Masterson Sta-Wet Premiere Palette
When I first started painting, I used a plastic bowl cover or a paper plate for my palette. I found that the paint dried too quickly and when I was ready to load up my brush, the paint had become thick and chunky. Yuck! So I found this wonderful product that has been a game changer for me.
The Masterson Sta-Wet palette system is such a great money saver and time saver. The Sta-Wet palette is a plastic tray that combines a sponge and palette paper for keeping acrylic paints wetter longer. When the lid is sealed tightly, the paint can stay moist for days or even weeks. This system lets me continue painting after many breaks or even over days without having to squirt out more paint and wasting time and money. The paint is always ready to go when I am.
Spray Bottle
I often use a spray bottle with water to refresh my palette, so the colors stay wetter when I'm painting for a longer period. All that is needed are one to two spritz of water to keep the paint the perfect consistency. Spray your canvas as well if you're working in a larger area so the paint can flow easier.
Use Gesso
To allow the paint to flow easier, you need at least two good coats of gesso on your canvas before you even start painting. Gesso is similar to white acrylic paint but it dries hard, making the surface more stiff and ready to accept acrylic paints. Without applying gesso, your paint would soak into the weave of the canvas and dry faster. Your paint would also require more coats of paint and your colors would be unevenly applied. You would also struggle to blend and create brilliant layering effects.
Paint Smaller Sections
When I want to blend wet-into-wet, painting in small sections of the canvas is helpful. For example, when painting a flower edge that is to be blended into a background, I will rewet the background and then blend the flower color into it, creating a smooth, soft edge. (You can see this technique on the Wild Roses video tutorial on my YouTube channel at the 25-minute mark). I often rewet a dried area with the same color and then paint over by blending or smearing the new color, creating an oil painted effect. I know this technique takes longer but by layering paint and blending this way, the colors appear richer and more dimensional. Another way I blend wet-into-wet is by allowing the original color to stay on the brush (without cleaning it) and then immediately dip it into another color from the palette and then blend them next to each other on the canvas. You can see this technique in just about all my tutorials. You just have to be careful not to have too much of the original color left on your brush. Otherwise, it will get muddy looking and will be hard to control.
Add Medium to Your Paint
Another thing you could do is mix in a slow drying medium to your paints while on the palette. I've tried a couple but I found using water and working in smaller areas has helped me blend colors easier. You can find some recommendations below. Just mix them one to one with your colors before painting onto your canvas. However, do not mix too much medium because it will make your colors too transparent and sometimes not dry thoroughly.
Note: These can be great additives to your acrylics for creating glazing or "watering down" your colors to create transparent colors. If you'd like to see some of these techniques in action, watch my painting process on my YouTube channel. Thanks!
]]>Have you ever gotten to a point where you just can’t decide on a background? Should you add more details, use one color or two or even create some abstract design back there? Here are some ideas for you when deciding on what to do in your background.
KEEP IT SIMPLE
Keep the background simple. Do not add too many details in the background, because having too much “stuff” will distract from the focal point. The focal point area should always be the most detailed while the outer edges are softer and more blurred. Your viewer will want to focus on the more detailed part and give the eye a resting spot.
COLOR CHOICES
Use only one color with mixed variations. To create more drama and life to your work, use complementary colors which are opposite on the color wheel. For example, if you are painting flowers in a rich magenta, a background color of varying mixtures of teal would make them “Pop”. Or if your flowers are bright pink, a soft green tone in the background would complement. Another color choice would be to add a neutral color such as gray or brown tone.
USE OF SPACE
Fill your entire canvas space with flowers where there is little to no background showing. Leaves and flowers would continue beyond the edges of the canvas, leading the eye of the viewer into your work and leave them questioning what else is beyond the surface. Remember to always paint your focal flower in detail and leave the flowers on the edge of the canvas more blurred and less detailed. You do not always have to give all the details to the viewer but let them explore and interpret on their own. It creates a more interesting piece of art.
]]>“I get so frustrated when color mixing and it doesn’t turn out what’s in my mind’s eye. How am I ever going to get it right without wasting paint?” “Is there an existing resource somewhere for how to mix specific paint colors?” “How do I know what color’s work best with each other?”
Can you relate? I sometimes have these same issues even after painting for years and years. Here are some tips that have helped me:
COLOR MIXING KNOW-HOW: If you want a great resources for helping you mix the color you want, here is a wonderful book:
Color Mixing Recipes for Oil & Acrylic: Mixing recipes for more than 450 color combinations.
COLOR HARMONY: How do you know what colors work best with each other and create harmony?
Pinterest, Instagram, Facebook are my go-to resource when looking for color scheme ideas. As you scroll through your favorite accounts, look at other artist’s works and see how they approach color. What flower color combinations do they include and what background color? For example, if I wanted to show mostly red flowers, what color did the artist use for the highlight and shadow area? Were the highlights pinkish or peach? Were the shadows burgundy, rust or purple tone. What color did they use for their background to make the flowers “pop”?
Magazines: As you are scanning the magazine pages of let’s say, Southern Living or Real Simple, look at the overall color palette of an ad or a cover sheet. These photographers are experts with design and color in order to help entice the eye and draw you in. I love looking at all kinds of magazines for all kinds of reasons but with an artist eye, I pay attention to the color scheme as well. So as you are waiting in the grocery store aisle, look at the magazines displayed there and go beyond the headlines and check out the color schemes these designers have created.
Fabric: My mother is an avid quilter and I’ve quilted as well but not as much as she has. I absolutely love heading to the quilt store and looking at the beautiful patterns and colors of the fabrics and displays. Fabric patterns are great resources for color combination ideas. Even your favorite blouse or your favorite home accessory are great resources for color inspiration.
I hope these tips have been helpful in finding color inspiration for you. Thanks for being here!
]]>After finishing a painting, the next step is usually photographing it. You may want to share your new work on social media, make prints or even apply for art shows, so it’s important to capture your work accurately. Here are some tips to taking great photos of your art.
If you like these tips, I have some more! Keep reading and I hope these ideas will help make your next painting session the best yet! Thanks, Debbie
]]>Flowers and more flowers! That has been my subject for as long as I can remember but my medium and style has changed over time. For many years, I loved painting in watercolor because of the easy flow of the paint and the effects of layering color. The transparency of each layer was like looking through stained glass. For me, this is so beautiful. Within the last five years, I’ve switched to acrylics and found they can be just as transparent when you use professional quality brands, like Golden. I didn’t realize that acrylic paint came in many variations of transparencies. If you look at a tube of artist quality paints, you will see a little square printed on the front. There is a solid box, a split colored box and a transparent box, which indicate the transparency of that particular paint color. This was mind blowing for me! So today, I continue to use acrylics somewhat like watercolors in that a thin wash of the paint over the white of the canvas is usually the most brilliant color and letting this peek through the finished painting creates a luminous quality.
My art medium has changed and so too, my art style. For years, I’ve painted very tightly with tiny detail work, struggling to make things look “realistic”. It can be very therapeutic to paint small details but also frustrating because it rarely turned out how I envisioned it. I would always overwork and overblend the paint, creating flat and plastic looking flowers. My paintings were boring. I loved the look of loosely styled paintings from other artists but just couldn’t figure out how they did it. They made it look so easy. So, after I retired from teaching, I took several workshops and online classes from well-known artists to learn their techniques. Over time, these new found tips and strategies of creating looser works have transformed my own style. I’ve learned how to stop over blending the paint, how to create more dynamic compositions, how quality acrylics matter and how to be more expressive with my brushwork. It’s taken five plus years to really see how my style has changed and with each passing year and new techniques learned, it will continue to develop for the better. If you’re interest in learning my techniques, take one of my tutorials or watch me paint on my YouTube channel. Thanks for being here and appreciating my artistic efforts!
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Here are two quick thumbnail sketches that I used for recent paintings.
Pumpkin Sketch
In this drawing, you can see where I loosely created a square for the frame of the canvas and then drew the lines for the composition “Rule of Thirds”. I wanted to make sure there was a large focal flower at one of points made my the intersecting lines. The final smaller filler flowers are not shown at all in this sketch but just shaded in to represent darker areas as support. As you compare the finished piece to the sketch, you can see differences in the additions of details and also elements that I eliminated. By doing the sketch first, I’m able to plan ahead before even starting on the canvas and speed up the painting process. This way I won’t paint over and over trying to correct things.
Flower Field on a Hill Sketch
I wanted to show you this one because the sketch is very minimal with only a suggestion of value changes and placement of the elements. As you compare the sketch to the final painting, you can see big differences in the details but the general layout is the same.
When you allow time to sketch before even reaching for the paintbrush, it allows you to generate more interesting compositions and therefore a more successful painting. I know that if my sketch is not working out in my sketchbook, it’s definitely not going to work on the canvas. So spend some time drawing and playing with ideas. It’s easy and fun because you know the drawing doesn’t have to be perfect.
Want to paint with me? Check out my available tutorials here on my website OR watch me paint on my YouTube channel. Thanks, Debbie
]]>I have always loved watercolors but twenty years ago I switched to acrylics and have learned so much about the medium since then. So, here are five tips about acrylics that I wish I had known from the very beginning.
Tip 1: Acrylic paint will dry darker, the opposite of watercolor
It took me a long time to figure this one out. I would get the perfect color mixture on the palette and then later the color dried way too dark in the painting. It was frustrating because then I had to add more white on top and then the painting appeared chalky or flat looking. So I took my watercolor technique of layering washes of a light underpainting and then using those luminous light colors to peek through the layers of acrylics.
Tip 2: Acrylics need to be built up in layers
This is why I love Golden acrylic paint so much because the colors I normally choose are transparent which are like watercolors. I can layer over and over and get a rich variety of greens on my leaves or pinks on my Gerber daisies. I always use white in the mixture at the end or as a base layer for more transparent colors on top.
Tip 3: Try not to use the color straight from the tube
When I use the colors straight from the tube to the canvas, the painting just appears so unrealistic and flat looking to me. If you every watched me mix colors, you can see that I rarely use the color straight but mix smaller batches as I paint along. There is rarely a space on my canvas that is the same color. There are lots of varieties of a particular pink or green or purples as seen in the picture above. It’s much more interesting that way.
Tip 4: Try not to paint from memory
Trying to paint from memory is a struggle for me and it always appears cartoon like when I’m finished. So, image resources are the key to solving this dilemma. I always collect a variety of images from many resources for inspiration of a particular plant, leaf or flower. I will often use Unsplash for free images to help me with different versions of one particular plant or flower. That way I can pick and choose from a couple of pictures to create my own composition.
Tip 5: Always have clean water handy
I found that dirty water is great for making muted tones but if I want brilliant, crystal clear colors, the water needs to be fresh. When I’m near the finishing point and adding my highlights, I’m constantly refreshing my water bowl. I’d like those pops of accents to be fresh and clean. Dirty water can really dull your colors.
I hope these tips can help you in your own art journey with acrylics!
]]>When you're painting flowers, remember to create them in different sizes, shapes and values. It is much more interesting visually and it's also more realistic looking. Our left brain sometimes wants to take over and starts telling us that the least amount of information is "good enough." For example, when I began my exploration of painting more loosely, I would find these quick tutorials on YouTube on painting roses. After attempting to create my own, all the roses appeared to be shaped like cinnamon buns where they were all facing forward, the same size and shape. Very boring stuff and very unrealistic. If you want to paint more realistic flowers remember the following tips.
Different Sizes
The flowers will overlap each other. Some will be on full display with all the details and some will be partially shown or “cut off”. I would recommend leaving the hidden flowers in less detail with only a few brushstrokes so the eye will focus on the closest one. Make sure to vary the sizes of the flowers for interest. Your focal flowers should be much more detailed and most likely the largest.
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