At last I’ve made it back to the studio after a spectacularly busy week working on preparing a project for October. I’ve painted most of the sky with a glaze of Ceramic White, which is that lovely transparent white made by Holbein, then used Foundation White to create those denser areas of brightness. The delicate transparency of the Ceramic White makes some lovely soft colours emerge behind the clouds.
Regarding white paints, I have been hearing bad news from Michael Harding Paints, who are forced by new laws to stop production of their fabulous lead whites in tubes and instead fill caulking gun cartridges, which is ok if you use a lot of it, but would be a nuisance if you make small paintings. I’m getting the last twenty tubes in stock from my good friend Steve Aufhauser at his Continental Art Supply store.
Holbein’s Ceramic White continues to impress me. In a test of white paints exposed to bright Californian sunshine for six months this did extremely well, retaining its brightness and not cracking up at all; a huge improvement over all of the samples of Zinc white that we tried, which all cracked and colored. I will not use Zinc white again while I can get hold of this Ceramic White.
