Painting on Hardboard

My First Painting on a Board

I’m painting an acrylic landscape on a board. Well, it’s not actually on wood, not solid wood anyway, but that doesn’t matter. What matters will be how my painting turns out.

It being a new year and all, I thought I'd try something different--like painting on a board. I have painted only one other painting on a board, and that was a relatively small painting, but it turned out OK, not an award winner, but OK. 

I had been admiring one painters’ technique (online), and I read that this artist painted primarily on MDF.

So I Googled MDF, which stands for medium density fiber board. One website said it’s wood fibers that are glued together using pressure and heat. An artist friend also said to use Masonite™, which I found out is a trademarked brand from what was once the Masonite Corp., named after William Henry Mason, just fyi, in case you ever need to impress someone with your artistic knowledge. 

Anyway, I visited my local big-box home improvement center to see what they had. They  had MDF, but it only came in ½-in (1.2 cm.). pre-cut pieces, which becomes way too heavy if your painting is larger than about 16 x 12 in. (41 x 51 cm.).

They also had something labeled hardboard. I had no idea what it was made of, but they had it in ¼ -in.(.6 cm.) and 1/8-in. (.3cm.) thicknesses, light enough to use for large paintings. It also came in 24 x 48 in. (61 x 122 cm.) and 48 x 96-in. (122 x 244 cm.) sheets.

I decided to try the 1/8-in., 24 x 48-in. sheet, which gives a pleasing 2-to-1 dimension, perfect for a landscape. And you can always buy the larger sheet and cut it down to any size.

When I got home, I Googled hardboard. I found out that instead of medium density fiber board, it’s high density fiber board. Wikipedia said it’s made of exploded wood particles, whatever that is, and it’s highly compressed, which makes it much stronger than MDF. Not that my support needs to be all that strong, but it’s nice to know.

I then Googled about using hardboard as a support. Several painters said to gesso it with at least two coats, which I did.

There was also discussion about the hardboard warping, and my board began to bend outward as the second coat of gesso dried. Oh no.

One painter said the solution was to gesso the backside of the board, which I did immediately.

I don’t know if using a thicker sheet would keep this from happening, but gesso-ing the backside did the trick. When it dried, it returned to its normal flatness after I laid it on a flat surface.

I notice that as I’m painting my landscape on the hardboard, the board does bend as the wet acrylic is applied, but as soon as it dries, it flattens out again. Thank goodness.

I hope this is helpful to anyone thinking about painting on hardboard.   

Keep on Painting

Really See What You're Looking At

I Had to See to Render This Small
 4x6 in (10x15 cm ) Acrylic

There’s the old saying in art that you must first learn to see before you can draw or paint or sculpt. Many don’t understand what that means.

It means exactly what it says; that is, rather than rendering what your mind sees, or thinks it sees, you must learn to see with your eyes exactly what you are looking at.

That means you must concentrate, which I know is difficult for many artists and painters who  want to immediately begin creating as soon as pencil, paintbrush, or pastel stick is in hand. If you can’t make yourself concentrate, then at least slow down and take a few minutes to really look at your subject or motif.

That means:

Understanding the lighting—which direction is it coming from; is it natural or artificial; is it cool or warm?

Understanding the shadows, which are often as important as the lighting--are they soft or hard; which direction do they come from, what color(s) are they?

Seeing colors--what are the predominant colors; can you find any color triads; are there natural complementary colors?

Looking at the details—curl up your fingers and make your hand a spyglass to your eye as you look at your subject in order to isolate certain details; you’ll be surprised at how many details you can now see that could be important.

Using your other senses—what are the atmospheric conditions (if outdoors); in any setting, what is the prevailing ambience—bright or dim, clear or hazy, cheerful or forboding, hurried or slow-paced—this will help you create a mood.

Don’t forget, your mind, including all your memories and assumptions and prejudices, will play tricks on your art by blinding or at least hindering your ability to actually see what is before you.

Keep On Painting

On Being a Professional Painter

It Only Takes Time

According to Malcolm Gladwell’s 10,000-hour-rule, it takes 10,000 hours of practice to become proficient at something, and that doesn’t necessarily even mean that you would be considered a professional.

It does mean you would have to do something for 40 hours a week, which is considered “full-time” work. That’s 168 hours a month or 2016 hours a year.

As I painter, that means you (or I) will have to paint “full-time” for at least five years to become proficient.

So that’s the problem. I do not paint “full-time,” and I don’t want to. I do not (want to) think of my painting as a “full-time” job. Where’s the pleasure in that?

For one, I don’t think of painting as a job, full-time or otherwise. It’s a need.

It’s hard for me to imagine that anyone would consider becoming a painter for the sole purpose of making a living. It’s way more likely to be the other way around; that is, one who paints may think, “OK, I have to make a living--maybe I can make my living as a painter.”

Not  to burst your bubble, but unlikely.

 Unless one either teaches or perhaps paints public murals or maybe portraits, which could conceivably be called a regular job, it’s not likely. Even then, they would have to be very good murals and very good portraits to make a go of it.

Of course, we’re all aware of the relatively few painters who have somehow managed to become well-known and, yes, even make a living wage while they are still living. But not many.

As I said, it’s a need. The painter paints because that’s simply what he or she must do. The number of hours it takes to do it doesn’t matter.

Well, that’s good, because the way I figure it, I’ve got 7984 more hours to go.

Keep On Painting   

Establish Your Mid-Values First

I Established the Mid-Values First 

I was recently working on an acrylic landscape painting and wanted to tell you about something that I had forgotten about; that is, how important it is to understand  the values in your painting before you begin to paint.

As you know, value is the degree of lightness/darkness of a color. It usually is expressed as a gradation on a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being lightest and 10 being darkest. I won’t attempt go into more detail here, but feel free to Google this topic if you need or want more explanation. This concept is sometimes confusing to people, although once you “get it,” you’ll understand why it’s important.

Anyway, what I wanted to tell you, and what I had forgotten, is that you should establish the mid-value(s) in your motif/painting first as you begin to paint. By mid-values, I mean a 4, 5, or 6 on the gradation scale (also known as the gray scale) previously mentioned, with 5 being the midpoint.

Why should you do this? Well, I have found that once you establish your mid-values, it is then easier to find (and paint) the lighter and darker values.

I’ll say it another way. It is much easier to figure out how light to paint your light values, and correspondingly, how dark to paint your dark values if first you establish your mid-values.

For example, in my simple painting above, I first determined the mid-value(s) in the foreground. After doing this, I was better able to judge how dark the shadows and some of the trees and vegetation should be. This also allowed me to understand how light some areas in brighter light should be.

If you’re not sure how to judge the mid-value, try to compare an area in your motif with 4, 5 or 6 on the gray scale. If you are working from a photo, see if you can convert it to black-and-white. This will make it easier for you to find the mid-values.

I hope you find this tip helpful.

Keep On Painting

"Happy" Painting in 2012

The Road Ahead

I am not one to make resolutions

January, however, is the time to take stock of the situation if there ever was one. Perhaps you want to  figure out what needs to change so that you are “happy” with your painting. I put “happy” in quotes because if you are a painter (or some other kind of artist), then you know that happy/happiness is not the correct word.

I do realize in my very last blog, I said I was a happy painter, but that was holiday talk.

Here in the harsh light of January, happy implies contentment. Is any painter ever content with his/her work? No, I don’t think so.

Be that as it may, if you are looking for some sort of renewal, January is the time.

Now is the time to change…your style, your medium, your brand of supplies…whatever you think needs changing, if anything.

If nothing else, it gives you an excuse to try something new if you are in any way un-”happy” with the results of your work. Of course, if you want to wallow in self-doubt, that’s your business.

I am not on a “journey” (there are those quotation marks again).

I am not on a mission.

I am not seeking inner truth.

I am seeking satisfaction, as opposed to happiness, I suppose. I want to be satisfied that I am painting for me, my very own way. I want to stand back from my work and in my mind, if not out loud, say, “Yes, that’s it.”

But as I said, I am not one to make resolutions.

“Happy” Painting in 2012.

A Happy Painter

If you received any artful gifts during this season of light and giving, I hope you are as pleased as I am.

For one, it is wonderful to have family who indulges me in my interest in painting by selecting gifts that I will not only use but thoroughly enjoy.

I received two books, a DVD, a paint set, not one but two calendars, and a gift certificate to my local art supply store:

-The Watercolorist’s Answer Book edited by Gina Rath

-Sister Wendy’s Story of Painting by Sister Wendy Beckett

-Big Brush Watercolour DVD by Ron Ranson

-12-color Pan Watercolor Paint set

-Georgia O’Keeffe 2012 calendar

-Impressionism 2012 calendar

-Jerry’s Artarama gift certificate

If you participated in any gift-giving or gift-receiving, I hope you were as fortunate as I.

Happy Painting!

Red and Green

Several Mixes of Red and Green

Red and green is a very popular color combination in many parts of the world this time of year. Depending on which online site you visit, you get a variety of reasons about the origins of the popularity of these colors. Whatever the reasons, it's clear that over the centuries red and green have come to symbolize a season.

For the artist, however, the combination of red and green can have a different meaning, and not just at this time of year.

For the painter it’s not just the two colors per se, but rather the combination of the two when mixed together.

Because they are opposite each other on the color wheel (with green being, of course, a mixture of blue and yellow), the two colors are considered complementary, which is why together they make a pleasing combination to the eye.

Perhaps even more importantly for the painter, red and green can be mixed to make many “darks” from which the painter can choose, depending on which red and which green is mixed. The number of darks available is equal to the vast number of possible combinations of reds and greens (not exponential but a fairly large number anyway).

Depending on which red and green are chosen, the combination can be a rich, warm dark or a steely, cool dark.  The redder the mixture, the warmer the color will be, and the greener (bluer really) the mixture, the cooler.

In addition, rather than using a tube black, I prefer mixing red and green to produce the warm or cool black needed for your painting. Preferably the black would be mixed from the same red, blue, and yellow in your palette to provide greater harmony in your painting.

Today’s image shows a few examples of the darks you can achieve just by mixing four different reds and greens. With just these four alone, you could also produce 12 additional darks. From top to bottom, they are:

Alizarin Crimson + Viridian

Cadmium Red Medium + Pthalo Green

Carmine + Chromium Oxide Green

Mars Violet + Hookers Green

 Happy Red and Green Painting!

A Mood for Still Life

Nothing better than a gray, overcast day to put me in the mood to paint a still life.

I don’t know why. Maybe it’s because it seems still lifes are almost always indoors. They’re not, of course, but it seems many motifs are food on a kitchen/dining  counter or simply a tabletop with vase and flowers.

Maybe it’s the lighting on a dreary day that matches the quiet, somber mood of many still lifes.

The gauzy, shadowy lighting, which envelops rather than glares, may also be a reason.

Being chilly and damp helps a lot, too. The growing-shorter days and limited hours of light-to-paint-by add a more dramatic mood setting.

Makes me want to pull out a bowl along with some eggs (or grapes or fish or fowl) and whatever else, all on a countertop to paint a scene.

Either that or a porcelain vase filled with a flower in season, blue, of course,  set against a tapestry wall-hanging.

Now that’s the stuff of still-life painting on a late-autumn or winter day.

Happy Painting!

Be True to Your Art Self

I’m learning a painter should strive to be true to himself or herself.

I say this because I am always in the learning mode, and by that I mean I am always looking at, studying, reading up on, or trying out what other painters do or say you should do, supposedly to be a successful painter such as themselves.

At some point, however, and I’m not saying I have reached that point just yet, a painter must take a stand with his or her style, technique, palette, way of doing things, or whatever.

In a sort of Catch-22 way, a painter must be what he or she must be. If a painter studies and mimics and paints just like another painter, that’s all well and good. But at some point shouldn’t they say enough is enough? When have they relegated their own talent to nothing but a fond memory because they want to paint like Paul Klee or Clyfford Still or Grant Wood or whomever?

I doubt Picasso or Sargent ever gave many lessons.

So, when is your style, your style? When is your technique, your technique? When is your palette, your palette? You get the picture.

Stardom or even acknowledgment in painting is rare and seldom for almost every painter.

But to tie this up in a neat bow, is that what we painters are looking for—acclaim and celebrity? I like to think not, but it’s usually back there somewhere as I paint—“will this be the one that breaks out for me and achieves acceptance (stardom!) on a broad scale?”

What if it is or if it is not? Does it matter? Or can I just be true to myself and my paintings?

I’m trying.

(Happy Painting.)  

Exercise Your Imagination

Imaginative
(from a parade of Art Cars)

Although I know better, I tend to think of painting as the primary way of creating art.

 Certainly that is not true, and museums, galleries, and city streets are full of proof to the contrary. Drawing, sculpture, collage, installation or street art is pretty much equally represented.

So when I visit one of those art places or view art that may be considered public or see art anywhere for everyone’s consumption, I am reminded that art can be open-ended and inclusive and imaginative.

Every once in a while I will think about creating some other kind of creative work. I’ll see a piece of something in the garage that was leftover from some project or purpose and think, that could be thought-provoking or interesting or even beautiful.

Some odd pieces of Lexan, stray coils of copper wiring, sample chips of Formica, some steel wool all become ingredients for an artwork. I will putter and piece together a prototype of something that may make an interesting shape or a light-catching form, to me anyway.

In my mind it becomes a standalone centerpiece in a park or a slowly revolving mobile greeting visitors to a public display of art.

And why not? Imagination is the germ that triggers us to create in all sorts of ways. “They” say imagination needs to be exercised like a muscle to stay in shape. I admit that I don’t give mine enough exercise on a regular basis.

Perhaps I limit myself too much. I think in painterly, two-dimensional works of art. I think in terms of value and color and contrast. I usually like to stick to paper and canvas and acrylic and watercolor.

But on the days when I venture out to tinker with other possible art forms, when I am giving my imagination a good work-out, on those days I am not limiting myself.

I hope you aren’t either.

Happy Painting and Creating.