Some Stapisms

Above is a Carl Peters painting. Carl was from Rochester, New York but summered in Rockport Ma.

I am home and very tired. I can't write much but perhaps I can give you a few phrases that I use with my friends.

There are three stages in the completion of a Stapleton Kearns painting.

• I'm almost done!
• Boy, I sure hope I'm doing this right.
• This was going to be really good, not like you think either, I mean really good!

I often say; If I were going to be really good at this,
I would already be really good at this.

This is a STUPID way to make a living.

I had to lay down to paint that!

He paints like Ray Charles!

Whats the deal with Alex Katz anyway?

Its so hard painting outside it's a wonder anybody ever gets a painting.

I'm really not smart enough to be doing this!

I get way too hung up on what the paintings actually look like!

I thought I would put this, right in the middle of the painting.

When I die I am going to have all of my unsold paintings encased in Lucite and use them as a tombstone.

My epitaph is going to be;
STAPLETON KEARNS
HE WAS OK.

Girls LOVED me when I was young,
they imagined I was sensitive.

I am planning on getting a tattoo on my forehead that says IMAGINE HAIR.

Mistakes have been made. (Ronald Reagan)

I left high school early to more fully participate in the 1960's

I'd like to take this opportunity to thank you once again, for your participation in this evenings activities.

Packing for a painting trip on an airplane

Above is another painting I made for the Charleston show, at the Ella Walton Richardson Gallery. This was painted from a beautiful spot on Kiawah island. I studioized it some though.

I was asked a few questions about packing for travel by airplane and I thought that I would write briefly about that. The last major airplane trip I did was to Venice. I took a Pochade (pronounced pochade) box. Mine is an Easy L with which I am happy, but there are other good boxes out there also.

Into my suitcase I packed;

• The Easy L
• A light tripod in a cloth bag with shoulder strap
• A backpack, empty
• I cut a roll of canvas into 20" lengths with my chopsaw. I could then cut 16 by 20s or 16 by 24's out of that. That went into the suitcase. Also about ten 8"by 10" primed Masonite panels.
• two sets of 16 by 20 stretchers and 1 set of 16 by 24 stretchers, also a staplegun and staples and canvas pliers and screwdriver.
  
• A couple of cigar boxes full of paint.I downloaded on Gamblins web site the specs on paint showing that it was not flammable or dangerous I included this in the box with the paints.
  
• Brushes and medium cans.
• No solvents.
• Two softcover and one hardcover book on Edward Seago.

I also carried my small camera and seven days changes of clothes. I wore a light jacket. I did sink laundry with dish detergent and hung my clothes up to dry in the bathroom. One time I went to a laundromat.

When I landed in Venice I found a good art supply store where I bought alkyd medium and more Titanium White. I found a hardware store where I could buy mineral spirits.

I stretched three canvases, two 16 by 20's and one 126 by 24. I used lots of Liquin so I had fast drying times. When I had painted on the canvas I took it off the stretchers and put a new canvas on them. Then I rolled all of the canvasses around the tube on which I had brought them. On the last couple of days I painted on the panels. I separated them with little U shaped metal staple thingies I found at the hardware store, taped around them and wrapped the whole show in paper.Because I painted those panels the last days the canvasses I did were dry and could be rolled. With my Liquin I was getting 24 to 36 hour drying times.

I have a plastic tube made for skis that telescopes. I can use it to take a Gloucester easel on an airplane. There is room in there for a roll of linen also. It looks like a rocket launcher. Security thought it was a gun case. When I opened it for them they didn't know what it was.

I wil probably be unable to post tomorrow as I will be on the road.

I met a great young artist tonight. He is Marc Delessio he opened a show at the Ann Long gallery tonight. He is very 19th century classical in approach, and studied and now teaches at the Florence Academy, that is headed by Charles Cecil, who was a student of R. H. Ives Gammell, although he was there just before me.Here is a link to Ann Long gallery

Fixing a punctured canvas

Here's another picture from the Charleston show, that opens tomorrow night on Broad street at the Ella Walton Richardson gallery. Behind me is Fort Moultrie, site of a revolutionary war battle. And to my left is Fort Sumter, whose bombardment began the civil war, or the war between the states as they prefer to call it here.

I received an e-mail from a reader explaining that he had accidentally shoved a brush through a painting and wondered how he could fix the hole. There are several ways to do it. One is to reline the canvas. I will go into that another time. You can do it yourself, but it is difficult and takes more skill. I will cover the quick and dirty way to do it.

I am assuming that the hole is smaller than a penny, if it is bigger, this method begins to become more difficult. This method will also work on a three corner tear. First smooth out the canvas in the area and clean up any ravelings that are hanging about the hole. Then cut a piece of canvas, hopefully of a lighter weight than the one you are repairing. If you haven't got something lighter use a piece of the same canvas, you may have to take it from that which I hope you are in the habit of leaving turned over on the back. Cut an attractive patch from that, I cut a rectangular patch and then clip of the corners at a 45 degree angle so it looks a little slicker. If you have a pinking shears use those, that gives a nice look too. This is important to do neatly, if someone sees the repair, they will accept it only if it looks neat and professional.

Glue the patch behind the hole. I have used a number of kinds of glue. I have used fabric cement and an industrial glue in a tube. Carpenters glue should work too. Let that that dry completely before continuing with the next step.

Now fill the hole from the front. I like to use a mixture of flake lead and liquin but you can use titanium white or even spackling compound or wood filler, this IS the down and dirty method. When that is completely dry, sand it lightly with a fine paper. If you are sanding the lead filler, wet the sandpaper with mineral spirits so you don't breathe the dust. You may want to don a mask for this.

Don't do this around your kids, don 't do it you are pregnant, don't do it if you are a wellness dweeb or living all natural. In fact, oil painting involves lots of toxic chemicals and you need to be aware of that and exercise caution. Sanding paint can generate aeresol dust and that is never good, So be careful about that. I wet sand for that reason, and I wouldn't sand down a whole canvas, only the ocasional small area. When I do, I breathe through my ears.

Feather the edges well so that the filled hole is level with the painting around it. This must be done very carefully so it doesn't show. You may have to fill and sand twice, try using a palette knife to fill the hole, that works well. When that is done and dried out paint it with liquin ,let that dry and then varnish it, It needs to be completely sealed. Varnish it several times, it absolutely has to be sealed! Then retouch varnish the whole painting to bring your color up so it looks like wet paint, that will help you match the area.

Now inpaint the patched area, If you were a restorer you would carefully match the colors and only inpaint the patched area, but since this is your own painting you will probably find it easier to repaint the entire passage. If you are an impressionist with brushwork, painting opaquely this is not a big deal. If you are painting enameled surfaces in glazes, you are going to have a much harder job.

I have done this successfully many times. If you work with care and precision you should be able to get a nearly invisible repair that will last the life of the painting. Now listen up! What I am about to say next is important. This is to repair your own work or possibly the work of a friend only. Do not do this to an antique painting of value. A real restorer should be called in to work on anything that has age or value. Also you cannot inpaint on an antique painting the same way as you can on your new one, it will darken over time. To paraphrase Joshua Reynolds.........

DO NOT HELP TIME DESTROY EXCELLENCIES WHICH YOU YOURSELF WILL NEVER RIVAL.

Wring out your dead!

Here is a piece I am putting in the show in Charleston. I have been down here painting for several weeks. The show will be at the Ella Walton Richardson gallery on Broad street. I painted this out on Kiowa island. That's about half an hour below Charleston on the coast. It is a beautiful gated community. Lots of alligators. It seems a little odd to me that such an expensive community would be filled with enormous monsters that bite. They would, I think, never be tolerated in New Hampshire.

Below is a tool I keep in my paintbox.

This is a tube wringer. An artist friend I know stopped by the studio and showed me one. I had seen them advertised and never bought one. Well OK, I cheaped out and bought a plastic one. It didn't work and I threw it away long ago. This time I bought the metal one. Its a great little tool. It does a fine job of rolling the tubes and squeezing out every last drop of paint. I go through lots of paint, I think this little gadget paid for itself in six weeks. It also does a nice job of crimping the tubes when I am tubing my paint. Remember how to do that? Tubing paint is here.
I actually keep this in my paintbox and wring the tubes at the end of the day. You don't want to wring em too hard though, if you do it will rip the tube a little at the bottom and they will ooze paint.