Author: Cheryl

I like to get a bargain when I can, but some things are just not worth saving the pennies over. Quality of paint is one. I strongly recommend that even beginners buy artist quality paint. Student quality paint can fade or change in a matter of weeks or months. For example, purples can turn brown. You don’t want that sort of thing happening in your work. Plus, the mixture that the manufacturer uses in student quality paint can vary from time to time depending which pigments are cheapest. This can be very frustrating to the artist because it means that the paint may behave differently from tube to tube. You want to be able to get to know each pigment – how it interacts with other pigments or with water or mediums. Any variables in quality will simply slow down the learning curve as you try to understand your paints behaviour. Lastly, you need to know that student quality paints are not always marked with the word “student”. In Winsor & Newton, student grade is called “Cottman”. In Liquitex brand, student grade is called “Basics”. If you are not sure when looking at a tube or jar in the art store, check with the staff that you are buying artist quality. You won’t be sorry. Happy painting! 

The longer that I have been painting, the more I appreciate that good composition frequently comes down to one thing. It is – avoid 50/50 in every aspect. Landscape painters should avoid a horizon that is at all close to dividing the painting surface in half. Make it higher or lower. In addition, in any type of painting, it’s a good idea to avoid a half and half division between the amount of dark or light colour. Best to have the majority of the page dark with light accents or vise versa. The same can be said of warm versus cool colour, or textured versus smooth area, or hard versus soft edges. If in any aspect of composition you have to think hard about what is dominant and what an accent, then likely it is too close to 50/50 to be pleasing to the eye. Hope this is helpful, next time you are analysing your work. 

In any art supply store there is cheap canvas, and then there is the more expensive kind – which type I buy depends on exactly which painting techniques I will be using. The main difference between the 2 is the amount of gesso coating. You can’t go by labels such as ‘triple coated’ either. It seems that those 3 coats are incredibly thin sometimes. The result of not enough gesso is to make the canvas surface too absorbent. The paint soaks in too much instead of moving easily across the surface – not pleasant. You can fix this by rolling on a couple of coats of gesso and sanding between. I don’t like to have to spend the extra time to do that. However, if I am going to pretexture a canvas with gesso or gel before painting as I often do when working wet and wild, that will remedy the cheap canvas feel. I recommend trying some of each type of canvas to see which you prefer for the techniques that you are using. But I suggest, never buy the canvas with staples on the side . They really are bargain basement and it’s not worth doing good work on that bad a support. And a last note about canvas pad products – the cheaper ones of those are really awful to paint on. Definitely get a good brand such as Fredrix Canvas pads. It’s still cheaper than a prestretched canvas. Happy painting!