Materials: Michael C. Hayes

Sorry for being a little late to the party with my blog posts.  I just got back from doing two comic conventions back to back and just haven’t had the time.  I’ll be putting together a step by step post of my working progress in a few days.

As far as materials go, Lucas and Erik covered most of what I use, so I will cover a few things that I do differently.

Paints.   

I like to mix things up constantly.  I am constantly trying out new colors that seem interesting and adding them to my palette.  Whenever I hear another artist talking about a colors they like I usually go buy a tube and give it a go.  It’s not that I am searching out some all powerful, secret of the masters, pigment that is going to open up the clouds of heaven and turn all my paintings into solid gold.  I just like to experiment,  I find it keeps the painting process fresh and interesting.

At the moment this is my core palette that I use for most paintings: 

Titanium White (Winsor & Newton)

Ivory Black (Winsor & Newton)

Naples Yellow Light (Rembrandt)

Yellow Ochre Light (Rembrandt)

Cobalt Blue (Winsor & Newton)

King’s Blue (Rembrandt)

Mars Violet (Holbein)

Ultramarine Violet  (Rembrandt)

Manganese Violet (Gamblin)

Cadmium Red Light (Rembrandt)

Cadmium Orange (Rembrandt)

Cadmium Yellow (Winsor & Newton)

Greenish Umber (Rembrandt)

Transparent Maroon (Winsor & Newton)  *

Payne’s Grey (Winsor & Newton)

Transparent Brown Oxide (Windsor & Newton)  *(a richer Burnt Umber that doesn’t kill colors as quickly)

Raw Sienna. (Winsor & Newton)

From there I tend to add in some of the following colors, depending on the overall color scheme of the painting.

Alizerin Crimson (Gamblin)  *

Chromatic Black (Gamblin) *

Cadmium Red (Winsor & Newton)

Winsor Violet dioxazine (Winsor & Newton)  *

Magenta (Winsor & Newton)  *

Carmine (Rembrandt)

Terra Rosa (Winsor & Newton)

Cobalt Violet  (Rembrandt) *

Indanthrene Blue (Rembrandt)  *

Ultramarine Blue (Winsor & Newton)

Manganese Blue Hue (Winsor & Newton)  *

Prussian Blue (Winsor & Newton)  *

Blue Turquoise (Rembrandt)

Cobalt Turquoise (Winsor & Newton)

Pthalo Blue, Green and Turquoise (Winsor & Newton)  *

Terra Verte (Rembrandt)

Sap Green (Winsor & Newton)  *

Cadmium Yellow Light (Winsor & Newton)

Cadmium Lemon (Winsor & Newton)

Brown Pink (Holbien)  *

Transparent Red Oxide (Rembrandt) *

Transparent Orange Oxide (Rembrandt)  *

Transparent Yellow Oxide (Rembrandt)  *

Indian Yellow (Winsor & Newton)  *

Yellow Ochre (Rembrandt)

Lately I have been trying Gamblin’s assortment of Portland Greys as well.  I am still on the fence with them.

*denotes a good glazing color

By no means would I expect anyone to purchase all or any of these paints. (In fact I would recommend most people go with a simpler, more structured palette like Erik or Lucas)  But I will bring everything in to the workshop and leave them out for anyone that wants to try anything.

Brushes. 

I use almost exactly what Erik uses, with the addition of:

Grumbacher Goldenedge # 1-4 flats  for architecture, mountains, rocks or anything with a sharp, planar quality to it.  (I take good care of them, but still manage to go through them pretty quickly.  Once they lose their sharp, chisel point, they aren’t nearly as useful.

Silverbrush Silverwhite 1503s #8 filbert.  This is my “cheap, take a beating brush”  that I use for mixing large bunches of paint on my palette, applying paint to large areas, scumbling and glazing.  (I go through these pretty quickly as well.  But that is the point, they are a cheap brush I used to for rougher work to take the burden off my other brushes)

Langnickel Mini Majestic  20/0 fan brush for fine blending/smoothing small areas

Mediums

I prefer Gamblin Galkyd Lite and Galkyd slow dry.   If I need something to dry faster,  I have a few tubes of Winsor & Newton  Fast drying Alkyd paints I will mix in (sparingly)

I use Gamsol to rinse my brushes and Dr. Bronner’s soap to clean them.