This may seem self-evident, but many beginners try to avoid this learning curve. Often tube colours are used without adjusting them very much. This can lead to unfortunate colour choices in your paintings.
As some of you may know from a previous post of mine, I have only quite recently (over the past year) rekindled my love for creating art after a gap of about twenty years. Not twenty planned years of taking a break from art, but just twenty years where life happened… and art didn’t.
We all have our Achilles heel and I’ll admit that art supplies are mine. It’s therefore quite fair to admit that I probably didn’t need the Caran D’Ache Pastel Pencil set I bought. Well, that is until I had used them. It is now quite fair to admit that I pretty much cannot do without them!
Having a favourite pen is pretty normal, but it might seem bizarre that some creatives can even become obsessed with smaller, seemingly less significant tools of the trade such as rulers, sharpeners, and (today’s topic) erasers!
You have to hand it to Daler Rowney for coming up with a brilliant name for their new gilding paste. For those of you who remember Sean Connery and the Goldfinger movie the link will be particularly appealing. But Daler Rowney have made Goldfinger the hero this time and rightly so. For the first time, I actually look forward to gilding. Let us take a closer look at this useful product.
Newly stocked, and quite a new product in South Africa in general, the Sakura Pigma Micron PN differs slightly from the standard, beloved Micron range.
I find other artists and their stories very insightful and inspiring and I was therefore very excited when contemporary portrait artist Chaz Williams agreed to answer a few questions. I think his predominantly oil portraiture work is fascinating and have been following him on Instagram for quite a while. The arty Capetonian started taking his art a little more seriously when a ‘little Mandela sketch’ he did, ended up selling for more than expected after a local portrait competition. He is very involved with charity and regularly auctions off artwork in favour of various charities.
There is something vaguely nostalgic about painting with gouache. I could not quite explain it until I realised that I had painted with gouache before as a child. The powder paint I used to use as a child was a type of gouache and is still available today. But the name is about all that is the same when compared to the paint I am using now. They are still paints in much the same way as a Trabant and an Aston Martin are still cars. In every other respect, they are entirely different.
I’m certainly no watercolour wizard and it actually excites me that I have copious amounts still to learn. Watercolour is such a unique medium that really breathes a life of its own, as one soon discovers as paint meets water meets paper. It can be quite unpredictable and you are bound to get a whole load of surprises, especially when you’re just starting out. Now I’m sure we all feel the same – that nice surprises can be fun – but sadly with watercolour, my experience has been that more often than not those surprises can be pretty nasty ones. As a graphic designer, one of my favourite and most used keyboard options is ‘command Z’ used to undo my last action (or stuff up), and I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve wished I had one of those for watercolour!!
As an artist using acrylics, you know how versatile the medium is. The quick drying nature of acrylics. The ability to paint on many surfaces. No cracking. Vibrant colour. But acrylics have their little quirks too.
