Tim Horn Workshop
Supply List
• Layers of clothing, including dark tops to avoid reflective glare onto your painting
• Wide brim hat
• Sunscreen
• Small sketch book, (I LOVE the 5x8 1/4" Moleskine sketchbooks - widely available at Blick and other art and book stores. There are 2 versions with blank pages. I recommend the one with heavier paper -- it has a light purple label, with 104 pages. )
• Soft pencil like 4B or so. ( I like the Cretacolor, Monolith 4B, avail at Blick. It's basically a pencil-shaped graphite stick with a sealed outer layer that keeps your fingers from getting covered in graphite)
• View finder (black card with cut out window approx. 3 1/4 x 4”) A 35mm slide mount is too small! I hope to have viewfinders available for purchase.
• 1 black Sharpie "fine point" (tip looks kind of like a crayon point)
• 8 panels ranging in size from 8x10” to 11x14". Also bring 2 small 6x8" panels. If you prefer stretched canvas, that's fine - it's just more difficult to travel with. Use whatever panels you're comfortable with. Lately I've been using Ampersand "Gessoboard". I also like the panels from
SourceTek. www.canvaspanels.com I get the "Academic Line" on 1/8" Baltic Birch, which has an acrylic primed polyflax, smooth weave surface. RayMar and New Traditions also make very nice panels. Several substrates and surfaces are available, and prices are fairly comparable between the 3 companies. The gatorcore is lighter weight than the birch, which can make a difference when you're lugging around 10 panels. Whatever you're comfortable with is fine. I would just suggest you avoid the very inexpensive wrapped canvas panels.
Wet panel carrier
You'll need some way to carry your wet painting panels, especially if you're traveling. If you're just painting out of the back of your car, a pizza box works fine. Raymar makes an affordable corrugated plastic carrier in several sizes. Panelpak.com is another option which i like a lot. By the end of the week, the paintings you did in the first 2-3 days should be dry enough to transport stacked, with just wax paper between them.
Oil Paints
I use mostly Rembrandt, Utrecht, and Gamblin oil paints.
• alizarin crimson permanent
• cadmium red light
• cad. orange
• cad. yellow medium (should be warm)
• cad. yellow light (should be cool)
• sap green
• cobalt blue
• ultramarine blue
• titanium white
Extra colors I have with me, but only use occasionally:
• Cold grey
• Ivory black
• Pthalo blue
• Cerulean blue hue
If you have your own palette of colors or use a “limited palette”, that’s fine. Though I do feel it is important that you have a WARM yellow and a COOL yellow! Your cad. yellow medium should be a WARM yellow (like school bus color). If it looks too orangey, or too cool, try a different brand. Your cad yellow light should be a COOL yellow (color of a lemon). If it looks too similar to the warm yellow, then try a different brand or a cad lemon.
• Gamsol, for thinning your paint and cleaning brushes. (the school has this available for purchase)
• Medium. I like to use medium when I paint, but not everybody does. When painting indoors I use Gamblin Solvent Free Gel or Walnut Alkyd Medium by M. Graham & Co. And of course, if you don't feel the need for medium, that's fine too. In addition to making your paints a nicer consistency, most mediums have a drying agent in them that speeds drying time -- very helpful when traveling.
• 1 small jar with water tight lid or one of the metal, brush washer cans. This is to put your Gamsol in.
• Rags or paper towels
• Bristle brushes, flats, 2 each of sizes 4, 5 and 6. (I
use Utrecht No.202) These range in width from 3/8" to 5/8". Any decent quality hog's hair bristle brush will do fine. And if you prefer brights or filberts, that's fine. But please, leave your small brushes at home!
• outdoor easel with palette ( I recommend wood palette for it's neutral color) There are many types of outdoor easels, and any of them should be fine. I use a 9x12" Open Box M easel when I travel. I also like the wooden "French" easels which I often use nearer to home, but the Open Box M is lighter and less bulky.
• vinyl or latex gloves ( I prefer vinyl. I buy boxes of 100
from hardware stores like Home Depot or Harbor Freight) This protects your skin from absorbing cadmium, cobalt, etc. • umbrella with clamp. If you’re going to be painting
outdoors regularly, you should have an umbrella. The idea is to keep direct sun off your painting and off your palette if at all possible. We'll only be painting outside maybe 20% of the time, so you could probably survive without one for this class if you'd rather not make the purchase. I have several
different ones, each for different occasions. The one I travel with is the "Best Brella”, which sadly was recently discontinued. My second choice would be the umbrella from EasyL, about $150. http://www.artworkessentials.com/ products/UMK-45/UMK45.htm
Miscellaneous:
Please try and get out and do some painting in the weeks before the workshop! Your class time will be much more effective! And be sure to set up your easel in advance, making sure everything works.
If you're fairly new to plein air painting, I highly recommend the book "Fill Your Oil Paintings with Light and Color" by Kevin MacPherson. It's about $24 available on Amazon and some book and art stores. Great book, very well written and illustrated, simple, clear and inspirational. Also very good is Mitchell Albala's book "Landscape Painting". Much more information, deeper, and more academic. http://www.mitchalbala.com/book/index.html