Margret E. Short Fine Arts

Portland, Oregon artist Margret Short - a modern day master of 17th Century Dutch art using the chiaroscuro technique to create still life and floral paintings.

Margret Short

More Rembrandt Mysteries

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There is a mystery that has been baffling scholars for a long time. Why did Rembrandt apply gold leaf to the surface of a sheet of copper and paint in oil atop. Why would he cover a perfectly and already beautiful copper surface? Was it the smoothness? Was it an experiment? Nobody really knows for sure. What is known is that it is an intriguing … [Read more...] about More Rembrandt Mysteries

Into the Soup

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Experiments were made using several different brands of powdered gold leaf, but I settled on the Schmincke. This pigment is super fine, rich in color, and mixes easily into a paint by combining the powder with just a little of whatever medium you are working with on your project. I used the Strasbourg medium that I have been using all along on this … [Read more...] about Into the Soup

Atmosphere on the Easel

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This is another example of background transparency/translucency that suggests a lot of atmosphere. The brass is glowing through the paint strokes, but it's not too busy either. Black and burnt umber worked well here. Above is a detail of one of the gold leaf paintings. The gold was such a beauitiful passage that it was left unpainted … [Read more...] about Atmosphere on the Easel