Tips
Do you have a great tip that you would like to share with your fellow artists? If so, please email me your tip and I will add it here. Contact: Carole Novak, Webmaster.
Pam Burton sent this email to our members on March 20, 2010: "Just thought some of you might find this interesting - what a great way to use art to teach history!" The webmaster thought so too and has added the painting here. If you want to take a break from painting your masterpiece, take a look at this painting. Hold the curser over a person and you see their name. Clicking on the person links to information in Wikipedia about him or her. This painting, "Discussing the Divine Comedy with Dante" is by Chinese artists Dai Dudu, Li Tiezi, and Zhang An, 2006, oil on canvas.
Painting Tips:
Louvre Online . . . . . . . . . . . .
Louvre Online to Open Database in English (From The New York Times By Dave Itzkoff) Not being in France and not being able to read French are no longer good excuses for not immersing yourself in the collection of the Louvre. The museum now has an English-language version of its online database available on its Web site, louvre.fr. To read complete article, visit http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/29/louvre-online-to-open-database-in-english
From Laurie Walsh . . . . . . . . . . . .
To cut art paper, foam boards, to trim a little off a mat that won't quite fit in an off-the-shelf frame, etc., and get a clean straight edge, use a quilters rotary cutter, large clear quilters ruler and large cutting board. I use the 24"X36" size cutting board. You don't need the table size one as you can't reach across it anyway unless you have super long arms. For paper you don't need the expenive rotary cutter. Wait for the half price sale at JoAnns. They are well worth the price. The quilters table is also very handy for many of your framing, matting, and cutting chores. It is very large but folds down to a small size and has wheels so it's easily portable to a larger place in the room if you need both sides up. It also works well if you are doing a large watercolor.
Acrylic Paints and Painting Techniques have changed radically over the past few years. Here, Lissa Toole discusses some of the new acrylic mediums and how they are used:
Retarder - Slows down the drying time. Mix it with the color before applying it. Using more will increases transparency.
Glaze Medium - Available in gloss or matt finish. Increases transparency of colors for glazing work.
Acrylic Flow Release - Helps paint move more easily on the canvas. Colorless liquid added to colors to reduce viscocity and enhance flow.
Molding Paste - Molding paste comes in light or heavy formulas. The molding paste is a creamy substance that can be used to build up textures.
Matte Medium - Acrylic matte medium will make paintings matte, not glossy. Matte medium can be mixed into acrylic paints before they are applied to the canvas. Matte medium can also be used as a final coat over the entire painting. Great glue for collage work.
Acrylic Matt & Gloss Varnishes - Acrylic mediums painted over the top of your picture. These will protect dry acrylic paintings from dust and most environmental pollution. Note the matt varnish has a satin finish.
Extra Coarse Pumice Gel - Pumice gel will add a sand-like texture to the painting.
Clear Granular Gel - Made from clear acrylic granular solids, this gel is designed to add texture without altering color.
Glass Bead Gel - Clear gel with densely packed glass beads. Adds texture and luminous effects.
Fiber Paste - Create rough, flexible, paper-like surfaces on canvas or board. Use as a ground or a texture.
Garnet Gels - Gels containing ruby garnets. Used to create granular textured surfaces. Dries to hard film.
Clear Tar Gel - Designed to produce a stringy, tar-like feel in a colorless gel. The gel is excellent for "dripping" over surfaces. The more it is mixed, the stringier it becomes.
Iridescent/Pearlescent Tinting Medium: produces a range of iridescent or metallic colors, dries translucent.
Black Lava: black speckled gel which when dry gives the effect of ground, dry, black lava. Use with transparent or translucent colors for best results.
Blended Fibers: thick, stringy, fibrous gel which gives the effect of flexible fibers when dry. Works best when applied with a palette knife or trowel.
Ceramic Stucco: thick yet fine textured gel which dries to a light gray matte stucco finish.
Glass Beads: medium body gel containing translucent plastic aggregates which dries to a semi-gloss reflective surface.
Natural Sand: finely textured gel which dries to a surface similar to glossy "beach sand".
Resin Sand: thick, coarse texture gel which contains aggregates of various sizes, dries to a "rough cement" look.
White Opaque Flakes: heavy body, coarse gel contains irregular sized and shaped opaque flakes.
From the March 2009 Newsletter . . . . . . . . . . . .
Check out a really fun website for artists!! It's loaded with tips, articles, workshops, links and much more!! It's easy to spend hours on this site: www.nitaleland.com
From the February 2009 Newsletter: . . . . . . . . . . . .
An old toothbrush can be used for adding texture to paintings. Load the brush with paint and then, with the brush near the paper, rub fingers along bristles and flick the paint onto the paper. Great fun but a little messy. . . . from Pam Burton.
From January 2009 Newsletter: . . . . . . . . . . . . .
If you are an Oil Painter, WISK Cloth's detergent works like magic to clean brushes. Just soak in a jar with a little bit of WISK in it, swoosh around, squeeze off excess and run under water. Squeeze the bristles under warm running water and the paint will slide right off. Then take a bar of mild white soap (I use Ivory) and brush it back and forth on the soap until all the paint is off.
From Rita Cooper . . . . . . website. . . . . . .
In this time of an economy that seems to worsen each day, painting sales are tanking since many people are cautiously spending, mostly on necessities. It may take some creativity to get the art buyers to part with their hard-earned cash. There have been documented studies that have shown people are more willing to buy if the price is just below a certain dollar amount. In other words, instead of $100.00, items priced at $99.95 seem more affordable. It may sound silly, but psychologically it works. Notice how stores price their wares in this fashion. Also, it may be time to lower prices somewhat. It would be better to sell something at a lower price than sell nothing because you wish to keep your prices up.
One way to keep prices down is to buy supplies at a discount. Most of the online/catalog wholesale art suppliers (Jerrys Artarama, Cheap Joes, etc.) are much cheaper than any brick and mortar store, even with coupons used. Order in bulk, order with artist friends to split the shipping & handling fees or take advantage of some of the shipping specials when offered. Before you begin a painting, make sure it will fit into a ready-made frame. If you are doing works on paper which will require a mat, make sure the image will fit into a ready-made mat and frame. Doing this prior to actually starting the artwork will ensure that you will not need custom framing. Find a wholesale framing supplier who will do business on a small scale. I buy frames from a local supplier that gives me a significant discount on ready-made sizes ordered in bulk (e-mail me if you want to get in on the next order).
If you do a lot of artwork on paper (drawings, watercolors, pastels), buy a mat cutter and learn how to cut mats. I will cut mats for other artists so the artwork fits into a ready-made frame if their painting is an odd size. To do this, I cut the mat with two sides at one measurement (2 1/2" wide for instance) and the top and bottom a different measurement (2 3/4" wide). This way I can make it fit into a ready-made frame since the outside measurement will be cut to fit a ready-made size. This can save a lot of money since custom framing can cost a small fortune.
Finally, consider having good quality prints made of your originals so you have inexpensive artwork to offer for sale in addition to the more expensive original painting. I make good quality prints of my paintings and also make prints for other artists that want copies of their paintings and find they have been selling well. The originals, while being admired, are not selling. In this historic economic time, being creative with our sales is a necessity. Being an artist helps since, after all, we are already the creative type.
Photography Tips: