On 3 Sep, 2012 With
Oil painting essential materials and techniques: Grinding Pigments Grinding.—The color which the artist uses must be most evenly and perfectly ground. The grinding which will do for ordinary house paints will not do for the artist’s colors. Neither will the chemical processes suitable for the one serve for the other. Not only must the machinery, but the experience, skill and care, be much greater for artist’s colors. Therefore it is that the specialization of color-making is most important to good colors for the use of the artist. Reliable Makers.—If you would work to the best advantage as far as your colors are concerned, both as to getting the best effects which pure pigments skilfully and honestly prepared will give you,…
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On 31 Aug, 2012 With
Oil painting essential materials and techniques: Good Paints and Pigments Good Paints.—The three things on which the quality of good paint depends are good pigment, good vehicles, and good preparation. The pigments used are of mineral, chemical, and vegetable origin. The term pigment technically means the powdered substance which, when mixed with a vehicle, as oil, becomes oil paint. The most important pigments now used are artificial products, chiefly chemical compounds, including chemical preparations of natural mineral earths. As a rule, the colors made from earths may be classed as all permanent; those from chemicals, permanent or not, as the case may be; and those of vegetable origin fugitive, with few exceptions. Some colors are good when used as water colors, and bad…
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On 28 Aug, 2012 With
Oil painting essential materials and techniques: PAINTS Of all your materials, it is on your paints that quality has the most vital effect. With bad paint your work is hopeless. You may get an effect that looks all right, but how long will it stand, and how much better may it not have been if your colors had been good? You can tell nothing about it. You may have luck, and your work hold; or you may not have luck, and in a month your picture is ruined. Don’t trust to luck. Keep that element out as much as you can, always. But in the matter of paints, if you count on luck at all, remember that the chances are…
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On 25 Aug, 2012 With
Oil painting essential materials and techniques: Care of Brushes Care of Brushes.—The best of economy in brushes lies in your care of them. You should never let the paint dry on them nor go too long without careful washing. It is not necessary to wash them every day with soap and water, but they would be the better for such treatment. Quite often, once a week, say, you should wash your brushes carefully with soap and water. You may use warm water, but don’t have it hot, as that may melt the glue which holds the bristles together in the ferrule. Use strong soap with plenty of lye in it—common bar soap, or better, the old-fashioned soft soap. Hold several…
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On 22 Aug, 2012 With
Oil painting essential materials: Selection of BRUSHES Selection.—Never buy a brush without testing its evenness, as has been advised in the care of sables. Feel carefully the end of the bristles also, and see that the “flag” is there. All brushes are kept together for packing by paste in the bristles. See that this is soaked off before you test your brush. Round or Flat.—It will make little difference whether you use round or flat brushes. The flat brush is most commonly preferred now, and most brushes are made that way. So you had better get that kind, unless you have some special reason for preferring the round ones. Handles.—Whether the handles are nicely polished, also, is of no importance….
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On 19 Aug, 2012 With
Oil painting essential materials: Bristle and Sable BRUSHES Bristle and Sable.—The brushes suitable for oil painting are of two kinds,—bristle and sable hair. Of the latter, red sable are the only ones you should get. They are expensive, but they have a spring and firmness that the black sable does not have. Camel’s hair is out of the question. Don’t get any, if you can only have camel’s hair. It is soft and flabby when used in oil and you can’t work well with such brushes. The same is true of the black sable. But though the red sablesare expensive, you do not need many of them, nor large ones, so the cost of those you will need is slight. …
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On 17 Aug, 2012 With
Oil painting essential materials: BRUSHES An old brush that has been properly cared for is generally better than a new one. It seems to have accommodated itself to your way of painting, and falls in with your peculiarities. It is astonishing how attached you get to your favorite brushes, and how loath you are to finally give them up. What if you have no others to take their places? Don’t look upon your brushes as something to get as few of as possible, and which you would not get at all if you could help it. There is nothing which comes nearer to yourself than the brush which carries out your idea in paint. You should be always on the…
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