Rembrandt detail
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Old Masters: painting tricks

Rembrandt van Rijn Portrait of a Woman, Possibly Maria Trip (1639) Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam I often paint dark backgrounds. Learning about old techniques, I aspire to approximate those incredible backgrounds of 17th…
lapis lazuli badakhshan
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Old pigments painting blog: Lapis Lazuli

Throughout history, lapis lazuli and the blue pigment that is extracted from it have have occupied a special place in the fine and decorative arts: an expensive, semi-precious stone that for centuries was exclusively sourced fron the rather…
girl with a pearl earring vermeer
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Old pigments painting blog: Madder Lake

My paint box: Madder Lake My paint box is one of my favourite things: I’ve managed to exclude any paint developed after 1700, so no cadmiums or synthetic ultramarine for me. I guess that makes me a purist – it’s interesting how you…
Rachel Ruysch portrait
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Old pigments painting blog: Vandyke Brown

Rembrandt van Rijn,  Saskia van Uylenburgh As Flora, 1641 Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden - Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister inv./cat. no. 1562; Image credit: The Rembrandt Database. Old pigments…