Thanks

First, go to Gamblin's website and read what they have to say about their synthetics. Robert Gamblin is a bit of a hippy-type, but he makes fine paints and materials and is a trustworthy source.

I agree with him on the superiority of synthetic resins.

You might also want to take a peak at what Ralph Meyer has to say in his book of materials (a book that every artist should eventually own, although it may seem too technical for many, at first).

As for application, you want a two inch brush. I have used cheap brushes, but I stopped when I finally got tired of removing hairs from my varnished surfaces. You want even strokes, overlapping by about half and inch. If you need a second coat, you do the same thing perpendicular to the original lines.

Let me know if you need any more information.

See? I told you it would be a good subject for a post.

What sort of varnish am I using? See, uh, I don't know. That's why I need advice.

Well, I should clarify something. Kinkade's works, which are sentimentalized, incompetently drawn, formulaic, garish, and clumsy, don't bother me in the sense that any bad artwork that I rarely have to see doesn't bother me. I really don't care what some other bloke wants to stare at all day, so long as it is within moral limits and is not going to incite him to immoral acts or ideas, which Kinkade is so far down the line compared to just about anything on television, that his paintings are relatively harmless.

What bothers me is more a bother about the aesthetic sense of our society. Why was he (and the Keane's before him) so popular? There is something profoundly lacking in a culture that prefers Kinkade to Thiebaud.

But even there, we have plenty of dreck in our culture, and a fascination with Paris Hilton is worse than a love of sentimentalized English cottages painted in garish light and color.

Where he (or his organization) gets my goat is in their deliberate blending of the line between a hand-crafted art object and the mass produced. Now, there is a place for the mass produced, and there is a place for the line being blended, but there needs to be a certain honesty about it.

The art world has precise definitions, for example, of an artist's lithograph and a poster. People who pay for the scarcity of a lithograph when they are getting a poster are getting ripped off. Sure, they should learn to ask better questions, and learn to read between the lines of promotional material, but I regularly see posters sold as "lithos", which is simple fraud.

Kinkade's organization has routinely and deliberately blurred the line between what is actually done by an artist, what is done by an artisan, and what is done by photomechanical processes. If the work were simply being sold as something pretty to look at, that would be fine, but the promotional machine behind Kinkade talks about how collectible it is and what a wonderful investment it is to buy this stuff, and that is where it crosses the line.

A limited edition of anything over a thousand is stretching it. When you are in the tens of thousands and are implying that each one is somehow original, you are out of the range of limited editions and adding a level of dishonesty.

Yes, art can be a good investment, but only if you really know art. In a sense, what the Kinkade organization does is securities fraud. Certainly if they were as careless (or even deliberately misleading) on an investor's prosectus for a stock offering, the SEC would have their huevos on a platter.

As for varnishing techniques, one of the best sources is a book called "The Artists' Manual" put out by Chronicle Books. It gives a great overview. What sort of varnish are you using?

I'd really like to hear why Kinkade bothers you. Might even be a good subject for a post.

Also, the two oil paintings I did (haven't had time to do any others) are about ready for varnishing. Could you send me an email, or point me to a website, that tells me how to do it right?