How To Make Homemade Gesso

Painting is an enjoyable hobby whether you do it for show or personal reasons. However, the materials required to paint can become expensive, especially gesso. Gesso is used to prepare surfaces for painting, including canvases. It's considered a primer that helps to smooth out your work surface and ensure that the paint doesn't soak into your canvas. Likewise, it can be used as a glue for collages and creating thicker canvases from cardboard, etc.

The Gesso Recipe

The gesso recipe featured can be used for both acrylic and oil paints, as well as any other paint. This gesso recipe makes approximately two quarts, which can be stored for up to six weeks if not needed immediately.

The homemade gesso recipe starts with a plaster mix. You'll need one cup of hot water, one cup of glue (white or PVA), and one cup of plaster powder or Plaster of Paris.

You will also require three cups of acrylic or oil paint for this gesso recipe. White is usually the most common color, but you can choose any that will complement your work. You'll also need a container to hold the gesso recipe, a cup that can be discarded, and something with which to mix the concoction. You may also want a dust mask for safety reasons.

Get all of your ingredients together for the gesso recipe and put on your dust mask. Place the hot water in your container (that can hold at least three quarts). Then, you can add the plaster (but do not add the water to the plaster because it could blow up in the face). Next, measure out and add the glue, stirring to combine.

Once the gesso recipe is mixed, you can add the white paint and mix once more.

The Results

While this homemade gesso recipe may not be an exact match to a commercial gesso recipe, it should produce similar results. Likewise, you may only require one coat with this gesso recipe, though you can add as many layers as necessary.

After applying the gesso recipe, you will wait until it dries. Then, you can sand down the dried gesso recipe, wipe it off and apply more of the gesso recipe until the canvas looks right. However, it's important to remember to let the gesso dry on the canvas before sanding and priming again. You will finish up with a slightly chalky, ready-to-paint canvas. 

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How To Get Started With Pastels Artwork

Painting with pastels provides an exceptional method of creating artwork with the same advantages of conventional paints and acrylic or watercolor pigments.  Pastels are essentially an artistic medium that is available in stick form.  They contain a binder and pure powdered pigment. 

Oil pastels and soft pastels are the two types available.  The best oil pastels are harder to clean and often require solvents; however, they do not leave powdered pigment behind.  Soft pastels are easier to clean and can be easily blended with your fingertips. However, they produce dust.  Below are some of the supplies needed to get started with pastels:

Pastels

A number of different brands of pastels are available.  If you are not certain about what to choose, going to an art supply store might be a very good idea.  This way you could get to test them out on paper.  Additionally, you will be able to get a feel for the quality of each pastel.

Surface

Either board or paper will be needed to draw on.  Paper is most commonly used with pastels; however, wooden boards are now available.  Personal taste will ultimately determine your preference for paper or board.  Therefore, it is important to try out a few different types of boards and papers to determine your preference. 

Drawing Table

If you already have a drawing board that can be angled in certain directions, your pastel board or paper can simply be placed on the table to work.  Otherwise, your paper can be attached to a well-made drawing board.

Colored Pencil

These are remarkable for laying out a composition prior to drawing.  Use colored pencils that match or are the same as the color as what is going over them when your underdrawing is being created.  For example, use a light sienna or umber pencil to outline trees or golden fields.

Tape

Get an easily-removable, acid-free tape.  The purpose of this tape is to attach your artwork paper to the drawing table.  Good artist tape has a moderate to low tack adhesive that can be removed or re-positioned without damaging paper surfaces or leaving behind a sticky residue.

Blending Tools

Your fingers can be used for blending or you can invest in some blending tools if you so desire.  One tool commonly used is a pastel shaper.  Shaped like a paint brush, many of these have a silicon tip which does not absorb the material and are easy to clean.  Of course, brushes will do the trick as well.  Fan and blender brushes can be used for feathering and scrubbing pigments.

Fixative

The best oil pastels are constantly in danger of being smudged.  As such, there are some pastel artists who use spray fixatives to keep the particles in place.  However, many artists will not use any fixatives.  Fixatives typically have a dulling or darkening effect on the vibrancy of pastels; therefore, they should be used with caution.

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Getting Started With Oil Painting On Canvas

Oil painting is a beautiful and expressive art medium that might seem intimidating at first. While it does take practice, anyone can start and improve on it with the right knowledge and some essential oil paint supplies. Oil paint is well known for its rich colors and glossy dried surfaces that can add a great amount of visual appeal to a finished painted scene. The following tips will help you achieve good results with any type of oil-painted scene.

The most common surface for oil painting is a stretched canvas that's been pulled taut over a wood frame. You can buy a variety of sizes of stretched canvases at ourartsupplies.com, or you can build and stretch your own if you have a knack for DIY projects. Once you have the canvas in the size you want, you'll need to prep the surface with a type of acrylic paint called gesso, which will ensure a smooth application of your oil paints. If you choose not to prep the canvas with gesso, keep in mind that your oil paints will soak into the weave of the canvas rather than dry on top of it. This option is not necessarily a wrong one; it all depends on the desired effect you want with your finished painting.

For a smooth and even surface prepped with gesso, it's a good idea to apply it with a paint roller you can find in hardware stores, especially when you're painting on a larger canvas. Once your prepped canvas is completely dry, you'll be ready to prep your oil paints through a technique called glazing. This process will bring out the richness and glossiness of each color. When you're first starting out with oil painting, you won't need a large number of different colors. Good quality oil paint tubes of primary colors are essential, namely red, yellow, and blue. With some practice, you'll learn how to mix accurate secondary and tertiary colors from these three primaries.

Another must for oil paint supplies is a good quality set of brushes specially designed for oil painting. As with tubes of oil paints, you'll only need a few basic ones to start and can add more at a later time. Be sure to keep your oil paint brushes separate from any other brushes you use to paint with acrylics or other types of paint. Any of these oil paint supplies are available from local or online art supply sellers such as ourartsupplies.com.

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Getting Started With Charcoal Artwork

As one grows as an artist, the connection between their artwork and charcoal painting materials they choose becomes noticeable. Charcoal artwork is a lot of fun because it gives you the freedom to make big, sweeping movements across the sketching sheet while getting messy. If you're interested in learning how to draw with charcoal, you want to invest in some quality charcoal painting materials to accelerate your artistic development.

 

Hard or Soft Charcoal?

Just like ordinary pencils, charcoal comes in different varieties of hardness. The hardness rating is denoted using a number and a letter (H for hard, B for soft). 6B is often the softest, while HB is the hardest.

The harder the charcoal one uses, the lighter the line it produces on the drawing sheet. It's worth noting that softer charcoals produce dark lines that smudge easily, while their harder counterparts make cleaner, sharper edges.

 

Vine Charcoal

You can also opt for uncompressed charcoal, which comes in the form of vines. Like the name suggests, vine charcoal comes in the form of a burnt vine/willow branch. Unlike compressed charcoal, you'll find it in the form of long sticks that are harder and more delicate than the former. It also comes in varying thicknesses, from thin to jumbo size. Vines are ideal for creating very fine, light lines and shading throughout a sketch.

 

Drawing Paper

For most new artists, newsprint works as an economical drawing material where they can practice as much as they want to perfect their technique. While newsprint allows charcoal to produce a variety of marks, it tends to smudge easily due to the smooth paper. You could therefore opt for charcoal paper which as a fine-ribbed texture that highlights the charcoal's color. While you might make the occasional smudge, it creates a harder line drawing than a smoother sheet would. Experimenting by mixing and matching different charcoal and paper varieties will help you find the right combination for your style.

 

Work Area

When familiarizing yourself with a new drawing medium like charcoal, you want to work on a vertical surface. This reduces the likelihood of dragging your arm through the drawing. Besides, charcoal drawings are quite dark, which means highlights and details can be hard to see in shadow. Your best option would be to place an easel in a well-lit area so that you can make out all the details while getting the practice you need.

 

Eraser

Your best choice of eraser when working with charcoal is the kneaded eraser. Being quite soft, it can be molded easily by kneading it like clay. You can use it to remove a section of the drawing to create a highlight or as a blending tool when smudging charcoal into the finer parts of a drawing.

 Charcoal artwork is an easy technique to pick up, mainly due to the medium's forgiving nature. And you can try other charcoal painting materials as you please -- exploration is an integral part of the creative process. So start drawing with charcoal today and see what world you can open-up.

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All You Need To Know To Get Started With Colored Pencils Art Work

To get started in any kind of art, be it painting, drawing, crafts, or any other type, it is important that you have two main components. These two components are technical know-how (this is how you develop artistic skill) and the right tools. It is these two components that will determine how well you do as an artist, even if art is a mere hobbyist pursuit for you. We look at each component individually below and how they affect pencil color art.

1. Technical Know-How

Despite what the popular saying may suggest, ignorance is never bliss. The knowledge you lack can put you at a significant disadvantage while growing in knowledge can arm you with all you need to succeed. This is true in life and true in art. As such, it is important that (if you haven't already) you join a class somewhere or even start using self-teaching resources that are often available for free. Whatever you opt for, start learning. The more you know, the more you'll be able to do.

2. Getting appropriate tools

Tools are what you use to get the job done.   High-quality tools can allow you to do a better job, while low-quality ones can, at best, make the job at hand that much more difficult. As far as it relates to pencil color art, getting the right colouring pencil sets is imperative. Doing so can significantly improve the quality of your pencil color art.

Here is what to look for in colouring pencil sets

Sometimes, when you are a beginner, it is hard to know which colouring pencil sets may be best for you. However, with the following tips, sifting through the noise just got a whole lot easier. The three main characteristics to use to differentiate the quality between sets are:

A. Types

There is more than one type of colouring pencil sets available on the market. They include wax, oil, and water-soluble. Your artistic needs will determine which is more appropriate for you. Wax colouring pencil sets are great for providing coverage when you color. However, they break easily and are likely to wear quickly. Oil colouring pencil sets on the other hand use a vegetable oil based binder and are generally harder than wax options. Water-Soluble colouring pencil sets are either wax or oil-based, can be hard or soft depending on the make, and the pigment can be liquefied in water.

B. Surfaces

Knowing how surfaces or material you will be creating your art on, and how these surfaces respond to different types of colouring pencil sets, is very important to knowing what will work for you. Generally, porous surfaces can handle any type of coloring pencil crayon set. A toothy surface is needed to anchor the colored pencil's pigment if a heavy application of the same will be used. Rough or textured watercolor paper or cold pressed paper is a good fit for water-soluble colouring pencil sets.

Once you decide on your surface, you can opt to use the appropriately suited colouring pencil set.

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Table Top Easel for Painting

Table Top Easel for Painting

If you are a beginner to painting, you are asking yourself. “Do I need a table top easel for painting?”

Some seasoned painters prefer to work without an easel.  But if you are new to painting it is an easy adjustment and has its advantages.

• ·         When painting at a table the easel will save room on your work surface for all your other tools, such as paints, brushes, pallet knives etc.
• ·         The comfort of sitting instead of standing is a bonus, especially for those of us with leg problems.
• ·         It also brings the top of your canvas closer to you and makes it easier to reach. 
• ·         With that said it’s easier on your back so you don’t have to work hunched over.
• ·         Having your canvas on a table top easel for painting also gives you the ability to step back
  
  and look at your painting from a distance.
• ·         It is a great place to let your canvas dry without collecting much dust as it would by laying horizontal on the table.
• ·         It cuts down on the glare you will get from wet paint while working.

Table top easels come in different styles.  A frame, H frame, tripod and some with storage drawers.

You will want to determine your needs and choose the one that best suits them.

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To Gesso or Not to Gesso

   I find when I order canvas online and settle for the cheap canvas, the factory sprays the gesso on the canvas.  After that application they spray a sealant which causes the paint not to adhere very well. Why do they apply a sealant?  The sealant is used by the factory for shipping purposes to keep the canvases from sticking together.

 How do I resolve this?  

        Well I gesso.  Why?  Because I want to give my canvas its tooth back.  I want it to grab the paint and hold on to it.

        Then why do I buy a pre-primed canvas?  Well if you ever primed a raw canvas you would know why.  It is a lot easier and faster to apply one thin coat of gesso to a pre-primed canvas then it is to pre-prime a raw canvas.

If you order canvas online, you can find the more expensive canvases at lower costs and you will not need to add gesso.

But let’s not forget you can apply gesso to just about any surface to prepare it for acrylic paints.

Another reason to gesso a pre-primed canvas is you can alter your surface at this stage.  Example:  Make it smoother by adding gesso and sanding with a fine grit sandpaper.  Or you can add textures to your gesso when applying to the canvas.  

Gesso is an inexpensive way to save on the amount of paint you use. 

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How to tighten your canvas

Among my paint art supplies you will find canvases.  I find when buying a pre-stretched canvas from a discount art store they are sometimes loose or flimsy. Let’s just face it, the canvas is not tight.

The very first thing I would like to remind all of our beginners is to remember to remove the plastic wrap from the canvas before you begin to do anything with your canvas. (Yes this does happen a lot)

Here is how to tighten your canvas.  Get yourself a spray bottle with water in it.   Now, turn your canvas over.  You should be looking at the back side of your canvas and you should be able to see the wooden frame.  Now, spray the back of your canvas with the water from your water bottle.  Next use your hand to rub the water around to help even the water.  Next use a paper towel to absorb the excess water from the back of the canvas.

At this point you can find a sunny spot and set your canvas there to dry.  Please remember if you lean your canvas, make sure nothing is poking or push in on the un-supported part of the canvas.  I use the wooden frame edges to support my canvas against something.

Am I always patient?  No! Sometimes I just want to paint now.  So I grab my hair dryer.  I use a Medium heat setting.  I never use Hot. I then dry the back of my canvas.  Why don't I use hot?  Well, it’s because I don’t want to form a bad habit.  For example, If I want to tighten a canvas that I have previously painted, I don’t want to take a chance of ruining the painting by using a hot temperature.

This technique also works on spots in your canvas that have been spot-stretched or dented. (When the canvas was leaned against an object and it stretches a dent in the canvas)

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Why do I need Good Paint Brushes?

Let me start by telling you that good paint brushes do not have to be expensive. Just about any paint brush can be a good paint brush for you, if you take care of it and clean it properly after every use. So yes anyone can afford good paint brushes. It is all about the care which I will follow up with more information on that at a later date.

So most of you are saying.

What brush do I start with?

Well there are; Flat Brushes, Round Brushes, Angle Brushes, Filbert Brushes, Bright Brushes, Detail Brushes, Fan Brushes and on and on. 

Now that you are completely confused, I started with one brush. A 5/8-inch flat. Why? I wanted to see what it could and couldn’t do. I found out there were a lot of different uses for this brush and used it for background applications all the way to applying blades of grass. I chose a stiffer brush to help with the spring back for making fine lines. The stiffer brush also helped to push the paint on to the canvas easier. I was able to make trees and flowers. Now please understand I was painting on a 16 X 20 canvas so a 5/8-inch brush can do a lot on a canvas that size.

One thing I found I could not do, were small circles! Hmmm? Guess it’s time to get me a round brush. I chose a detail round brush with stiff bristles. Why stiff? Because I was used to painting with a stiff brush. This brush opened up a whole new world of ideas for me. “ With tiny little details.”

My third brush ended up being a 1/8 inch flat again stiff. I was stuck on stiff bristles. This gave me the ability to make things smaller than its 5/8-inch counterpart.

I painted a long time with just those 3 brushes and created a lot of fun and interesting paintings that most people are amazed when I tell them I used just 1 or 2 brushes.

I guess the moral to this story is, it does not matter what brush you learn to paint with. Just paint with it and find out what it can help you create. Get to know your equipment and have fun! 

So you can see, that’s what good paint brushes can do.

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Saving Money On Professional Art Supplies

Any artiste is well aware of how expensive shopping for professional art supplies can be. A tube of paint or a single brush could run well into the 3 figures. It can thus be daunting to toe the line between turning a profit by watching one's budget and using cheap, inferior materials. Fortunately, it's possible to save money on great supplies without skimping on quality or having to go without the essentials. All it takes is a little time, research effort and prudent shopping.

Avoid Overdoing on Paint - To keep costs down and avoid unnecessary waste, one can start by using just enough amount of paint. When portioning out the colors, it would help to be keen on how much paint is necessary and its intended use. Mixing colors on the go and recycling paint used for previous works also reduces waste.

Another great technique is to purchase tubes of glazes as opposed to impasto. Because glazes are thinner, they have the ability to stretch easily. Student acrylic paint is another great option ideal for those who want a certain effect without spending too much.

Stretching Canvas - Primed and pre-stretched canvases are usually expensive, something that often presents a headache for artistes working on thin commissions. But because canvas tends to be more suitable, you could try stretching your own canvas as a way to save money and give yourself some room for experimentation.

 In doing so, you'll not only have more surfaces to work with, you'll also not be forced to use expensive canvas for the 'good' projects. Reusing old canvases could also help save money. Many artistes often discard old pieces they don't like or those that stand low chances of selling. But a canvas can easily be recycled by priming it or flipping it over. 

Maintain Existing Supplies - If art supplies are properly maintained, they can last for years. A quality paintbrush set or pallet knives could practically last a lifetime. But unfortunately, a good number of artistes don't maintain their stuff properly, something that tends to be expensive in the long-run. 

Always ensure your brushes are dry before storing them. This can easily be done by shaking water out and patting the brushes dry with a towel in the direction of the bristles. Brushes should also be kept separate; those used with oil-based paints shouldn't be mixed with their water-based counterparts. After using your utensils, spare some time to clean them with soapy water or turpentine. 

It would also help to keep the studio clean and neat since it's where most of the stuff is stored. A properly organized space means that each item will be accessible, clean and easy to put away when no longer in use. To avoid messes, try laying down old newspaper sheets or plastic tablecloths and have a garbage disposal can in close proximity.

To be profitable, one must have the ability to distinguish between needs and wants. By keeping your supplies simple and valuable, you'll be able to create quality artwork without breaking the bank. A good tip is to purchase essentials of the best quality in small amounts.

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