Arches Huile Oil Paper, Paper Rolls and Paper Pads - reviews and prices

Arches Oil Paper Pad (140 lb x 12 sheets)

Below you can find

• a video by Professor Steve Levin and Canson about the Arches® Oil paper: A new paper for oil painting
• links to reviews of the Oil Paper and Oil Paper Pads introduced by Arches.
• details of suppliers and the prices they've got for the different types of Arches oil paper on their websites as of today's post. It includes both UK (£sterling) and USA ($American) so be careful which one you're looking at

Noted characteristics of the paper are:

• 100% cotton paper - thus much lighter than all normal supports for plein air painting
• paper is deckle edged 
• NOT-type surface 
• range of alternative sizes - from pads to paper to rolls
• ready to use

Comments about performance include

• eliminates the need for preparation
• easy to cut to different sizes
• easily rolled for transport
• strong paper - does not degrade when scrubbed
• capable of taking oil paint without medium or thinners; paint and pigment stay on the surface of the paper and do not sink into the paper - hence no need to prime with gesso
• can take a lot of solvent - which doesn't leak through paper or under tape - plus paper does not buckle when wet
• absorbent - but views as to how absorbent it is very much depend on what people usually paint on; experience seems to be generally similar to painting on primed canvas
• paint takes the same time to dry as other surfaces
• possible to combine oil paint with other drawing media
• oil paper pads provide a backing which means no need for a board to paint on 'en plein air'
• great for oil sketches
• needs to be framed under glass (that's because framing relates to the nature of the support as much as the media used)

Jerry's Artarama provides an instruction sheet - which includes guidance on how to frame

Reviews of Arches Huile Oil Painting Pads

• This is a link to a review of the oil paper pads by Haidee-Jo Summers for The Artist
• This is a review by artist Ian Price who did a 2hr Oil sketch portrait on Arches Huile paper
• This is a forum discussion on Wet Canvas about the new oil painting paper
• Other reviews can be found on art supplier sites - links to which are contained in the table below

Suppliers

These are the art supplies people who have it in stock - and the prices they're charging

	PADS 9 inches x 12inches	PADS 12 inches x 16 inches	PAPER 22 inches x 30 inches 1.3 x 9.15 metres	PAPER 51 inches x 10 yards	No. of reviews on site
UK
Ken Bromley Art Supplies	£11.05	£17.45			4 reviews
Heaton Cooper	£13.50	£20.50
Jackson’s Art Supplies	£11.10	£17.50	£5.10	£111.00	4 reviews
USA
Dick Blick - Arches Oil Paper				$156.65	rated 4.7 (3 reviews)
Dick Blick - Arches Oil Paper Pads	$9.77	$17.19			rated 5.0 (3 reviews)
Jerry’s Artarama	$12.31	$21.58	(pack of 10 sheets) $74.06	$201.35
The Paint Spot	$19.16	$23.96

Remember to check out the cost of shipping goods to you. (Not included above as it depends where you live and how big your order is)

Places to buy Pochade Boxes in the UK

In my new guise of "about to start learning to paint in oils" (see Learning how to paint with oils in Provence),  this is a quick reminder for me of the places in the UK which sell Pochade Boxes online. 

Julian Large Paint Box

There's nowhere near as many places as there are in the USA. However these ones looked like they'd be worth investigating.

The PochadeShop UK

• Julian (UK) -  Julian Paint Boxes and the Julian Pochade Thumb Box (see video below).  These are also available on Amazon. 
• Antony Bridge's The Pochadeshop UK - Pochade Boxes
• Artefacts for Artists by Abby aka Abbeys easels (run Angela and Rowley Abbey) - Pochade Boxes - they're at these shows this summer

These all vary in size and design but all work principally to the same principal of providing a compact way of providing a way to paint plein air at the time as transporting paints, brushes and other relevant material.

You can see a video of the very small Julian Pochade Box below

Note also that Julian also sell in Julian - Accessories

• a carrying case with adjustable dividers
• the hard to find painting umbrella

New colours from new pigments

Winsow and Newton have published an article about the new pigments which they have introduced in recent years in Why are new pigments so important?.  This succinctly describes the origins, pigments used for and performance of the new colours.

By the 1990s there were so many new organic pigments available that Winsor and Newton embarked on some far reaching reviews to ensure artists would be able to enjoy everything from entirely new colours to greater brilliance and permanence. Almost 200 new colours were introduced over the following 15 years and this process is still continuing today.

1996 Winsor and Newton embarked on the most significant change to the Artists' Water Colour range in 164 years. The availability of so many new pigments meant that 35 new colours were introduced into the range, offering artists the widest and most balanced spectrum with the greatest permanence.

They key issue has always been about how to balance transparency with lightfastness.  Older pigments frequently had one but not the other and the challenge has been to develop new pigments which provide quality performance across the spectrum and over time.

Winsor & Newton Watercolour Chart 2010 - see Catalogue 2010

The new colours covered in the article (click the link at the top to read it) are listed below.  The new pigments which are most prominent in the ones listed below are the quinacridones and the perylenes.  I was pleased to note that there is now a permanent carmine based on Quinacridone pyrrolidone.  Apparently it's still so new that it does not have a colour index number as yet!

The acronyms after their names are for Artists watercolours (AWC) Artists Oil Colours (AOC) and artists Acrylic Colours (AAC)

Yellows: 

• PY184 -  Bismuth Yellow (AWC*, AOC*, AAC*)
• PY150 -  Transparent Yellow (AWC), Indian Yellow Deep (AOC), Nickel Azo Yellow (AAC)  

Orange:

• P073 -  Winsor Orange (Red Shade) (AWC), Winsor Orange (AOC), Pyrrole Orange (AAC)

Reds:

• PR255 -  Scarlet Lake (AOC), Pyrrole Red Light (AAC)
• PR254 -  Winsor Red (AWC), Bright Red (AOC), Pyrrole Red (AAC)
• PR264 -  Winsor Red Deep (AWC)
• PR209 -  Quinacridone Red (AWC, AOC, AAC)
• Quinacridone pyrrolidone - Permanent Carmine (AWC, AOC)
• PR206 -  Brown Madder (AWC), Quinacridone Burnt Orange (AAC)
• PR233 -  Potter’s Pink (AWC, AAC)
• PR149 -  Winsor Red Deep (AOC), Perylene Red (AAC)
• PR179 -  Perylene Maroon (AWC, AAC)

Violets:

• PV29 -  Perylene Violet (AWC, AAC)
• PV15 -  Ultramarine Violet (AWC, AOC, AAC)
• PB74 -  Cobalt Blue Deep (AWC, AOC, AAC)
• PB60 -  Indanthrene Blue (AWC, AOC, AAC)

Greens:

• PG50 -  Cobalt Turquoise Light (AWC, AOC, AAC)
• PY129 -  Green Gold (AWC, AOC, AAC)

Earths:

• Mixture due to replacement -  Quinacridone Gold (AWC, AAC)
• PBr7 -  Brown Ochre (AWC, AOC)
• PR101 -  Caput Mortuum Violet (AWC), Mars Violet (AOC), Violet Iron Oxide(AAC)

Black:

• PBk31 -  Perylene Green (AWC, AAC), Perylene Black (AOC) - the first new permanent black for thousands of years!

Below are links to the various colour charts for artists colours which can be seen online

• Artists Oil Colour   
• Artists Acrylic Colour  
• Artists Water Colour    

Product review: Marc Dalassio's Vermillion Test

Shop selling Sindoor (Vermilion) in Pushkar, Rajasthan

I've only recently discovered Marc Dalessio did a colour test of different paints in relation to vermilion.  You can read about it here Color test: Vermilion and also see the colour charts which he created as a result.

The purpose of the test was to find a red to use in portraits.  I've added in the relevant link to the paint in the quote from the post below

For me the best of the hand-ground paints was Robert Doak’s vermilion, which I believe is either cut with cadmium if not entirely cadmium-based. That said it is extremely similar to the old Zecchi cadmium vermilion they stopped selling 8 years ago (which we all remember fondly). 

Marc Dalassio

You can find our more about Robert Doak specialised art materials and paints on his website - Robert Doak Colors.  He also does concentrated liquid watercolors which, according to the website, are brilliant and lightfast colors.

Book Review: The Art of Impressionism

Title: The Art of Impressionism: Painting Technique and the Making of Modernity

Author: (Publisher): Professor Anthea Callen (Yale University Press Published: 15 November 2000)

Technical data: ISBN 13: 9780300084023 ISBN 10: 0300084021

Physical properties Format: Hardback; Number of pages: 240; Width: 245.00 mm; Height: 310.00 mm; Thickness: 27.00 mm; Weight: 2010.00 g

Synopsis: This magnificent book is the first full-scale exploration of Impressionist technique. Focusing on the easel-painted work of Monet, Pissarro, Renoir, Cezanne, Cassatt, Morisot, Caillebotte, Sisley, and Degas in the period before 1900, it places their methods and materials in a historical perspective and evaluates their origins, novelty, and meanings within the visual formation of urban modernity. Browse the contents page here and here.

Who should buy this?: People who like the Impressionists a lot and/or are really interested in how they painted

Who should not buy this? people who aren't willing to search high and low for it! people who aren't interested in the Impressionists

Highlights well researched detail about context and practice in the past details what the Impressionist artists used for paint, what sort of canvases and grounds they painted on, how they applied their paint, where and in what sort of conditions they painted and finally whether and how they varnished and framed their works the very best photography of Impressionist paintings and small sections of them that I have ever seen in a serious art book many reproductions of paintings I've never seen before in any other book an opportunity to really examine the nature and quality of the mark making corrects the views some people have of Impressionist painters a fantastic glossary and very detailed bibliography and endnotes

Think Again? academic language used - typical of a university level text now apparently out of print and may be very difficult to get hold of the price you may now need to pay to get hold of a copy

Summary / Recommendation: I highly recommend The Art of Impressionism: Painting Technique and the Making of Modernity for anybody who, like me, likes the work of Impressionist painters and is also fascinated by the preparation and process behind the making of their art.

My purpose in posting is to update a post in February 2008 on my Making A Mark blog - The Art of Impressionism and associated painting techniques. Click the link to read my detailed book review - which is summarised above.

The painting on the front cover is part of "Boulevard des Capucines" by Claude Monet painted in 1873.
80.4cm x 60.3 cm
Nelson-Atkins Museum collection
According to Prof. Callen it was painted
on a 'horiziontal landscape no 25' canvas.

Drawing on scientific studies of pigments and materials, artists’ treatises, colormens’ archives, and contemporary and modern accounts, Anthea Callen demonstrates how raw materials and paintings are profoundly interdependent. She analyzes the material constituents of oil painting and the complex processes of “making” entailed in all aspects of artistic production, discussing in particular oil painting methods for landscapists and the impact of plein air light on figure painting, studio practice, and display. Insisting that the meanings of paintings are constituted by and within the cultural matrices that produced them, Callen argues that the real “modernity” of the Impressionist enterprise lies in the painters’ material practices. Bold brushwork, unpolished, sketchy surfaces, and bright, “primitive” colors were combined with their subject matter—the effects of light, the individual sensation made visible—to establish the modern as visual.

UPDATE

This very worthwhile book is now out of print and apparently copies are difficult to locate. Personally I think it is a book which is well worth owning. However if you want to acquire a copy you need to buy it now or you might not be able to buy it at all.

These are the libraries in the UK which have a copy.

If you want to purchase a copy then:

• EITHER you may need to try hunt it down off the Internet - and this may take some time
• OR you could be paying very high prices on the Internet - Amazon for example has book sellers in the US quoting prices from $400-600+. In the UK it was originally priced at £45.
  

This is also an excellent book to use as an example for telling your nearest and dearest why very good art books - packed full of information and expert comment - are a really a very worthwhile investment! :)

Plus we also need to let publishers know which books need to be reprinted! I'm off to write a note to the Yale University Press!

Note: Many thanks to Caroline Oakley, who's an Adult and Community Learning Tutor, who wrote to let me know that this book is now out of print.