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's Blog

Impenetrable Goo

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Last Thursday evening I finished painting #4. Each one gets a little larger as I become more familiar with the handling and brushability of the paints. Unquestionably, these historic pigments are profoundly different from the modern ones. Paints without a wax binder or other stabilizers are "long", meaning slightly runny and not in any … [Read more...] about Impenetrable Goo

Sneak Peek

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Here you can see a detail of the still life painted from the color palette of the landscape by Jan Asselijn. Other than the color on the vase, it has the same monochromatic tone as the Dutch painting with several touches of bright color on the teapot. This painting will not be shown in its entirety until the exhibition in June at the Lawrence … [Read more...] about Sneak Peek

Sneak Preview

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A Sneak Preview....... Pictured here is one of the Dutch paintings used for this project. I have taken the color palette from a landscape by Jan Asselijn and painted a still life (a detail of painting #2). There are some beautiful rosy reds on the gentleman's cloak (not showing very well here) which I used in the color theme of the teapot(above). … [Read more...] about Sneak Preview

Chicanery

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Who could have guessed one of the most helpful and instructional guides for this project would be a cunning art forger? While examining one of my favorite art book's bibliography (the best feature of any book!), the title, The Art Forger's Handbook jumped off the page. Eric Hebborn wrote about his artistic skills describing ingenious … [Read more...] about Chicanery

Oak-er Not Okra

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This is a yellow ochre just being wet with the oil. You can see the light area is still dry as the darker area has oil in it. It is important at this point to add the linseed oil slowly to the dry pigment to make a paste. By adding drops at a time and mixing it in prevents getting too much oil. Remember it is easier to add than take away. It is … [Read more...] about Oak-er Not Okra