupils and apprentices), most of them in the Languedoc and Roussillon provinces, but also in Catalogna and Navarre in modern-day Spain, as well as in Italy’s Tuscany. If no true “early works” have been found (his career in his younger years thus remains a mystery), the pieces that have been attributed to him do cover several decades and can reasonably account for what we can describe as a full “professional life”.
The scene on the left of the tympanum: Mary being helped out of her tomb by her Son Jesus Christ.
I rode by him on Toronto’s Front Street and thought his tall slender form, spattered with white paint, made him look like a living sculpture. Circumstances made it awkward for me to stop my bicycle and approach him so I carried on with a twinge of regret and stopped a couple of blocks later to do an errand. Low and behold, the Goddess of Second Chances smiled on me and he appeared on the sidewalk, walking by me. I greeted him and said I would like to photograph him for my project and got a very friendly “Sure man.” Meet Wayne who waited patiently while I quickly finished locking my bicycle. I clarified his name and he said "Yeah. Like John Wayne."
I explained that I needed some sheltered light and led us a few steps to the covered sidewalk in front of a bank and shops. Confirming his name, he said “Yeah, Wayne… like John Wayne.” I explained that I liked his look and that the spatters would add interest to the photograph. He laughed and said he has been photographed before. I showed him my contact card with sample photos and he said “I know this one!” pointing to one of my previous Strangers, Hollywood Taj. “I’ve known him for many years. He’s a musician.” Indeed, he is.
Once I got my camera out and showed Wayne where I wanted him to stand (just near the edge of the shade) and asked him to look into my camera, he began posing. This surprised me a bit although it has happened on rare occasions before. His poses were like those of a hip hop street dancer and I knew they would photograph well. I was able to take several photos with different poses.
I asked if he was a painter and he said “No, I’m a drywall taper.” I commented that it is an art and my own efforts at drywall taping on a home renovation project were a disaster. Wayne laughed and confirmed that it’s an art. “It has to come from the heart” he said, patting the palm of his hand over his heart. “You have to have the love for doing it and I do.” Wayne has been taping drywall for ten years. He said he takes pride in his work. “I always think about the fact that people are going to be living in this house or apartment and they might be looking at my workmanship for the rest of their lives. It should be perfect.”
Wayne said “I have two jobs. I’m also a furniture maker. That is an art and a science. It has to look attractive but it involves a lot of measuring and math.” Wayne is clearly a detail-guy as both jobs involve close attention to detail. When I commented on his island accent he laughed and said “I’m from Jamaica, man.” I wasn’t surprised. His “one love” friendly, positive attitude was similar to what I have experienced many times before with people from Jamaica.
Wayne is 43 and came to Canada at the age of 20. I was concerned that I was using up his lunch hour but he said he’s on his own time. He’s a sub-contractor and is not timed on the job. When I asked how life is treating him these days he said “All is good, man.” He has known some tough times when he was trying to establish himself because he did not yet have a reputation and finding jobs was difficult. “When you get a job, if you do it well, it helps your reputation and now I don’t have trouble getting work. People know they are going to get a good job from me.” When I asked what is important to him in life, Wayne patted his chest over his heart and said “Love God.” Encounters on the streets for this photo project don’t get any more up-beat and fun than this one was.
Thank you Wayne for the enjoyable chat and for participating in The Human Family. You are #821 in Round 9 of my project. Please email me and I will send you copies of the photos.
I had just left class and was returning to my bicycle when I saw him standing in front of the Student Union building on campus, talking with friends and holding a Nikon camera. I was immediately drawn to his interesting appearance. Tall and slender, he was not dressed in the usual student attire but wore, instead, a suit coat, a polka dot dress shirt, and a colorful clown-patterned necktie. I sensed immediately that he would be an interesting stranger to meet and he didn’t seem rushed so I approached him and started the conversation.
He listened attentively and my explanation must have been a bit unclear because he informed me he is not really a photographer but was just holding the camera for a fellow student. I clarified that I was inviting him to be a subject, at which time he said “Sure, I’d be glad to.” I said I would do it here and now and that my camera was in the messenger bag on my shoulder. We shook hands. Meet Aidan, a first year Journalism student at the downtown Toronto University.
It was late afternoon and with the cloudy sky and the recent change to daylight savings time, the flat light was quickly fading so time was of the essence. I showed Aidan the space between buildings and told him that I had photographed a couple of Journalism students close to this location within the last week. He laughed and said “We like to hang out at the Student Union.”
The more Aidan heard about 100 Strangers, the more interested and motivated he became. He told me he was nervous about holding his friend’s expensive camera and said he wanted to take it into the building and leave it where it would be safe which gave me a minute to check my camera settings on this dull day. The rest was straightforward. I wanted more light to reach Aidan’s eyes and he helped me by holding the reflector but in the end I’m not sure there was a lot for it to reflect. I liked his expression which was a combination of alert and serious. It went nicely with his put-together look which combined formal with a bit of whimsy.
We sat down on a nearby ledge to converse after I had taken a few frames and I learned that Aidan, who is 19, is from a town outside of Toronto. When I asked how he likes the Journalism program so far and he said emphatically “I love it. It has given me a purpose for the first time in my life.” When I asked him to clarify his meaning he gave his response careful thought before saying “It has given me a focus for my obsessions. I love to delve into things and learn all about them and I think Journalism will be a good fit for me.”
When I commented on Aidan’s stylishly unique look he said “I’m careful about how I present myself in public; I want people to see me the way I see myself.” When I asked how he sees himself, he again paused in thought. “I’m a bit of an eccentric and I suppose it’s a bit of a contradiction to what I’ve just told you but I don’t dress to be noticed; I dress to reflect who I am.” I could tell that my initial sense that Aidan would be an interesting young man to meet had proven accurate.
Aiden inquired more about 100 Strangers and looked at the contact card I had given him. I explained how I had become involved and told him about the international aspect of the project and he was very interested. He could hear my enthusiasm which was clearly matched by his own. He commented “Your project sounds great and I really like it. It encourages people to connect that never would have connected and I find you a very interesting person too. The project doesn’t allow people to blend into the skyline of the city.”
I asked Aidan if he has had any unusual life experiences he would like to share with the project and he appeared somewhat lost in thought. I apologized for making him work so hard and he replied “No, I’m just deciding what would be a worthwhile response to your excellent question.” He then proceeded to tell me that he had grown up feeling like an “outsider” and as if everyone else understood the secrets of life but him. He said “I had a lot of social anxiety but things changed for me at the age of 16 when I fell seriously ill and was hospitalized for three weeks, wondering what was going to happen to me. It was a very tough ideal but in the end I survived and the experience put some things in perspective for me. I no longer spend so much time worrying about how others see me and feel more a part of the world.”
Aidan went on to tell me he has a friend now who is facing a health crisis and using his own life experience, Aidan has been able to tell him with conviction “I think you’re going to get through it and I know you’re going to love the person who survives it.” I felt the depth of feeling in Aidan’s words to his friend and coming from someone who has “been there” I’m sure they will have a very positive impact.
Aidan had class work to do and I needed to get home before it became totally dark so we started to wrap up what had been a fascinating 100 Strangers meeting. He said he would like to find out more about the project and would I consider letting him interview me in the future so he could write it up for a project or article and I said I would be glad to. When I checked if I could tell his story with is photo because I found his overcoming illness and social anxiety could help empower others he said “I appreciate your being so careful with what I’ve shared but I wouldn’t have told you if I objected to your including it.”
I look forward to meeting with Aidan again in the future to talk about the project but I forgot to get his email to send him his photo. I trust he will contact me at the email on the contact card I gave him.
Thank you Aidan, for taking the time to meet and for participating in 100 Strangers. You are Stranger #653 in Round 7 of my project. Good luck in your studies - and in life.
Find out more about the project and see pictures taken by the other photographers in our group at the 100 Strangers Flickr Group page.
Title: Act of July 4, 1966, Public Law 89-487, 80 STAT 250, which amended section 3 of the Administrative Procedure Act, chapter 324, of the Act of June 11, 1916, to clarify and protect the right of the public to information., 07/04/1966 (Page 1 of 3)
Creator(s): National Archives and Records Administration. Office of the Federal Register. (04/01/1985 - ) (Most Recent) Department of State. (09/1789 - ) (Predecessor)
From: Series : Enrolled Acts and Resolutions of Congress, compiled 1789 - 2008
HMS Entry Number(s): A-1 5A (1789-1823 segment) A-1 5B (1824-1956 segment) (...)
Record Group 11: General Records of the United States Government, 1778 - 2006
Production Date: 07/04/1966
Persistant URL(s): research.archives.gov/description/299930
Access Restriction(s): Unrestricted
Use Restriction(s): Unrestricted
Contact(s): Archives I Reference Section, Textual Archives Services Division (NWCT1R), National Archives Building, 7th and Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20408, Phone: 202-357-5385, Fax: 202-357-5936, Email: Archives1reference@nara.gov
Here you go, Chris!
Just to clarify, that's 2 1x2 grill tiles with an antenna holding them together. The brick behind that lot (In this case the orange portion of the taillight) let's you hold the cheese slope in place.
You can get away with not using the 1x2 technic tube for support, but it's not quite as sturdy without it.
Some of you may have noticed that, unfortunately, owing to the fact that a certain person who sells truck photos on eBay commercially has been lifting my images from this album and selling them I have had to remove 2300 photos that didn't have a watermark. I have now run around 1700 through Lightroom and added a watermark with the intention of bulk uploading them again. Rather than watermark the existing (hidden) files in Flickr one at a time it will be easier to do it this way. I definitely won’t be adding individual tags with the make and model of each vehicle I will just add generic transport tags. Each photo is named after the vehicle and reg in any case. For anyone new to these images there is a chapter and verse explanation below. It is staggering how many times I get asked questions that a quick scan would answer or just as likely I can’t possibly answer – I didn’t take them, but, just to clarify-I do own the copyright- and I do pursue copyright theft.
This is a collection of scanned prints from a collection of photographs taken by the late Jim Taylor A number of years ago I was offered a large number of photographs taken by Jim Taylor, a transport photographer based in Huddersfield. The collection, 30,000 prints, 20,000 negatives – and copyright! – had been offered to me and one of the national transport magazines previously by a friend of Jim's, on behalf of Jim's wife. I initially turned them down, already having over 30,000 of my own prints filed away and taking space up. Several months later the prints were still for sale – at what was, apparently, the going rate. It was a lot of money and I deliberated for quite a while before deciding to buy them. I did however buy them directly from Jim’s wife and she delivered them personally – just to quash the occasional rumour from people who can’t mind their own business. Although some prints were sold elsewhere, particularly the popular big fleet stuff, I should have the negatives, unfortunately they came to me in a random mix, 1200 to a box, without any sort of indexing and as such it would be impossible to match negatives to prints, or, to even find a print of any particular vehicle. I have only ever looked at a handful myself unless I am scanning them. The prints are generally in excellent condition and I initially stored them in a bedroom without ever looking at any of them. In 2006 I built an extension and they had to be well protected from dust and moved a few times. Ultimately my former 6x7 box room office has become their (and my own work’s) permanent home.
I hope to avoid posting images that Jim had not taken his self, however should I inadvertently infringe another photographers copyright, please inform me by email and I will resolve the issue immediately. There are copyright issues with some of the photographs that were sold to me. A Flickr member from Scotland drew my attention to some of his own work amongst the first uploads of Jim’s work. I had a quick look through some of the 30 boxes of prints and decided that for the time being the safest thing for me to do was withdraw the majority of the earlier uploaded scans and deal with the problem – which I did. whilst the vast majority of the prints are Jims, there is a problem defining copyright of some of them, this is something that the seller did not make clear at the time. I am reasonably confident that I have since been successful in identifying Jims own work. His early work consists of many thousands of lustre 6x4 prints which are difficult to scan well, later work is almost entirely 7x5 glossy, much easier to scan. Not all of the prints are pin sharp but I can generally print successfully to A4 from a scan.
You may notice photographs being duplicated in this Album, unfortunately there are multiple copies of many prints (for swapping) and as I have to have a system of archiving and backing up I can only guess - using memory - if I have scanned a print before. The bigger fleets have so many similar vehicles and registration numbers that it is impossible to get it right all of the time. It is easier to scan and process a print than check my files - on three different PC’s - for duplicates. There has not been, nor will there ever be, any intention to knowingly breach anyone else's copyright. I have presented the Jim Taylor collection as exactly that-The Jim Taylor Collection- his work not mine, my own work is quite obviously mine.
Unfortunately, many truck spotters have swapped and traded their work without copyright marking it as theirs. These people never anticipated the ease with which images would be shared online in the future. I would guess that having swapped and traded photos for many years that it is almost impossible to control their future use. Anyone wanting to control the future use of their work would have been well advised to copyright mark their work (as many did) and would be well advised not to post them on photo sharing sites without a watermark as the whole point of these sites is to share the image, it is very easy for those that wish, to lift any image, despite security settings, indeed, Flickr itself, warns you that this is the case. It was this abuse and theft of my material that led me to watermark all of my later uploads. I may yet withdraw non-watermarked photos, I haven’t decided yet. (I did in the end)
To anyone reading the above it will be quite obvious that I can’t provide information regarding specific photos or potential future uploads – I didn’t take them! There are many vehicles that were well known to me as Jim only lived down the road from me (although I didn’t know him), however scanning, titling, tagging and uploading is laborious and time consuming enough, I do however provide a fair amount of information with my own transport (and other) photos. I am aware that there are requests from other Flickr users that are unanswered, I stumble across them months or years after they were posted, this isn’t deliberate. Some weekends one or two “enthusiasts” can add many hundreds of photos as favourites, this pushes requests that are in the comments section ten or twenty pages out of sight and I miss them. I also have notifications switched off, I receive around 50 emails a day through work and I don’t want even more from Flickr. Other requests, like many other things, I just plain forget – no excuses! Uploads of Jim’s photos will be infrequent as it is a boring pastime and I would much rather work on my own output.
Really focused on the clarify of the water under the long exposure, same location as the one of the previous photos, except at different timing.
Some of you may have noticed that, unfortunately, owing to the fact that a certain person who sells truck photos on eBay commercially has been lifting my images from this album and selling them I have had to remove 2300 photos that didn't have a watermark. I have now run around 1700 through Lightroom and added a watermark with the intention of bulk uploading them again. Rather than watermark the existing (hidden) files in Flickr one at a time it will be easier to do it this way. I definitely won’t be adding individual tags with the make and model of each vehicle I will just add generic transport tags. Each photo is named after the vehicle and reg in any case. For anyone new to these images there is a chapter and verse explanation below. It is staggering how many times I get asked questions that a quick scan would answer or just as likely I can’t possibly answer – I didn’t take them, but, just to clarify-I do own the copyright- and I do pursue copyright theft.
This is a collection of scanned prints from a collection of photographs taken by the late Jim Taylor A number of years ago I was offered a large number of photographs taken by Jim Taylor, a transport photographer based in Huddersfield. The collection, 30,000 prints, 20,000 negatives – and copyright! – had been offered to me and one of the national transport magazines previously by a friend of Jim's, on behalf of Jim's wife. I initially turned them down, already having over 30,000 of my own prints filed away and taking space up. Several months later the prints were still for sale – at what was, apparently, the going rate. It was a lot of money and I deliberated for quite a while before deciding to buy them. I did however buy them directly from Jim’s wife and she delivered them personally – just to quash the occasional rumour from people who can’t mind their own business. Although some prints were sold elsewhere, particularly the popular big fleet stuff, I should have the negatives, unfortunately they came to me in a random mix, 1200 to a box, without any sort of indexing and as such it would be impossible to match negatives to prints, or, to even find a print of any particular vehicle. I have only ever looked at a handful myself unless I am scanning them. The prints are generally in excellent condition and I initially stored them in a bedroom without ever looking at any of them. In 2006 I built an extension and they had to be well protected from dust and moved a few times. Ultimately my former 6x7 box room office has become their (and my own work’s) permanent home.
I hope to avoid posting images that Jim had not taken his self, however should I inadvertently infringe another photographers copyright, please inform me by email and I will resolve the issue immediately. There are copyright issues with some of the photographs that were sold to me. A Flickr member from Scotland drew my attention to some of his own work amongst the first uploads of Jim’s work. I had a quick look through some of the 30 boxes of prints and decided that for the time being the safest thing for me to do was withdraw the majority of the earlier uploaded scans and deal with the problem – which I did. whilst the vast majority of the prints are Jims, there is a problem defining copyright of some of them, this is something that the seller did not make clear at the time. I am reasonably confident that I have since been successful in identifying Jims own work. His early work consists of many thousands of lustre 6x4 prints which are difficult to scan well, later work is almost entirely 7x5 glossy, much easier to scan. Not all of the prints are pin sharp but I can generally print successfully to A4 from a scan.
You may notice photographs being duplicated in this Album, unfortunately there are multiple copies of many prints (for swapping) and as I have to have a system of archiving and backing up I can only guess - using memory - if I have scanned a print before. The bigger fleets have so many similar vehicles and registration numbers that it is impossible to get it right all of the time. It is easier to scan and process a print than check my files - on three different PC’s - for duplicates. There has not been, nor will there ever be, any intention to knowingly breach anyone else's copyright. I have presented the Jim Taylor collection as exactly that-The Jim Taylor Collection- his work not mine, my own work is quite obviously mine.
Unfortunately, many truck spotters have swapped and traded their work without copyright marking it as theirs. These people never anticipated the ease with which images would be shared online in the future. I would guess that having swapped and traded photos for many years that it is almost impossible to control their future use. Anyone wanting to control the future use of their work would have been well advised to copyright mark their work (as many did) and would be well advised not to post them on photo sharing sites without a watermark as the whole point of these sites is to share the image, it is very easy for those that wish, to lift any image, despite security settings, indeed, Flickr itself, warns you that this is the case. It was this abuse and theft of my material that led me to watermark all of my later uploads. I may yet withdraw non-watermarked photos, I haven’t decided yet. (I did in the end)
To anyone reading the above it will be quite obvious that I can’t provide information regarding specific photos or potential future uploads – I didn’t take them! There are many vehicles that were well known to me as Jim only lived down the road from me (although I didn’t know him), however scanning, titling, tagging and uploading is laborious and time consuming enough, I do however provide a fair amount of information with my own transport (and other) photos. I am aware that there are requests from other Flickr users that are unanswered, I stumble across them months or years after they were posted, this isn’t deliberate. Some weekends one or two “enthusiasts” can add many hundreds of photos as favourites, this pushes requests that are in the comments section ten or twenty pages out of sight and I miss them. I also have notifications switched off, I receive around 50 emails a day through work and I don’t want even more from Flickr. Other requests, like many other things, I just plain forget – no excuses! Uploads of Jim’s photos will be infrequent as it is a boring pastime and I would much rather work on my own output.