Art Tips Blog

Artwork can be very delicate. I use a non-yellowing artists fixative spray over my charcoal, pencil and pastel portraits. In good weather I will take my art outside to spray (bugs are attracted to art and you don't want them to become a part of your piece so be careful!). In bad weather I use a LARGE cardboard box to make a spray booth and spray the art either in the garage or in a basement. Do not breathe in the fumes and let the piece dry before moving it. Spray in light coats instead of one heavy coat.

Why do your paintings look muddy?

The color of mud is produced when you mix complementary colors together. These are colors that are opposite each other on the color wheel (blue & orange, yellow & violet, red & green). Sometimes mixing two different colors works fine (not complementary) but then you add a third and get mud. Look at the colors you've added and perhaps they aren't pure pigments but a mixture of colors already and when blended with the others, the complementary colors that are in the mix will make mud.

If you're using tubes of paint, look at the tube to see what the blend is if it's not a pure pigment.

Unless you're in Kindergarten, mud isn't pretty

Live or Photo?

There is no right or wrong answer of whether to do your work with your subject in front of you or in a photograph. There are pros and cons to both actually.

Drawing/painting with your subject in front of you can give you a better likeness than a photograph since you can sometimes see from a different angle (especially useful when drawing humans). But the lighting won't stay the same unless in a controlled room.

A photograph is good because your subject will not shift, it's constant. You can walk away for an hour and return the subject is still the same. The con is that you can't see from any other angle so achieving a likeness might be limited at times.

Framing, matting, glass or none?

Here are some rules to follow when framing your artwork.

- If your artwork is done on paper then use a mat with a frame that has glass and spray your piece with fixative prior to matting/framing to protect the art. The mat will give some air space between the art and glass so that humidity doesn't create a problem and ruin the art (it could stick to the glass!).

- If your artwork is done on a board. Is the medium you used delicate that needs protecting by glass? Oils and acrylic paintings done on boards or canvases should not have glass to cover them. They need air. Some frames for paintings have a built in type of mat that's a part of the frame so no other is needed.

- What about watercolors? Watercolor paintings can be done on a variety of papers and boards and should be protected with a mat and glass.

- Different kinds of glass. There is a non-glare glass but unless you buy the very expensive kind it might distort the look of your art a bit. Try to use a glass that has UV protection. Museum quality is expensive but shows your art with great clarity.

NEVER hang your artwork where sunlight will shine on it because over time that will deteriorate your piece.

Scanning art

Some art is small enough to fit on a flat bed scanner. It's essential to go through your settings for the scanner and make sure your resolution is 300 dpi or more. Sometimes you get an option of file format for saving your art so do some test scans to see which works best for your particular piece. PNG, JPG, TIF(F), GIF, BMP Here is a great site for some tips: http://www.scantips.com/basics09.html

SNIP below from the above site...

Major considerations to choose the necessary file type include:

Compression quality - Lossy for smallest files (JPG), or Lossless for best quality images (TIF, PNG).
Full RGB color for photos (TIF, PNG, JPG), or Indexed Color for graphics (PNG, GIF, TIF).
16-bit color (48-bit RGB data) is sometimes desired (TIF and PNG).
Transparency or Animation is used in graphics (GIF and PNG).
Documents - line art, multi-page, text, fax, etc - this will be TIF.
CMYK color is certainly important for commercial prepress (TIF).

Making a transfer paper...

Sometimes you might need to sketch something out on a different piece of paper than the one you'll be working on and this means you will need to transfer it later at some point. There are 2 great ways to do this:

1) Create a transfer paper
2) Make that sketch the transfer paper

A transfer paper is completely filled with graphite and it has to be overlapped and built up so it's black with no white of the paper showing through. To do this you use a graphite stick and make sure you have the paper on hard surface. Your arm will get tired so get used to switching hands or taking breaks. Start off in one corner and just begin rubbing the graphite stick firmly onto the paper in a back and forth motion. Start off in small areas and work your way out. Leave no white spots and don't go in only one direction. Turn the paper and change directions of your markings. Press down so that the graphite showing on the paper is shiny black! It WILL transfer to your hands and clothing so watch out.

You can make the back of your sketch into a transfer paper using the same method as above!

Once your transfer paper is ready to go, tape the sketch in place on the real paper where you will render your art using a tape that is meant to be easily removed. If you use strong tape you will damage your art paper. Slide the transfer paper underneath if your sketch is not your transfer paper.

Use a very sharp pencil and begin tracing your sketch. You can lift up to make sure you're pressing hard enough for the graphite to transfer to the paper. You don't want to press so hard that you are setting grooves into the paper below or making the lines too dark that they can't be erased later if need be. Practice this ahead of time!

Before removing the tape make sure every part of the sketch is transferred. You might have some areas of graphite that have transferred from putting your palm down on the paper but that should be able to be removed easily with a rubber eraser.

I am giving a friend art tips and recently found this site that has nice art lessons (with videos)

http://thevirtualinstructor.com/facialproportions.html

I've never painted glass for a stained glass window but it's on my bucket list For me I would think that designing the piece would be the most difficult.

MoreCoffee said:

If you take an Icon as plan piece then the design would not be too hard

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You're absolutely correct! I guess I know now what things I need to ask for on my Christmas list

[MENTION=33]George[/MENTION]....DUDE, icon me!

That's cuz he's on Facebook spamming me with memes! LOL

MoreCoffee said:

I think it means she wants an icon

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I never knew I'd need a translator! LOL He didn't read the rest of the the posts obviously!