- The easiest way to stretch a large canvas evenly seems to be to put it on the stretcher unprimed, somewhat loosely. How loose? Put the canvas on the floor flat under the stretcher. Tack the edges of the canvas to the back of the stretcher without pulling. You then size it with a thin layer of hide glue. The glue tightens the canvas. If you do it right, the canvas is taut with no wrinkles. This is easier than trying to get it right using canvas pliers and trying to make the tension even across the whole canvas.
- I like using regular office thumb tacks initially, followed by staples or copper tacks when you know you’ve got the tension exactly right.
- The lead oil primer made by Natural Pigments is very easy to apply. It is much less viscous than other oil primers I’ve tried. That means you don’t have to thin it and it’s less likely to get all over the place. It dries to the touch very fast. A potential downside is that it doesn’t tend to fill the weave of the canvas like thicker primers do.
- It’s good practice to rub the surface of the canvas lightly with a pumice stone before sizing in order to open the fibers up somewhat to accept the glue. If you do this, however, you will create small blobs of fabric in places. After priming, you’ll need to wet sand or use a knife to cut these away.
- Upper Canada Stretchers makes really good stretchers. Check out the discounts for good deals.
So lately I’ve been stretching and priming a large (5 × 3.5 feet) linen canvas, along with a couple of smaller ones. A few observations (learned in part from having to correct mistakes):
Excellent gallery of images by John Singer Sargent. They say they have the full set of complete works. These are very nice scans in fairly high resolution. Since he painted in both oil and watercolor, though, I wish they’d identify medium (fairly obvious in many cases, but not always.
![Sargent: Nude Egyptian Girl](a href="http://www.johnsingersargent.org/70517/Nude-Egyptian-Girl-small.jpg" alt="Nude-Egyptian-Girl">Nude Egyptian Girl</a> "Nude Egyptian Girl")
Thanks to Nick Orban, who posted this on Facebook.
You might also be interested in these postsTags: artists, Gallery, John Singer Sargent
Tad Spurgeon has an excellent summary article on his views regarding sound oil painting practice.
You might also be interested in these postsBecause the structure of an oil painting is inherently complex, it’s always best to attempt keep both it and its various components as simple as possible. However, this element of simplicity should not necessarily extend to purchasing ready-made materials if the hope or expectation is to create higher quality work: generic materials have a strong tendency to produce generic work. While boutique materials are usually higher quality, this is not necessarily the case with the oil. And they still don’t impart the vital information about the nuts and bolts of the craft: at the end of the day, there is no real process, just a set of purchases, a pseudo-craft.
Tags: oil painting, Tad Spurgeon, traditional painting methods
I’ve bought some art stuff lately, so I thought I’d post some mini-reviews, of which this is the first. Here is some stuff from Natural Pigments. Alas, I get no kickbacks if you buy this stuff. I also bought some lead white primer, but I haven’t used it yet so you’ll just have to wait.
Badger brush set
Badger hair is traditional for making brushes used for blending oil paint, so I broke down and bought this set from Natural Pigments. There is a fan, a round, and two sizes of flats. So far, I’ve just tried the round, but for blending it is just lovely. I had been doing most blending with a synthetic round, and wow! The badger beats that by a mile. Highly recommended if you paint in a style that involves rendering. I wish I’d bought these a long time ago.
#2 Bristle flat brushes
These were cheap, so I bought a few. The handles are nicely laquered in a natural wood color. The ferules are firmly set and double crimped. The brush hairs are well set (flags facing inward), with the annoyance of a few stray hairs that needed trimming. The brushes hold their shape under heavy use and have the right level of resistance when moving paint. These are an excellent value for inexpensive brushes.
Velazquez medium
This is calcite ground with a blend of bodied and refined linseed oils. I’ve made basically the same stuff myself, but it’s convenient to have some already made up in a jar. It’s light gray and the consistency of oil paint. Mixed with paint it adds no color, but makes it more transparent. This is a good medium for velaturas and for making strongly tinting pigments less strong without losing body. I haven’t noticed that it has much effect on the brushing properties of the paint. They have a similar medium that’s specifically for impasto, but that’s not how I paint. This stuff won’t magically let you paint like Velazquez, but it is useful and inexpensive.
You might also be interested in these postsTags: art materials, art suppliers, badger brush, bristle brushes, calcite, Natural Pigments, putty, review
I’m getting ready to stretch a 61 × 37.75 inch (155 cm x 96 cm) canvas for a commission. So I’ve been looking at online articles on canvas stretching. Here’s one by James Bernstein at Golden paints that suggests a different set of procedures than generally used.
Recommendations include:
- Drawing a line along the weave of the canvas in pencil along the boundary beforehand, so that you can check to see that the edge of the stretcher is even with the canvas weave as you apply it to the stretcher chassis.
- Stapling or tacking from the edges of the canvas inward. This is exactly opposite from the way every other source I’ve seen says to do it.
- Using pushpins for the initial attachment of the canvas to the stretcher, for ease of adjustment, before final tacking or stapling.
- Letting the canvas settle onto the frame for a day or two, with adjustment as needed, prior to final tacking or stapling.
These methods differ from standard practice, but the author makes a good case.
(Note that I found this article via a related post by Randall Stoltzfus.
You might also be interested in these postsTags: canvas, stretchers
The vanishing point has always held a certain mystique about it to art historians and art connoisseurs alike. The creation of specific vanishing points in the early Renaissance was a turning point in the art world, and led to cement the depth in many paintings of this time period. Before this point, most artists used skenographia on stage in order to give it more depth, with the artist Giotto even attempting a mathematical calculation to determine points of distance within art.
Brunelleschi was the first Renaissance artist to use the vanishing point and depth perception during this time period. Brunelleschi additionally noticed that when drawing Florentine buildings, all lines converged at the horizon line, therefore leading to the realization of the vanishing point. Other artists such as Donatello and Perugino helped to further cement the importance of depth during this time, culminating in Da Vinci’s Last Supper; never before had there been a painting with such mathematical accuracy in relation to depth perception and linear formation. The realization of linear perspective and the vanishing point was kept within Italy for years before flourishing throughout the rest of Europe.
The checkerboard floor pattern is one of the most obvious examples of original perspective. Alberti was one of the first artists to recognize this phenomenon, and named it as the “pavement” construction, as it typically led to the addition of a pavement scene. He later wrote a treatise entitle “De Pictura/Della Pittura” explaining the proper methods of perspective painting. His theories were based more on planar projections and calculations using the height of triangles in the distance, and also using previous mathematical concepts from Euclid.
The vanishing point and depth perception are concepts which we take for granted today because we have never known an art world without them; however, if you traverse through the ages, you will see pieces from the Middle Ages where the baby Jesus appears to be the same size as Mary because the artists had no way in which to signify perspective. It is amazing to view in art museums this subtle change in technique; many museums have paintings set up in chronological order, or at least by major movements. The Renaissance was truly its own movement within the art world, and symbolized a shift away from the chaotic, extremely fanatical world of the Middle Ages.
Without this kind of revolution within the art world, we would still be looking at one-dimensional art works, lacking a proper depth perception. This would prove to be a completely different world from the one we know now, perhaps even lacking the fundamentals of television and movies. Without depth in art, that could not have translated over into any other medium. Therefore, we owe a great deal to these post-Medieval artists who truly paved the way for modern art and art movements. Picasso would not have been able to exist without his acute understanding of the many layers of depth and perspective, and we therefore would have missed out on abstract art entirely as well as every subsequent modern art movement.
This post was contributed by Heidi Taylor, who writes about the online schools. She welcomes your feedback at HeidiLTaylor006 at gmail.com.
You might also be interested in these postsTags: depth, linear perspective, perspective
I recently negotiated a commission to create a painting. I thought posting a copy might be useful. The name of the customer was changed to protect privacy.
Commission agreement
- This is an agreement between John Smith (“John”) and David Rourke (“David”).
- David will create a painting according to subject matter and composition chosen by John.
- The painting will be approximately ____ x ____ inches in size. It will be completed in oil paint using professional-quality materials and methods.
- David will complete the painting, to the best of his ability, within three months.
- John will pay David a total of _____________________ dollars (not including applicable sales tax) for the painting. Payment is due as follows:
- One third of the total price upon completion of this agreement. David will then create one or more preliminary composition drawings for review and approval by John.
- One third of the total price upon approval of the final composition drawing by John. David will then prepare the canvas and complete the painting within a mutually agreeable time frame.
- One third of the total price upon delivery of the completed painting.
- Payment is not refundable. However, John can end this agreement at any time with notice in writing to David.
- Framing is not included in the price.
- Although John will own the painting and has the right to display it as he sees fit, David retains copyright of the image. This agreement provides John with authorization to use photographs of the painting for personal, non-commercial use. Any other use of any image of the painting or portion or derivative thereof requires prior authorization in writing from David.
- David will deliver the completed painting to John when it is sufficiently dry for hanging. It is recommended that the painting receive a coat of protective varnish approximately six months after completion. Upon request, David will varnish the painting at no additional cost.
Tags: art business, commission
I’m experimenting with adding a forum to this site. You can get to it through the menu at the top of the page, or by following links from each of the recent posts.
Please feel free to participate and to let me know what you think. I don’t expect it to turn into anything big, but it might stimulate some useful conversation.
Please be aware that I won’t tolerate obnoxiousness, trolling, or other problems that affect the bigger internet art fora.
You might also be interested in these postsTags: All the Strange Hours, forum
The last several weeks, I’ve attended a local figure drawing/painting session in which there is only one pose for the full time. The last couple of times I’ve attended, I’ve done oil portraits.
The portrait from the first week was pretty awful. Last night’s was not exactly good, but not nearly as bad. Maybe I’ll post them when I have something a little better to compare them to.
This is the first work I’ve done with portraits or figures in about three years, so I am not surprised that some of my skills have gotten rusty. One skill that has improved, however, is mixing flesh tones. I remember, when I was taking figure painting classes, having a heck of a time getting flesh tones that looked even approximately convincing, even when I could take my time over a multi-session pose of 9 or 12 hours. The poses I’ve been working from lately are only 2.5 hours, but I now find paint mixing to be relatively straightforward.
Because these are pretty short poses, I have not worried too much about getting exactly the right hue, instead choosing to concentrate of value, chroma, and shape. I’m working with a very limited palette in which flesh tones are mixed from lead white, raw sienna, burnt sienna, and raw umber. (I’ve also used some black and some ultramarine for dark hair and background.) The flesh tones are basically convincing, however: others at the session have remarked on it and my wife, who remembers my previous struggles, has mentioned that these flesh tones seem better. I should note that, thus far, the subjects have been Caucasian, although I don’t think I would have any greater trouble painting folks of less pallor.
I’m not sure why this aspect of painting has become easier, except for all the practice I’ve put in mixing still life colors over the last couple of years. The very simple palette seems to help as well.
Now if I can just get the shape of the head down correctly in paint, I’ll be just fine.
Update
7 May 2009: On further reflection, I think that one of the things I’ve learned over the last couple of years, even with a very limited palette, is much better control over chroma. Many artists mix overly intense skin tones. Most people’s skin is very low in chroma. Even when using relatively dull earth colors, you often need to cut the chroma of your mixes to get accurate color. For these portrait studies, I’ve been using raw umber for that purpose, as it’s chroma is very, very low.
You might also be interested in these postsTags: chroma, color, flesh tones, limited palette, paint, paint mixing, portrait, the figure
Lately I’ve come to realize that the light on a painting as you’re working on it is as important as the light on whatever you are painting.
I’ve recently added a light over my easel that provides more illumination than anyone would actually shine on a painting that was being displayed. I tend to keep it off much of the time while painting, but turn it on periodically to check my work. Under a higher level of illumination, I often catch problems, especially in the deeper shadows. Without enough light, it’s easy to miss inaccuracies in value, hue, chroma, or gradation. These problems might not show up too strongly when the painting is displayed, but can be significant enough to cause noticeable errors.
Of course, the color of the light shining on your painting should be neutral enough that it does not itself introduce distortions and thereby lead you misunderstand hue relationships while mixing paint.
You might also be interested in these postsSometimes, you need the highest value highlight that it is possible to get in paint. Other times, you need a dark accent that is as low in value as you can get. Beecause paint doesn’t have anything like the dynamic range of human vision, it’s good in realistic painting to have as wide as range as you can. Small differences can sometimes be important.
The whitest white I’ve been able to find is “radiant white” by Gamblin. It’s titanium white in poppy oil. Most of the time I prefer paints ground in linseed or walnut, but for this purpose it makes sense to use the whitest possible pigment and the most colorless binder available. I’m still painting out test strips on a neutral gray background, but I’d guess it’s a quarter Munsell value step than the next brightest titanium white I’ve played with. I’ll use it only when I need a very light highlight.
The darkest black I have is Williamsburg intense black. The pigment is listed as “carbon from gas flame.” The back label says: “warning: very slow drying.” It is just noticeably darker than bone (“ivory”) black. The slow drying can be compensated for somewhat with a drier such as lead napthenate. I will use it only for dark accents at the very last stage of painting, so drying time for this particular paint is not that important for me.
Update
2 May 2009:_ There’s a small highlight that I had previously painted in Old Holland titanium white. It’s light reflected from the shiny metal part of a clothes hangar. In real life this highlight is very noticeable, but on the painting, surrounded by relatively light tones, it did not stand out at all. I recently painted it in using pure Gamblin radiant white. It is noticeably brighter than before—giving an effect that is much more like what I was trying to depict.
You might also be interested in these postsTags: black, color, Gamlblin, Munsell, titanium white, value, white, Williamsburg
I’ve found a local atelier that does figure drawing in two and a half hour poses. When I moved to this area, I attended a few sessions at another group that does the more typical 5, 10, and 15 minute gesture poses. Those just drive me crazy. Even one session seems like only enough time to get started.
Tags: David's work, drawing, the figure
I struggled quite a bit with this one. That’s largely because of the very strong value contrasts, the large areas of subtle darks, and because it’s not easy getting the right chroma in that hue of red in the lights. The painting looks good in fairly bright light, but flattens out in dimmer light.
“Red Laces,” oil on canvas, 11 × 14”.
Tags: David's work
I’m working on some changes to the underlying technical structure of this site. So far, I have switched the database from MySQL version 4 to version 5. That seems to have gone surprisingly well so far (given my limited technical skills), and the site is loading much more quickly.
Next, I will attempt to clean a bunch of old, unused tables out of the database. That may cause some problems with the blog and I may have to restore from backups.
I apologize for any problems over the next couple of days. I’ve been avoiding this for a long time, but it really has to be done if this site is to work the way it’s supposed to. Please let me know if you have any problems with the site.
Thanks.
Updates
24 April 2009: So far, so good. The blog is running a lot faster now. I’ve recovered some recent comments that were in the database, but had become invisible. The archives page is now displaying properly. All the posts and other stuff seem to work correctly.
2 May 2009: Still working fine (he writes while superstitiously knocking wood to banish the avenging spirits of tempted fate). I wish I’d done this a long time ago, as it was much easier than I thought it would be.
You might also be interested in these postsTags: All the Strange Hours, WordPress
Rather, I am experiencing technical difficulties. My apologies to anyone who may have tried to post comments.
Update
24 April 2009: This problem seems to be resolved. The missing comments have been restored.
You might also be interested in these postsTags: WordPress
A weblog about drawing, painting, art history, color, art materials and methods, photography, and other topics related to visual art.
Click here for some recommended books at Amazon.com.
Recent comments