by Wendon Blake
The walls of your studio or workroom will have a strong influence on the color of the light you work in. White walls will boost the amount of light available since they magnify the light like a photographic reflector. Dark walls will soak up the light and make the room darker. Colored walls or wall-paper—whatever the color—will be reflected in your painting surface even if you can’t see it. Brightly painted walls can really distort the colors in your painting. For this reason, most professional artists paint their walls white or a very pale gray.
Working outdoors, you have very little control over lighting conditions, but you have more control than you think. On a sunny day, try to keep your painting surface in the shade; direct sunlight bouncing off a sheet of white paper will blind you and distort your color relationships. If you can do nothing else, sit or stand so that your own shadow falls across the paper.
Try to avoid working in the shadow of a brightly painted wall. Remember that the reflected color of the wall will be picked up by your painting surface, even if you pretend not to see it while you’re painting.
Clothing
Although it’s always important to wear old clothes when you paint, it’s even more important to wear old clothes when you paint with acrylics. Traditional watercolors remain water soluble forever and they wash out easily. If you get oil paint on your clothes, the stains will come out at the dry cleaner. But nothing, literally nothing, will remove acrylic paint that’s soaked into a good dress or a new pair of pants. The washing machine won’t work and neither will all the magic detergents advertised on television; the dry cleaner will fling up his hands in despair.
So reserve a special part of your closet for clothes that are doomed to destruction: frayed shirts; trousers falling apart at the seams and beyond hope of repair; dresses mangled by the cat; woolens perforated by moths. Wear these, and only these, when you paint with acrylics. I wouldn’t even waste money on a good artists’ smock; it will soon be indistinguishable from a paint spattered floor.
Don’t forget to wear old shoes, too. Acrylic may be a bit easier to get off leather than off fabric, but your good shoes will still show signs of the struggle. Wear old shoes or your dirtiest old sneakers. If you insist on wearing sandals, don’t worry if paint gets on your feet. Nor is acrylic any threat to your hands or face. It’s non-toxic and won’t adhere to any oily surface; since everybody’s skin contains some oil, dried acrylic will wash away easily with soap and water. If you get it in your hair—well, that’s another problem. Some people have oily hair and dried acrylic will wash out easily. But if you have dry hair (like me), you may have to wait for your next haircut before the dried paint is eliminated completely.
Tide Passage by Edward Betts, N.A., A.W.S., acrylic on Masonite, 60”x40”. Almost invisible at first glance, lightly wrinkled collage papers underlie the textures of the stones washed by the breaking waves. The splash of semi-opaque foam that dominates the composition literally spatters over the rocks in one of those “planned” accidents, which the artist can arrange so easily with acrylic. This spatter effect is most obvious on the dark rock in the lower right hand corner. But the entire plume of foam is surrounded by splattered drips and blobs. Even on so large a scale—the picture is 5’ high—acrylic retains its liquid freshness. (Courtesy Midtown Galleries, New York.)
Underhill Farm by John Rogers, A.W.S., acrylic on watercolor paper, 20”x28”. The ragged profusion of dried foliage in the foreground combines light-over-dark drybrush with delicate wispy lines made by the tip of the brush. Beyond this area, drybrush is used sparingly; this technique appears just in the twigs and in patches of dark on the snow. The dark, distant trees along the horizon are thrown out of focus to create a sensation of atmospheric perspective: they’re painted wet-in-wet.
Accessories
A moment ago I mentioned paint spattered floors. If acrylic will stick tenaciously to a sheet of paper or wood, it stands to reason that dried paint will stick just as tenaciously to your floor. If you work indoors, keep plenty of newspapers on the floor around your work surface. Or put a big, dirty old mat under your drawing table and under your feet. Or simply choose a room—as most professionals do—with a floor that’s already messy, and which won’t be hurt by paint stains. Of course, if you sell your house, you may have to invest in a floor scraping for the benefit of the next owner.
Here are some other accessories—aside from old newspapers—that are worth having. You’ll find a lot of them around the house already.
Hair dryer and tea kettle: Hereward Lester Cooke, a first rate watercolorist and Curator of Painting at the National Gallery, always kept two household gadgets on hand when he worked in the studio. A gun-shaped hot air hair dryer will quickly solidify a wet passage that needs to dry quickly before it loses its shape or texture. On the other hand, a blast of steam from a bubbling tea kettle will retard the drying of a wet passage that needs further work.
Syringe: A rubber syringe is helpful when you want to pick up a quantity of clean water and squirt it into a saucer or a tray to mix a large wash.
Eye dropper: An eye dropper—which you can probably find in the bathroom—will pick up a few drops of acrylic medium to modify a gob of paint.
Jars: In addition to your water jars, keep some dry jars around for storing brushes. Drop the brushes into the jars handle end down, bristle end up, so that wet brushes can dry freely in the air. Storing brushes this way will prevent them from banging into one another and crushing one another’s bristles. During the summer, when the moths are out in force, it’s probably better to keep your brushes in a tightly closed box or drawer with a handful of mothballs or moth killer.
Tape: A roll of tape, at least 1” wide, is useful to tape down the edges of a sheet of watercolor paper. The best pressure sensitive tape is called masking tape or architect’s tape. Don’t use Scotch tape, which is likely to tear the paper when you peel it off. Masking tape comes off more easily. You can also hold your paper down with brown wrapping tape, which carries a water soluble adhesive; but you won’t be able to remove the dried tape, and this means cutting away the portion of the paper covered by the tape.
Tacks: Thumbtacks or pushpins are better than tape for holding down a thick sheet of paper.
Blades: A single edge razor blade or a mat knife will be needed to cut paper to size.
Ruler: A metal ruler, or a wooden ruler with a metal edge, is best for cutting and also for ruling straight lines with brush or pencil on your painting surface. A metal T-square is even better—though more expensive—because it insures that each cut or line will be parallel to the next or at right angles to the next, whichever you wish.
Pencils, charcoal, sketchpad: Naturally, you’ll want some pencils or sticks of charcoal to sketch in your composition on the painting surface. You’ll also want a small sketchpad or some scrap paper to experiment with your composition before it’s transferred to the painting surface.
Eraser: A kneaded rubber eraser will do the least damage if you must remove a pencil line from your painting surface. A chamois or some other soft cloth will Hick away the lines of a charcoal drawing.
Projector: Some of the bigger art supply stores sell a flashlight sized opaque projector which might be used to enlarge a thumbnail sketch onto a big sheet of watercolor paper. You simply darken the room, set the projector on top of your sketch, turn on the light inside the projector, and flash the image onto your paper like a color slide projected on a screen. You can then draw in the lines projected on the paper. However, the original drawing must really be a thumbnail sketch—really small—to fit beneath the projector.
Care and Cleaning of Painting Tools
If dried acrylic paint is impossible to remove from your clothes, it takes very little imagination to guess what it will do to your brushes. Never allow acrylic paint to dry on a brush! Here are some ironclad rules to bear in mind when you paint in acrylics.
(1) Never dip a dry brush into wet paint. Always begin a painting session by dipping each brush
in water. If this gives you too much water in the brush, squeeze the bristles out between your fingers or flick out the water, but make sure that they remain moist.
(2) Dip your brushes into water regularly throughout the painting session. Keep them moist even when you’re not using them.
(3) As soon as you’ve finished painting with a particular brush, wash it out immediately; don’t just put it aside with paint on it.
(4) When you’ve finished painting for the day, wash all your brushes thoroughly. Even if you think they’re all clean, wash them once again before you put them away.
In theory, all your brush needs after a day of painting in acrylics is a thorough sloshing in water, but this really isn’t true. Nearly invisible traces of acrylic paint do stick to bristles washed in plain water. In time these traces of dried paint build up imperceptibly and begin to stiffen the brush. To prevent this buildup, it’s wise to give each brush a light washing in soap and water at the end of the painting session.
The gentlest way to wash a brush is to rub some household soap on the palm of your hand, then gently rub the wet brush against the palm with a slow, circular motion. Don’t jam the brush against your palm; let the bristles trail softly behind, picking up the soap and forming a delicate lather. When the brush is thoroughly lathered, you’ll see that the lather contains a trace of color. Wash out the soap and lather again until the lather is pure white. At that point the brush is clean. Wash it out and put it away.
But before you put the brush away, be sure to shape the bristles into a perfect heart or wedge (in the case of flat brushes) so that the bristles dry out in the right form for painting.
To preserve your brushes, wash them gently in mild soap and water after each painting session. Make a little “cup” of lather with one hand and move the brush with a gentle, circular motion, pressing the bristles down into your palm and working the soap up into the neck of the brush.
If a sable or oxhair brush loses its shape— because of improper drying or pressure by a nearby brush—it’s simple to restore it. Soap up the brush or dip it in liquid starch, shape the brush with your fingers, and let it dry. After a few days, wash out the brush and the hairs will be retrained to take the proper form. The stiffer bristle brushes may have to be retrained by dipping them into a water soluble glue like library paste.
Use only the mildest soap to wash your brushes. No yellow laundry soap! I’ve developed the habit of collecting stray bits of bath soap (pieces too small to wash my hands with) and tossing them into a big jar in my studio. Periodically, I add water to the jar, and the collected soap dissolves into a mush which I use for cleaning brushes.
Cleaning knives and plastic tools is a lot easier. Simply soak the tool in water for five minutes, and the dried paint will peel off or brush off. There’s no harm in allowing acrylic paint to dry on a metal or plastic blade. It’s really the brushes you have to worry about.
Outdoor Painting Equipment
When you set out for a day’s painting on location, you obviously can’t take the entire contents of your studio along. You’re restricted to what you can carry in your hands. So then, what’s the irreducible list of gear you need to work outdoors? For painters on a budget, I might add that this same outdoor list is really all you need to paint indoors. So the following list seems like a reasonable minimum setup for painting watercolors in acrylic wherever you are.
Brushes: As I said earlier, all you really need are a couple of brushes—a big number 12 round or a 1” flat, and a number 7 or 8 round.
Colors: You won’t need more than a dozen tubes of color and eight or ten will probably do. See Chapter 4 for recommended palettes. Before you go out to paint, be sure that all the caps come off the tubes easily; if they don’t, soak the tubes in hot water, remove the caps, clean away any dried paint that may be clogging the inside of the cap or the neck of the tube, and then put the caps back on. It’s a nightmare to find yourself in the field with tubes of paint that you can’t open! Traditional watercolors often come in tubes with metal caps that can be loosened after heating with a match. But acrylic paints come in tubes that have plastic caps which may be ruined by a match.
Drawing board: Cut a piece of wallboard to a size slightly larger than the sheet size of the paper you expect to take along. If you work on full sheets (22” x 30”), take along a board that’s 24” x 32”. If you work on half sheets (15” x 22”), a board 18” x 24” is a good standard size. A quarter sheet is 11” x 15” and the board can be as small as 12” x 16”.
Paper: Take along as many sheets of paper as you think you’ll need. Be sure to pre-cut the paper to the correct size before you start on your trip. It’s no fun cutting paper in a high wind. Speaking of wind, choose a paper that’s heavy enough not to flap in the breeze while you’re painting. Light and medium weight papers (72 lb. and 140 lb.) aren’t easy to handle even in the studio; they can drive you mad outdoors. For work on location, stick to 200 lb. and 300 lb. (More about papers in Chapter 3.)
Tacks: If you work with reasonably heavy paper, you won’t need to tape down the edges of the sheet. All you’ll need will be a thumbtack or a pushpin for each corner. But don’t just take along four tacks or pushpins; carry a few extras. Dropping a handful of tacks into high grass or off a pier is like a bad dream; so be sure to carry an extra set.
Water: The best container for water is an old plastic detergent bottle. Be sure to wash the bottle out thoroughly so that no trace of detergent remains to get mixed with your paints. For your two water containers, chop off the bottom halves of two more detergent bottles of the same size; plastic bottles cut easily with a razor blade. The two containers will “nest” inside one another, and the bottle will “nest” in the containers. Take a half gallon bottle; you’ll need more water than you think.
Acrylic medium: For reasons which I’ll explain in Chapter 4, take along a small plastic bottle of matt acrylic medium. Don’t take along the big bottle you buy in the store; you won’t need that much medium. Find yourself a small, discarded plastic bottle, like the ones used by drug and cosmetic manufacturers for packaging things like suntan lotion. The best kind are flexible bottles which release a few drops of liquid at a squeeze. The neck of a squeeze bottle is usually filled with some sort of a plug with a tiny hole in it; pry loose the plug, clean out the bottle, fill it with acrylic medium, push the plug back in place, and you’ve got an excellent traveling squeeze bottle.
Pencil or charcoal: Unless you’re skilled enough to start painting without a preliminary outline, you’ll want to take along a pencil or a few sticks of charcoal. A mechanical lead holder with a stick of lead inside is better than a wooden pencil. If the point of a wooden pencil breaks, you’ve got to waste time sharpening it. The mechanical holder has a long lead, so there’s plenty more available at the click of a button if you break the point. If you prefer charcoal, use sticks of natural charcoal, not a charcoal pencil. The charcoal in a pencil is processed with a faintly oily substance that makes the lines harder to erase. Be sure to take along two or three sticks of natural charcoal; they break easily.
Blue Harbor by Cecile Johnson, A.W.S., acrylic on watercolor board, 22” x 30”. The artist began with a light pencil sketch, marking out small areas with masking fluid to protect such elements as masts and the far cottages. The light, warm sky color was washed under the distant hill to prevent the green from becoming too isolated. Clouds were painted in while the sky area was still damp. “The direction of the brushstrokes,” “ explains the artist, ”emphasized the growth pattern of the foliage, also the layered rock formation and the limpid water. ” (Photo courtesy M. Grumbacher, Inc.)
Net Mender by James M. Haughey, A.W.S., acrylic on 300 lb. rough Arches watercolor paper, 14”x21 ”. Acrylic is particularly useful in watercolor portraiture because the subtle, three dimensional forms of the human face and figure can be built up gradually in a series of washes— without any fear that each new wash will destroy the vitality of the dried color underneath. The hea
d and hands can first be modeled in monochrome to develop form and likeness, then washed over with color. Notice how touches of drybrush enliven the texture of the shirt and trousers.
Eraser: Take a kneaded rubber eraser to erase pencil lines. A chamois or a soft cloth will eliminate charcoal lines.
Sponges: When you’re working in the field, a large man-made sponge is more useful than the smaller natural sponge. You can use the whole face of the sponge if you wish, or you can fold it into small shapes. You can supplement the sponge with some paper towels, but set a rock on them or they’ll blow away.
