Chester Martin's Art Blog - Number 4

I have really been hoping you would be reading my new blogs while at one of your favorite vacation spots - and with some art equipment close at hand. Makes no difference what you wanted to do: paint or sculpt, I wanted to help you get started, so on my earlier blogs I was telling a bit about COLORS, which is probably your main concern if you're interested in painting, There are so many colors it can be very confusing, and colors can be so expensive that you will want to get full value out of every one.

If painting in oils or acrylics your colors will always be in tubes.

Watercolors will come in either tubes or little pans, like the ones you may have used in school. These latter colors (in pans) will seem familiar to you, but the idea of opening a tube to get your color will doubtless seem odd at first. Both are made out of the same identical materials, but can have a different feel to them as you start to mix them either with water (for watercolors and acrylics), or with turpentine (for oils). DO NOT TRY MIXING OILS INTO WATERCOLORS AND ACRYLICS, OR WATER MEDIA INTO OIL! 

To begin your painting you will need at least one good red, one yellow, and one blue - the primary colors, plus white and maybe black. (If you have attended formal art classes your teachers have probably warned you "never" to use black, but it's done every day by people who work as professional painters. With watercolors you need not worry about white, as you just leave the white of the paper you're working on - and watercolors are probably best when no dark pigment is used. (Keep 'em light and airy!)

Oil paints must be mixed with an oily solvent (called a "medium"), however, and "turps" (turpentine) is the traditional, time-honored medium to use. If you are painting for the fun of it you don't need anything else but a small tin can for the turps, your paint, and a few good brushes. Your canvas for the painting is probably best purchased from an art-supply or hobby store. Pre-stretched canvas is needed only if you plan to frame your work - otherwise, I like using the sketchbook size canvas pads. That idea will keep bulkiness to a minimum and probably help prevent some undesired domestic discussions! If you like one of the pages you have painted you can remove it from the pad and pin it to the wall. OR you can have it dry-mounted and framed for your favorite aunt's birthday. Incidentally, you oil-painters can save yourselves some money by buying cans of turpentine found in "house painting supplies" at most big-box stores. Some of the cans will say, "Suitable for art-work", or something similar. Later, when you have convinced yourself that you have the talent and wish to become more serious about your painting, you can buy the pricier turps found in art-supply stores - usually in small 2-oz. bottles. At that time you can also learn about more sophisticated painting mediums. But pure house-painter's turpentine is all you need for now! (And you Acrylics painters need only ordinary tap-water for yours!)

Brushes are very important of course, and you should always buy the best ones you can afford. There are bristle brushes of all shapes and sizes for oils and acrylics. Then there are also many sizes and shapes of watercolor brushes. These are generally pointed (when wet) and are round. Formerly, the best ones were made out of genuine red sable hair, and were very expensive. Nowadays we have some (super) imitation sables which, for me, have totally replaced the real stuff. To be honest, I very rarely use any of the bristle brushes anymore, preferring watercolor brushes for 99% of my painting. The sable-type hair is very conducive to keeping the paint flat and avoiding ridges and build-ups. In an earlier blog I told how I see no earthly need to cake paint onto canvas - have seen it almost a half-inch thick sometimes - and I much prefer thin layers: no thick build-ups for me! Why try to turn a painting into a relief sculpture? (That's a whole field unto itself!) Should you have something like a large background to fill in, please try using a house-painter's brush of appropriate size. But for everyday painting I have been using a brand called "Princeton" which are light tan and  cerulean blue in color. Imitation sable, they handle every bit like the genuine sable of my youth - and are noticeably less expensive. Remember that even the "genuine" product is going to wear out, so why pay for it when you don't need to?

New art-supply products are constantly coming out on the market - most of which I urge you to ignore as being unnecessary; Just save your money for the best quality paints,  brushes and supports (paper or canvas), commensurate with your abilities, that you can afford. And I know that if you are a beginner at all this you would like some pointers as to brand names. Generally speaking, Winsor -Newton is great for both watercolors and oils, though my favorite oil colors (ever since 1950) have been Grumbacher. New "hot" brands are always popping up on the market and get a lot of attention, but you can't go wrong with the older more traditional names. Utrecht started many years ago as a selling agent for Dutch linen, and then began manufacturing their own paint - selling it cheaper than other brands. I think they have a store in Atlanta. The one I used in Philadelphia was always packed with both students and pros.

For reds I like Cadmium Red Light, which is opaque, and Alizarin Crimson, which is transparent. Burnt Sienna, which classifies as an earth color, is also transparent, and can be used almost as a pure red when the surrounding colors are somber enough.

For yellows I prefer Cadmium Yellow Light, though the cadmium colors are some of the most expensive. Many artists use the much cheaper Hansa yellows instead. Also, Raw Sienna can be lightened with white to make a pleasingly dull yellow suitable for landscapes.

Some recommendations for useful blues include Cobalt, Ultramarine, and Cerulean blue. Cerulean is great for light summery skies, which can be mixed with either of the other two blues for darker effects.

You can soon learn how to mix your own intermediate colors - where a red and yellow combination will give orange; red and blue producing violet, and then blue and yellow combining to make green. Suit yourself about buying any of these intermediates, as it IS easier to squeeze them from a tube than to mix them separately, but remember that ALL (or nearly all) will have to be modified on your palette before being applied to canvas.

"Earth Colors" have a worthy place in the field of painting. They are a wide-ranging series of colors made of pure (but highly refined),"earth"!  I have seen some very beautiful oil paintings done with just three of these: Burnt Sienna (for red), Raw Sienna (for yellow), and Paynes Gray (for both blue and black. Paynes Gray and Raw Sienna will give you an icky green which can be altered by adding white, and the same for Burnt Sienna and Raw Sienna to give orange. The overall appearance of these paintings is of stateliness, very suitable for Smoky Mountain, or other, forest interiors. I was most recently experimenting with a new color (for me) called, "Green Earth". It is amazing! Remember how your printer gives all that beautiful range of color using only those three colors (plus black)?  You can do it too!!! (And a great advantage of using these earth-colors is that they are among the cheapest, most permanent, and less likely to fade, of all colors available to the artist).

Folks, I wanna help ya! Please ask me anything about art that you want to know and I will do my best to help!

See ya soon again!

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