Tips and tricks

Here are some thoughts and suggestions in these trying times about how we can continue to improve our art without emptying the bank account.

Care of watercolour brushes 

from John Strickland

    
 

 

  

Storing brushes

Keep these dry brushes standing in a jar with bases down and hairs upwards

For travelling

It is an idea to keep them in roll-up pouch made with dividers, a flap-over at the top, and with longer sticks at the side to prevent the flap 'crunching' the hair/bristles.

NB. Interruption from your blogger. Potato-based Pringles! They are sold in fairly-solid round tubes with a plastic lid accommodate almost every length of paintbrush. Wrap in a rag or kitchen paper so they don't move around. 

Oh,I forgot to say: enjoy the Pringles first.

Hair-type brushes

Never leave standing in water jar for many hours - causing rotting of hair at the base (ferrule)

Maintenance of brushes

Periodically wash and soak brushes with dish-washer soap, then hang them (hair/bristles) down to dry or lay them flat - and remember to repoint them after washing.

Do not clean any watercolour brushes (hair or synthetic) with thinners.  This will cause the fine hair tips of a brush to become frizzy, and may ruin the brush.  Sometimes a frizzy tip can be trimmed with nail clippers or a fine pair of scissors.  

Not worth the risk!

Care of acrylic brushes

So the brushes used for acrylics are probably much cheaper (especially those from a hardware store) but they also need care and cleaning. 

Keep brushes in water while painting and as soon as the painting session is over, clean them. Yes, some folk have dirty acrylic brushes but clean ones work much better. And last longer. The same advice as for watercolour brushes applies:

Wash and soak brushes with dish-washer soap, then hang them (hair/bristles) down to dry.

Some saving suggestions

Dried up tubes of watercolour?

Get a razor or cutter and slice open the tube and use as though it was a pan. Careful the edges don't cut good watercolour brushes though.

Cheap paints are not a good idea - unless just for practicing - and even then...

Quality is best. Buy watercolour paints in tubes and fill your watercolour pans with this. Screwing the top on the tube tightly afterwards will keep the paint moist for years. And will cost you at least 30 percent less.

However, the best tip for saving money on any paints is to invest in only a certain number and learn to mix thoroughly. With six paints you'll have a good variety. With TEN MAXIMUM you have an excellent variety. Stick to these until you know them or want to splash out on more hues.

Watercolour artist Will Freeborn recommends his all-time favourite mix for greys: French Ultramarine and Burnt Umber.

Save on acrylics

Chris Breier says: Soft Body acrylic has three times the coverage of the heavy body acrylics. This is due to the fact that heavy body paint is applied in a thicker layer than the thinner soft body acrylics. The Soft Body Acrylics can be applied in a thin layer so it will cover more square feet. So one tube of soft body acrylics is roughly equivalent to three tubes of heavy body acrylics.This is much better return than a 10% discount on paint!

He also adds another tip that is valid for oil, acrylic and pastels:

"When I am done with a painting, O scrape up all of the leftover paint and mix it up into a neutral grey. It's wasteful to just throw it away. Most paintings contain neutral grass in them and the leftover grey can be used to dull down colour mixtures. Store in an airtight container and use it in your next painting".

And hello pastel artists. You are of course doing the same with all the pastel dust and excess, right? It's perfect for your greys.

Run out of canvas for oils or acrylics?

Who needs canvas! None of us are Monet or Rembrandts.(Yet!). It's really modern to paint on your trainers, beach stones, or a bit of drift wood. But if that's not what you fancy, then ask DIY pals if they have any leftovers (tripleply or hardboard) or go down to the hardware store and pick up some offcuts of hardboard or, if you are feeling flush, get the store to cut up one whole piece into useful sizes for paintin g- 40x50cm for instance.  It is VERY economical. You'll need to prime these but household water-based paint (the paint you use on walls) is a good bet. We use left overs and get a good mix of priming colours. And at the same time, indulge yourself in a 2-inch/5cm brush for those big washes!

But if you don't want to reinvest, then re-use. 

The wonderful Durbanville artist Eliza Bezuidenhout once did a fabulous oil paint demonstration in front of a group using and old canvas still with the remains of a painting on it. And she produced a magnificent portrait from a photo that she brought. Re-use your canvases. Re-use your boards. Check out her work on Instagram.

Watercolour paper can be used on both sides for practice especially the 300g weight. Just stick it down with masking tape on a support. But always buy the best quality you can afford as it can take many more layers of wet paint. Arches and Saunders Waterford are top favourites.

Palettes? Recycling old material is not a bad idea. While meat is still packaged in polystyrene (and it ought not to be!) or on bamboo plates, clean them and use them as a palette. Another idea was to cover a white silicone chopping board with clingwrap clean film and then discard the clingwrap after each painting session.

A tip from Hazel Soan

When you use paper towel to clean or absorb your watercolour, don't chuck them out afterwards. Dry them and use again! Save the planet. Same idea with those kitchen wipes. When they are no good or too stained for the kitchen, they are - after a good wash - excellent for painters who want to clean their brushes.

And another tip from Hazel:

A Splash of Red

"As painters we often add a splash of red into a painting to bring a composition to life. The red stands out because it is different. This week I read a quote by the Stoic Agrippinus, likening our role in society to threads in a garment, he said, "I want to be the red, that small and brilliant portion which causes the rest to appear comely and beautiful”. Red stands out because it is different but its real purpose is to make the other colours come alive. Being different is not about attracting attention to oneself, it's about bringing out the best in everyone else. Red understands how to "be the small part that makes the rest look bright”. No wonder the red tube lasts for so long!"

Use a mirror or cellphone for a quick snap

How are you doing with your painting? Take a cellphone snap or hold it up to a mirror to see how it looks. This forces you to re-evalue your work and it is extremely helpful.

Frames?

If you are going the recycle route, how about looking for frames in a secondhand shop. 

In watercolour you can always create your own 'mount' by blocking out the whole perimeter of your watercolour painting. Or, as FHAS member Di Breeze does so cleverly, create a simple doodle pattern on the white paper around your drawing or painting.

An easel? Never cheap but if you cannot make one yourself, perhaps a friendly DIY family member can help. 

Two types are worth considering. A table top easel or a stand up easel. Your blogger made her own stand up easel with pegs at different levels to accommodate different sized boards. You can do it as simply as you like using bolts and screws. Or fancy with mitred corners and permanent screws.

If you are game (and you'll save SO MUCH money) then Wikihow tells you how to do it. Have a look at the link below and pass it on to your husband/grandchild/handyman or get out your electric drill and have a go. 

https://www.wikihow.com/Make-an-Easel  l 

I've always found that Peninsula hardware stores will cut your wood to the size you ask. Such a treat for a saw-shy artist.

Constant digital inspiration

You are reading this on a computer, cellphone or smartpad. So you can download material easily or watch short videos.

Use the internet to pick up tips and inspiration. Instagram is amazing for finding work. Pinterest too. How about typing in words such as 'paint a tropical beach'  or 'paint trees' and you'll find FREE tutorials on YouTube for this. 

Checkout watercolor_planet on Instagram. Or the wonderful American watercolour artist yonghong.zhong. He often publishes 3 images at a time to show the progress of a work.

And if you want to spend a bit of money, start a free account with Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.com and buy digital books for less than paper ones. All Hazel Soan's books are (I believe) available digitally now.  These type of books you can consult at any time, anywhere.

NEW didn't get many takers!

The subject NEW didn't seem to appeal to FHAS members this month.

Is nobody painting out there? We do hope you are but if you'd like to offer other themes for our challenge then please drop us a line.

As a header here is New Summer Growth, a colourful watercolour by Fiona.

So herewith are the paintings we received in the last week including a couple that missed the deadline for REFLECTIONS from new member Anne Puren.

We'll start with Anen's work. One work missed the reflections deadline and the other we're submitting here as a 'new' day sunrise. Thanks Anne, great colours. We'd like to learn your medium please.

John had a field day and sent lots of sketches. Did you do them all this month, John? 

It is interesting to see the effect of using a dark background for the chicks. That's worth an exercise at another date. Keep reading ...

Maugie brought us a very interesting interpretation of the theme. What could be newer than a new pot being created by a potter and captured in acrylics?! Well done.

Time for an artistic exercise

We've all been languishing artistically during the last few months and those lessons we have been following have inevitably been online or from books. If we made the effort. Today, as there's a whiff of spring in the air, we're planning on making an effort.

This week we're thinking simplicity.

Remember Hazel Soan's blog from a few weeks ago? She mentions the very few colours she uses to achieve this picture above. And how effective they are when used simply. A cool blue, burnt sienna, yellow ochre and violet.  The wonderful thing is that the colours are fairly unreal: when did you last see a blue elephant? Or blue dust? The choice of colour doesn't really matter - the tone does - and Hazel has created an atmosphere where we don't stop and say, hey, the dust is really blue in Etosha? It just doesn't matter because the diversity in tone and harmony of hue has created an atmospheric picture. 

Well, here is today's artistic challenge and it is one to help us all learn something about the simplicity of mixing colours, be it watercolour, oil, acrylic or pencils (though the last is the hardest!).
Hazel Soan told us years ago that we could go anywhere with a palette of six or seven primary colours: two blues, two reds and two yellows and maybe one more. But I remember her showing me some fast sketches that she had done in ONLY THREE COLOURS. Let's be generous and think four colours.
By the way, at the end of this blog you'll find details of a great little and inexpensive book by Hazel.


Above: French Ultra, Permanent Alizarin, Yellow Ochre and Cadmium Yellow Medium.
The key to using just three, or four, or five colours - rather than a rainbow of colours - is to get to know how they mix together, how much of each to use to vary the colour, how to use your white paper in watercolour to get that transparency or highlight and how to get a freshness of application without overdoing it. Just think how little you'd need to carry if you were able to paint al fresco with so few tubes or pans.

You need to consider your colours: Are they warm or cool? Are they opaque or transparent? How do they mix together? Are they permanent or not? (No point in putting in your shadows first in a soluble colour if you are going to put lots of washes on top! And no point in hoping to lighten Permanent Rose or Prussian blue later. They are... permanent.)

Those of you who are more familiar with acrylic and oil will probably remind me that white is an important colour for reducing the tone. And black for increasing intensity.

The above being three primary colours in oil or acrylic with the addition of white

So, the suggestion this week is PAINT what you like (a flower, fruit, some veg, a beach, a face, a copy of something from a magazine or internet - whatever you have to hand) in just FOUR COLOURS if you are using watercolour and if you are using acrylic or oil, you'll be excused for using a fifth colour as you don't have the white paper. But maybe you're a genius and can still do it in four!
You can draw it first. Or not. It's entirely up to you.

This is a fun exercise. And, while experimenting it might be an idea to make a little colour chart - something like the one below.

This time the idea for the presentation is also different.

We all know how to take a snap of our work with a camera/iPad/phone but this time we want to see those four colours (tubes, pencils, pans) laid out on the side of the picture so we can see just how YOUR simple palette can produce a variety of colours. If the name of the colours doesn't show, just write them in the email.

The photo below shows how you could include your colours and your pictures.

The deadline for inclusion on the blog is 30 September so please forward your work to noninichols@gmail.com.

Above is a screen grab of the cover of one of Hazel Soan's most popular books - 10-Minute Watercolours. It has a different cover in different countries so as long as it is by Hazel, it's a winner.
It is simply one of the best little books I have ever bought - and I go back to it time and time again. It is available from Amazon (maybe from Loot?) but, better still, you can get the digital form of this book for less than R100 from Amazon and have it on your computer, smartphone or smart pad.

It slipped through of the window

Another interesting entry for the Hugh Murdoch competition which, this year, is just online and challenged FHAS artists to interpret Through The Window.
 It was received in time but managed to slip out of our grasp. Apologies to the artist.

2020's Hugh Murdoch Trophy

The Hugh Murdoch Trophy competition has not been the same this year. But then what has!



No hands-on discussion, no communing over a glass or cuppa, no chatting with fellow artists and not a great participation.

Last year we had a large number of participating paintings and the trophy was awarded to president Ann, seen below with Sue, our librarian and bookkeeper, as well as artist.





However that hasn't deterred some FHAS artists from taking part and submitting their work on the theme: THROUGH A WINDOW.

Below, you'll find the works and we invite you to make some comments on the blog page. They are in no particular order.

We look forward to hearing from you and meanwhile keep warm, keep painting and drawing, and keep an eye out for more painting/drawing challenges.

NEW CHALLENGE

The theme is NEW.

It could be new leaves, new baby, new experience, new moon, new tricks, new(ly) married, new girlfriend, new pups, new start, new (to you) vegetables or fruit, new family, new to the world or sunrise on a new day or... or ... you can think of something NEW that appeals to you.

  

Interpret NEW as you wish.



   


Send your work to us, as usual, at noninichols@gmail.com by 15 September 2020 but please remember to include mention of the medium and give it a title with the word NEW in it.