Know what I’m salty about?
In all my art classes, I was never taught HOW to use the various tools of art.
Like yes, form, and shape and space and color theory and figure drawing is important, but so is KNOWING what different tools do.
I’m 29 and I JUST learned this past month that India Ink is fucking waterproof when it dries. Why is this important? Because I can line something in India Ink and then go over it with watercolors. And that has CHANGED the ENTIRE way I art and the ease I can create with.
tldr: Art Teachers: teach your students what different tools do. PLEASE.
WAIT INDIA INK JS WATERPROOF ONCE IT DRIES????? THE ENTIRE REASON IVE AVOIDED MARKERS MY ENTIRE LIFE IS BECAUSE JNK BLEEDS AND YOURE TELLING ME INDIA INK IS
F U C K I N G W A T E R P R O O F
oh man your teachers did not do there jobs!
-Yo painters, use pencil if u must underdraw beneath an oil painting, the lead is archival but ideally you should be doing underdrawings in a muted earth tones (siennas, umbers, ochres or earth green) with some titanium white added to it. (The white nearly matches the canvas and earth tones naturally blend with all colors on top unless u do super thin glaze washes).
-Trying to make a natural looking warm black? Don’t use black straight from tube, Mix alizarin crimson and viridan. add raw umber to adjust for light depth.
-If your into mixed media ALWAYS use acrylic first and oil on top (the gesso on primed canvas is acrylic based and oil sits on top of it great). NEVER put acrylic paint on top of oil, the acrylic will crackle/decompose and fall apart/off the canvas.
-India ink is permanent and if your using ink from a jar it should say it’s permanence. professional art grade pens usually have there permanace listed either on the pen or the companies website.
-Red cinnabar is poisonous, DO NOT EAT IT, no matter how much like fruit loops it smells.
-Translucent and transparent are NOT the same. translucent is *shiny* and a cloudier color, ideal for mixing usually ordor making vibrant colors like for eyes, cars, etc. Transparent is matte and usually a 50% transparency from an opaque color.
-ALWAYS DO A TEST SWATCH OF ANY NEW MATERIAL.
-any paint made with “true alizarin crimson” “red lake” and “chrome yellow” pigment is a fugitive paint. Fugitive means the pigment fades dramatically and disappears over time, (usually 5 to 15 years) lots of van goghs paintings have this problem. be very careful with these pigments. Alizarin crimson especially smells extremely sweet and like fruit loops or fruit loops, don’t eat it.
-gauche is a mix of watercolor and ink, proceed with caution as this material can be an asshole.
-Watercolor can be made darker/thicker by letting it dry slightly in cake form or in liquid form and can be dry brushed if u get the timing down.
-Paint liquid rubber or lay down thin pieces of painters tape on edges in watercolor paintings to Prevent bleeding between lines if u need super sharp edges.
-always tape down the entire paper edges when u paint with watercolor to a board to prevent the paper from curling as it dries.
-add salt directly into wet watercolor paintings to absorb pigment and make shit look like space.
-Always paint in well ventilated areas and avoid getting lots of paint on your hands. lots of paint is made with heavy metals and can cause cancer.
-natural materials aren’t always safe, especially
-Ones u collect yourself, do your research before grinding, burning, sanding these things especially indoors.
-use NATURAL bristles on your brushes with oil paint and SYNTHETIC bristles on your brushes for acrylic and watercolor. synthetic bristles literally break off into oil paint and stick into your painting, and natural bristles can’t handle the weight of acrylic paint and rip into 15 directions. Use hard boar bristle for the underdrawing/underpainting of an oil painting as it will force the paint into the canvas pours more effectively cause it’s stronger, use softer bristles for outer layers of oil painting and blending, boar will pierce outer layers and is to hard for anything but the first layer. can’t tell what u have? clean it up and brush it on your face, softer it is the better it is as doing outer layers of color.
-if you have a decent painters’ tape, you can prewet your watercolor paper, tape it to a surface & weight it down with some books to press it flat while it’s wet and help keep it from buckling later once dry, this is especially useful because for some reason, watercolor block is half again as expensive or more than a comparable sized pad or large sheets to cut down, even by the same brand
-natural sable is good for watercolor if you can afford it, i have two smaller brushes i shelled out for to try it, and while i probably didn’t treat the finer point one right, the other one is a miracle i’ve had for nearly 20 years.
-chinese calligraphy brush sets are fantastic for large work and washes and way, way cheaper most times than standard brushes, and it doesn’t seem to matter how cheap they are, either. they may shed a little, but they do a really good job holding and distributing water.
Rb for any art students
