Tips and Techniques - Part I

I have being getting lots of questions from other artists wanting to jump into the daily painting and artists asking for tips, so I decided to start a series of posts just for my artists friends out there.

I'm starting with a list of the materials or tools I use, 'cause I think they are as important as the paintings itself.


==Support==
First of, the masonite or hardboards I use, and I do use a variety of them in many sizes, from 4" x 4" all the way to 24" x 24". I don't make any of them, don't want to as I figured I'll be waisting time preparing boards instead of painting (which is the thing I love!) and since my supplier carries everything, and I truly mean EVERYTHING I don't need to shop anywhere else. For a link to my supplier go to the bottom of my menu.

Ok, the boards. I use Ampersand Gessobords and Hardbords along with Blick Studio Artist Boards in different thickness from 1/8" deep all the way up to 2" deep. I generally use the thin 1/8" - 3/8" deep boards for my daily paintings, while the thick ones I use them for commissions and exhibitions at galleries.


==Foundation==
Over the years I've used, gosh! so many different kinds of gesso and grounds, from a variety of oil and acrylic primers, to gesso and whatnot. Remember that I not only paint on sturdy boards, I also paint on canvases as well. But one thing that was common in almost all of them was the color, white. In early 2004 before moving to Spain, I experimented with some plain acrylic paint ('cause I ran out of gesso!). The main colors I used were white and raw sienna, among others, but the thing I didn't like about this foundation was that it was slippery, no tooth to hold the oil paint, so after a couple of trials I stopped using acrylic paints as the foundation, so I went back to use white acrylic gesso as my main primer.

While in Spain the same year, I encounter a shortage of white acrylic gesso, and my supplier only had black at the time, so when you are in need, you go for it, I bought the black acrylic gesso. Scared that I would regret my decision, immediately I found my vibrant palette to look more vibrant than with the white background. The reason why? the white background absorbs more light therefore the need to apply more color to the surface to compensate the loss of color. In other words the white background would "eat" the color, while the black background rejects light and the light is only reflected on the actual layer of colors therefore producing a more vibrant painting. If you are like me using a lot of color for your compositions (nature is full of color! don't be afraid to use it!) you will see the difference.

Today, now back in the US, I use what I consider the best black acrylic gesso there is, the Tri-Art Finest Acrylic Black Gesso. When dry the surface has enough tooth to hold your oil paint, and if you ask me to recommend you a black acrylic gesso, this would be the one I strongly recommend for oil painters.

Needless to say, I still use white gesso, for some of my other works, mainly abstract works.


==Drawing==
A good painting always starts with a good drawing, and this is important. Over the years ( a whole lot of years, since I started painting in oils when I was still a kid, man! I'm getting old! =] ) I've used everything to lay my drawing, lead pencils, coloring pens, chalk, diluted oil or acrylic paint (don't like it one bit!) and even charcoal sticks, but they all more or less arise a problem, at least for me.

Charcoal and lead pencils would smudge and leave an undesirable coat of black dust in my paint, and I truly didn't like that. Coloring pens and pencils, well the lines would disappear quite fast and I needed the lines so many times I would get frustrated because of this. Diluted oil or acrylic paint would require more paint to cover it, and I'm not quite a friend of thick layers of paint.

A few years ago the revolution of watercolor pencils came out and frustrated with all the above, I decided to buy some to try for both, painting with them (they are so much fun!) and see if they would work for drawing. They did, perfectly! Today I use white watercolor pencil to draw on black gessoed boards. the lines don't disappear while I'm laying my colors, I don't have that horrible black residue as with charcoal and they don't show, not even with extra thin layers of paint. Plus one important advantage for me, since I fall into the detail of the scene, I can sharpen the pencil which gives me even more control during the drawing process, oh! and no more black fingers either.

This is the first part of this short but important workshop.

In the second part I'll be talking about Solvents and Mediums, Brushes, Other Equipment and Oil Paint.

Until next time!

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