My recent studio re-organisation made me think about what art materials and equipment I really value (and what I don’t – hence the several bin bags of no-longer-needed media, sketches and other might-be-useful-one-day items that I cleared out of my working space).
Art Materials I Love…
I thought it could be fun to share a few of my favourite art materials and equipment currently…
Catalyst Silicone Wedges
I discovered these tools relatively recently. I ordered a couple out of curiosity, but wasn’t expecting too much from them – how wrong I was!
The manufacturers hail them as ‘not quite a brush, not quite a palette knife’ and that’s a pretty fair evaluation. They are very responsive to pressure and can either move paint (of varying thicknesses) around a canvas or board, or cleanly remove wet layers altogether (like a window squeegee).
The shaped edge allows you to make lines, grooves and textures. I use them for applying paint, but find them even better for mark making in already applied wet layers.
I think these must have a huge range of creative applications – cake decorating, ceramics, etc. I’ll definitely be buying more of these and finding new ways to use them!
This stuff has been used in almost every painting I’ve made for a good few years now.
Glazing medium allows you to sheer-out acrylic paint to create transparent layers – basically ‘water down’ the paint, but without loosing vibrancy or adhesion. I use glazing medium in lots of different ways…
When mixed with paint (very carefully, to ensure even distribution of pigment through the mix), I can apply it over large areas of a painting to ‘tone down’ colour or take some of the sharpness away from detail. I often do this with great patience, adding multiple, very translucent layers until I achieve the exact desired effect. This approach also works well to correct colour in a landscape painting where perhaps I’ve not achieved the sense of distance and depth in a certain area, or where shadows aren’t quite right.
I also sometimes paint in layers, but then use a clean, dry brush or a tool to make marks in the translucent layer whilst it’s wet, adding texture.
I also like mixing glazing medium into paint so that when I make individual brush marks they are more subtle – for example, if I want to create highlights on water, but paint in its original formulation, straight out of the tube would be too harsh (or make too much of a raised, impasto mark).
One of the techniques I’ve developed over the years is what I call ‘charcoal drag’ where I apply charcoal marks to a piece and then soften them or pull them around to create shadows, by dragging them about with glazing medium. Usually I’ve part-fixed the marks with a spray fixative (something like Winsor and Newton Artists Fixative) – just enough so some of the original mark remains in place, but not all the charcoal is fixed before reworking with the medium.
Glazing medium can also be useful when working with collaged paper, in a mixed media piece, I find it can successfully seal in porous paper and allow you to work over it with wet layers of paint more easily.
Watercolour Blocks
A friend spotted one of my watercolour pads in the car the other day and asked why the paper was all stuck down – it reminded me how bloomin’ useful watercolour blocks are!
If you’ve not come across them before, these are pads of watercolour paper (available in a variety of sizes, paper textures, thicknesses, and produced by several brands – I generally use the ever-reliable Daler Rowney), that are carefully gummed together at the edges of the sheets (hence the name ‘block’). This means that you don’t need to stretch the paper at all (by taping or otherwise fixing it to a board, or using a specialised frame) to stop it cockling (curling up, buckling and developing wrinkles) as your wet paint layers dry out.
Stopping your paper distorting is a bit of a holy grail in watercolour painting – once it has cockled, it’s almost impossible to get your paint to go, or stay, where you want it. It also makes your framer want to murder you! You’ll find tutorials on the web suggesting ways to try and flatten warped work, but in my experience you’ll never quite manage it. Once a piece has cockled you’re basically saying ‘bye bye’ to any perfectionist ideas you have, or to a presentable, framable piece. Prevention is best.
Stretching small sizes of paper is relatively easy (and generally works fairly reliably), but stretching big pieces is much harder – and the large format watercolour block are a real help here!
I find watercolour blocks are also invaluable when working out in the landscape, in damp conditions (when atmospheric conditions – or plain old rain – might dampen your work and cause it to curl) – like in the photo above on a wet and windy archaeological dig!
When you’re done – and your work is completely dry – you simply slip a slim, hard edged tool (I use a blunt butter knife) into the tiny notch of un-gummed paper at the edge of the block and slide it carefully round the entire perimeter of the page (making sure not to dig down into and damage the sheet below), to detach it from the rest of the block.
So what are your favourite products, home-created aids or techniques that help you create?
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