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DAY AND NIGHT SCENES

WORKSHOPS with ZUFAR BIKBOV

 

 

These are suggestions. If you prefer, please, bring your own preferred painting setup. If you are more comfortable using different materials or equipment, that’s perfectly fine.

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Easel 

For outdoor painting, please bring one of the following:

* French easel

* Pochade box setup that accommodates the recommended canvas sizes (see below)

* Any other portable plein air painting setup you regularly use

For indoor studio sessions, studio easels will be provided. You are also welcome to use your own outdoor setup if you prefer.

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Oil Paints 

I recommend using artist-grade oil paints whenever possible.

 
Please avoid studio-grade or imitation paints for important pigments such as cadmiums and cobalts whenever possible. While artist-grade paints cost more, they contain genuine pigments (listed on the tube) rather than substitutes, resulting in cleaner, more predictable color mixtures. This very important for Cadmiums, Cobalts and even Titanium White.

 
I personally prefer Utrecht Artists' Oil Colors, which offer excellent quality at a reasonable price. For workshops and studies, I also use some Van Gogh Oil Colours.

 
Recommended Palette

 
* Titanium White

* Cadmium Lemon Yellow

* Cadmium Orange (preferably Utrecht)

* Alizarin Crimson Permanent (preferred) or Alizarin Crimson

* Ultramarine Blue

* Cerulean Blue (Imitation or Hue is acceptable)

* Raw Sienna

* Burnt Umber

* Raw Umber (optional)

* Transparent Oxide Yellow (Van Gogh)

* Permanent Sap Green Deep (Utrecht)  

* Emerald Green (Van Gogh)

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BRUSHES

Bring the brushes you normally enjoy painting with.

I recommend having a combination of stiffer and softer brushes, as each serves a different purpose and provides greater flexibility while painting.

Bristle Brushes (at least 3–4 ones)

Natural bristle or stiff synthetic brushes, Recommended sizes: #6–12

Soft Brushes (at least 4–6 ones)

Soft synthetic or Kolinsky-style brushes suitable for oil or acrylic painting (not watercolor brushes). Recommended sizes: #2–8

Also bring: 

* One small #0 or #00 brush for signatures and fine details.

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VALUE STUDY SETUP 

Acrylic paints and painting panels for value studies will be provided.
Please use your own brushes from Brushes list above.

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OIL PASTEL (optional) 

1-2 sticks (grey or brown color) of inexpensive brand like Van Gogh oil pastel

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PALETTE KNIFE 

 

Bring any palette knives you normally use for mixing paint or applying paint.

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PAINTING SURFACES

Bring pre-stretched canvases, canvas panels, or primed painting panels.
It is always better to bring one or two extra painting surfaces.

For this workshop, we will need aat least four painting surfaces:

Smaller size 

* 8 × 10 or

* 9 × 12

Larger size 

* 11 × 14 or 

* 12 × 16 or

* 16 × 20 (if you are comfortable painting larger works quickly)

SUMMARY: 

For Day scene Painting : 2 canvases/panles. These may be white or lightly toned with a warm beige, light ochre, or raw sienna wash.

* one small panel or canvas

* one larger panel or canvas

For Nocturne Painting : 2 canvases/panles. These should be toned with a warm gray or neutral brown (Raw Umber or Burnt Umber works well).

* one small panel or canvas

* one larger panel or canvas

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TONING SURFACE

The toned surface should be a thin, transparent mid-value wash—not a dark opaque layer.
If your panels are acrylic-primed (acrylic gesso), they can easily be toned beforehand with diluted acrylic paint.

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PALETTE

Bring a palette or another flat surface suitable for mixing paint.
I personally prefer a glass palette with a glass scraper because it is quick and easy to clean.

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PAINTING MEDIUM

Bring at least one oil painting medium.
I recommend one of the following faster-drying mediums:

* Galkyd Gel Medium (my choice) or Galkyd Lite Gel Medium

 

* Liquin (Gel, strong odor, may be not comfortable indoor)

* Galkyd Medium (Liquid)

* Galkyd Lite Medium (Liquid)

These are especially useful for the first painting layers because they allow the paint to set up more quickly.
If using a liquid medium, please also bring a palette cup.

 

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BRUSH CLEANING 

 

Please bring one of the following:

* Turpenoid Natural (My choice) - not available in CT stores and online except Amazon

* Odorless Mineral Spirit e.g. Gambol

* Any oil for brush-cleaning

Also bring a separate palette cup or container for your brush cleaner.

Please note: Your painting medium and brush cleaner are different products. You will need both.

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Reference Material 

Reference photographs for the workshop will be provided and projected onto a large TV screen.


If you would prefer to work on your own project, please bring:

* High-quality printed reference photographs, or

* An iPad or other tablet device.

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 Other Supplies 

 
* Paper towels

* Apron or painting clothes (recommended)

* Sketchbook (approximately 6 × 9 to 11 × 14)

* Pencil

* Gloves

* Snack in a Lunch-box

* Water or other beverage

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Questions? 

If you have any questions regarding materials, please don’t hesitate to contact me.

Text (preferred): 203-206-3283

 
Email: [email protected] (email responses may take longer)

I look forward to working with you!

Don’t worry if you don’t have every item on this list. The goal is to help you arrive prepared, not to purchase plenty of new equipment. If you’re unsure whether your current materials are suitable, simply contact me —we’ll make it work.

 

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(affiliated link)

 

RECOMMENDED COLOR PALETTE

 

White: Titanium White (considered to be the most white of all oil white paints) - bring larger tube 5-7 oz. (150-200 ml.)

Warm lights (mostly opaque): Raw Sienna, Yellow Ochre Light, Cadmium Yellow Light, Cadmium Orange, Cadmium Red Light.

Warm darks (mostly transparent): Alizarin Crimson or Permanent, Transparent Oxide Brown (brand Rembrandt) or Burnt Sienna, Olive Green

Cool darks: Viridian Green, Cobalt Blue, Ultramarine Blue, Cerulean Blue.

 

I would also recommend to add transparent violet color: Lazur-Violett (brand Mussini) or Ultramarine Violet.

 

Hue/ Imitations

First, please, do not buy oil paints what are marked Hue  or Imitation for classes. They are good for under-paint, and some situations, when mixing with other paints is minimal. Let me give you an example. You have Cobalt Blue and want to mix with Cadmium yellow to get green color mix. Real Cobalt Blue with give you nice green mix, while Cobalt Blue Hue with Cadmium Yellow will give you greyish green, you most likely won't be willing to use.

 

Cost concerns

Cadmiums, Cobalt and Cerulean and even Viridian are expensive pigments. If your budget is tight, you can limit your palette to this one:

 

White: Titanium White

Warm lights (mostly opaque): Cadmium Yellow Light, Raw Sienna, Cadmium Orange.

Warm darks (mostly transparent): Alizarin Permanent (or Crimson), Transparent Oxide Brown or Burnt Sienna, Olive Green

Cool darks: Cobalt Blue, Ultramarine Blue.

 

  

BRUSHES

 

FLATS: 2-3 brushes. An assortment of sizes 2, 4, 6

 

 Good quality Bristle or Ivory* Short Flats (i.e. Brights) or Princeton Aspen 6500, Flats (Blue Band)

* Ivory  is a high quality synthetic brushes for oil paints by Rosemary and Co (see below). I use Ivory Short Flats and Princeton Aspen

 

FILBERTS: 1-2 brushes. Synthetic. Size 2,4

 

ROUNDS: 

Regular hair length. 2 brushes. Sizes: 2, 4. Brand by brand any size can be larger or smaller.

Longer hair length - Rigger. 1 brush. Size 2.

 

ADDITIONAL FLATS and POINTY

If you have a chance to order or it happened to be that you have them, bring with you

Eclipse Combers Flats 3/8 an 3/4 and Ivory Daggers  by Rosemary and Co.

If you are interested in purchasing their brushes from UK (shipping is  $16 and more depending on weight) try to find some friends, willing to combine you orders. Their brushes are reasonably prices, considering quality.

 

If you can not have them, get round brush of size 1 or 0 for smaller details. Hair Sable or synthetic.

 

CANVAS, PANELS

You can work on stretched canvas or canvas panels.

 

During class we likely won't paint something you plan to sell to your collectors. However, using consistent quality of the surface, along with paints and brushes will let you feel confident each time, you approach new task. New task is an artistic challenge, and you better focus on art, rather on unexpected behavior of your art materials. And good choices are not always very expensive. Shopping online and together with another artist  in your art association may cut down your expenses for art supplies.

 

For classes I recommend using canvas panels, unless you prefer stretched canvas for special bouncing feeling while you paint.

Also I highly suggest, that you first try to paint on surface you will bring to the class.

 

Each surface (in fact gesso) has a unique balance between repelling and absorbing quality toward oil paint. Oil primed canvas panels preferred. Acrylic primed surface is more porous than oil primed. Using it ok, as long your brush with paint doesn't feel stuck on the surface when you apply first layer of paint. Try if before you come to the class. You have to be able to spread your paint mixed with thinner and medium over canvas surface easy enough.

Solution if you have problematic canvas and have no other at the moment: you can apply a thin diluted layer of acrylic paint, like Titan Buff or just any White,  to partially seal excessive surface pores. Let your surface dry enough (al least few hours) before you start painting on it.

 

Second issue here is an excessive canvas tooth. Bad examples of this problematic surface I came across last year is Fredrix oil primed canvas panels. I am sure this is not the only one. If you have one like this, you can lightly sand it. If it is oil primed surface, you can apply thin layer of oil paint, adding some warm or grey tone is a good idea too. If surface is acrylic primed, you can do the same with acrylic paint.

 

I prefer Raphael Premium Archival Oil Primed Linen Panels (made in Italy). It's smoothness and absorbency quality of the canvas surface on rigid base let me produce my typical texture of wet and dry brushwork.

Another good option of oil primed canvas panels are Centurion DLX OP (oil primed), which are reasonably priced.

 

Size. We can get through learning quicker in a smaller format and continue on to another painting.

Suggested sizes:

For field study: 5" x 7", 6" x 8" up to 8"x 10"

 For final painting:  from 11” x 14”, not bigger than 16” x 20”. I find 11x14 being ideal.

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What I would like to stress is that in this instructional series you should not be so concerned with coming home with beautiful finished paintings.

 

This is the opportunity to explore new ways of looking at the landscape from a different artist’s view.

 

PAINT THINNER / SOLVENT

You must use Gamsol (Gamblin) or Turpenoid (choose Odorless, not Natural) since working in studio should not be hazardous to one's health. Even if one tolerates well any vapor, other folks may have increased sensitivity.

 

Refined Turpentine (use can be limited due to indoor workshop environment), bring it if you have. Useful to do first layer as toning/washing or underaint. We can place canvases outside for 30-40 minutes to dry.

 

If you have an allergy to any of these products, give me a call +860.483.8488.

 

MEDIUM

Used to increase paint flow, while making paint more durable and glossy after it gets dry. Medium also used to speed up or slow down paint drying time.

In most cases medium is an oil or alkyd resin. Recommended: Galkyd or Galkyd Light (brand Gamblin). Liquin  can be used too.

For classes I recommend to dilute medium at least 1:1 with solvent.

 

EASEL

You will be provided  with steady table easel.

If you are plein air artist, you can bring your own portable easel with tripod.  There will be space to accommodate it.

 

PALETTE

There are a variety of palettes for artist to choose from. I would suggest you use one that you are comfortable with. There are paper palettes; plastic ones with lids, glass, wooden hand held ones and some of the newest ones are palettes that work with the French style easels.

 

I work on glass palette since love using scraper for easy and quick cleaning. I would suggest one like THIS.

 

PALETTE CUP (double is better) for medium and solvent.

 

PALETTE KNIFE – Highly recommended! Small or medium size

 

SKETCH BOOK. not smaller than 6" x 9"

 

SOFT PENCILS 4-8B, one or two. 

 

PAPER TOWELS

 

1-2 STICKS OF OIL PASTEL, I prefer bronze, or purple, or reddish/brown. 

SUGGESTED ADDITIONAL ITEMS

 

Panel box carrier (A box that is used to keep separated and carry wet paintings that are painted on either gessoed or canvas covered panels. They come in various sizes)

 

Trash bags

 

Rubber gloves (Optional)

 

If you prefer shop online, here is my affiliated link with good deals from Blick: