Sand Art by Fatmir Mura-Love

Isn't Watercolors Hard?

It seems that each time I show my watercolor paintings at shows or events, someone will say to me, "Watercolors are hard."

I smile and ask, "Why do you say that?"

THE MYTH : There is a myth circulating that painting with watercolors is difficult. Why? Is it because watercolors can become uncontrollable and people tend to want to be in control? Is it the effects of the medium? Or, what, I do not know? This myth continues to fascinate me and who knows, maybe, someday, I will have an answer.

THE TRUTH : Watercolor painting is not unlike other disciplines. Whenever a person undertakes a new experience there seems to be a "training period" where learning and skills are acquired. At this stage in the game, most people seek out an experienced person who they admire and who possesses that which they would like to emulate. This is true with any endeavor, so why not watercolor painting?

What makes watercolors different? What makes them so different is that you never know what will happen. Are you a person who likes surprises? Watercolors will surprise you each and every time you paint. A colleague of mine has a favorite saying which is "Let's see what will show up when I paint today." It is absolutely fascinating what water and pigment will do. To repeat an effect is challenging or not possible. Each time it is unique.

There are established techniques for watercolors as with any other art medium. These skills are helpful yet not necessary to express your self in watercolors. Many artists, and I believe everyone is an artist at heart, freely paint and allow what appears to tell them where to go or what to do next. Sometimes "what is" can be pleasing by itself. There are NO RULES! It is my belief that artistic expression lies in all of us and requires only a sense of trust and the freedom to allow the flowing for magic to happen.

A favorite way I freely express myself with watercolors is to paint Mandalas. Basically, painting within a circle, a mandala, creates a meditative state whereby a person freely paints anything they wish. In my experience sharing mandala painting with students, we have witnessed an array of all beautiful, unique mandala creations.

The one thing that sets watercolors apart from other painting media is that it is a spontaneous method. First impressions are vital. You cannot go back and change it, or rarely. This might be a little intimidating to people, yet it can be very refreshing, too. I have found that my favorite paintings have had this light, first impression touch which magically flows, no effort. It is just there.

Not every piece is a masterpiece. Of course, there is always more paper. I must admit that I have turned less successful paintings into new paintings with collage. Watercolor paintings are full of happy accidents. You will never know what to expect and this is the nature of watercolors and most likely fuels the myth.

ARTISTIC EXPRESSION: The fun of creating is what it we are all about, right? It is our connection with our soul. I feel as if I learn everyday when I sit down to create a watercolor painting. Watercolors change, I change, the subjects change. People tend to avoid change because it requires letting go of external layers of beliefs. Maybe the myth is true that watercolors are difficult, what do you think?

Joanne Osband is an accomplished artist and registered art therapist who is a kind and masterful guide for assisting others to discover the gifts that live within us.

http://www.ColoringOutOfTheLines.com

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Acrylic Painting Techniques

The acrylic painting medium is a fairly new addition to the various painting mediums available to today's artists. It has been around since the 1950's and has been continually under development and refinement ever since.

Acrylic paint is highly favored amongst artists because of its wonderful versatility. It can be applied thickly as an impasto having rich texture or in washes mimicking the characteristics of watercolor.

Another likable characteristic of acrylic paint is its permanence. Acrylic paint is not susceptible to yellowing or hardening with age. With acrylic paint, the artist does not need to be concerned with the order the paint is applied or other special techniques that ensure the paint film remains free from cracking. So it can be said that acrylic paint is much easier to use than oil paint.

Yet another characteristic that invites new artists to this medium is its fast drying time. Since acrylic paint dries so quickly, colors can be applied and overlaid quicker than with oil painting.

There are however a few downsides to the quick drying time of acrylic paints:

1) The paint will not remain workable for very long, so you have to work quickly.

2) The fast drying time of acrylics can also ruin brushes if the brushes are not cleaned immediately.

3) Acrylic paint is not the best medium for direct painting outdoors, especially on a bright sunny day. Whatever paint you put out on your palette will begin to dry quickly and form a skin over the surface of the paint making it very difficult to work with.

Watercolor Effects

Acrylic paint works wonderfully as a transparent medium, similar to watercolor. Acrylics do have an advantage over watercolors. You can lay out a number of thin washes over one another without fear of disturbing the colors underneath. You must wait for one layer to dry completely before applying another of course. Once each layer dries it becomes insoluble in water. The only disadvantage to using acrylics as a watercolor medium is the difficulty in modifying the color. Once acrylic paint begins to dry it becomes rather difficult to work with. One of the biggest problems is the tendency for washes to dry with unwanted hard edges. You can avoid this problem in one of two ways. You can either dampen the paper before the paint is applied or you can use an additional brush dampened with water. Use one brush to apply the paint and immediately soften the edge with the other brush that has been dampened with the water.

Blending Opaque Colors

With watercolor effects, the acrylic paint is applied in transparent washes. With the opaque technique the paint layers are non-transparent. Blending opaque acrylic colors can be a bit tricky as you are kind of pressed for time. It is important therefore to only work on areas that you know you will have enough time to blend. To blend two colors, first paint a block of each color side by side on your support. Where the two colors join paint down that line with a clean damp brush to soften the edges. To blend the colors even further, move the blending brush from side to side or up and down, until the desired blending is achieved.

Sgraffito Technique

Sgraffito is a scratching technique. It got its name from the Italian word graffiare which literally means to scratch. Just as the name implies it involves scratching into the surface of the wet paint which reveals either the ground or layer of dry color underneath. There are a number of different tools that can be used for this technique. Tools like screwdrivers or the sharpened end of an old paintbrush handle should suffice. It really depends on the support you are using. For instance, a screwdriver may not be the best tool if you are using a panel as a support. The hard metal may damage the panel, so you would need to use a softer tool.

Using a Squeegee

A regular squeegee that you can purchase at any hardware or auto store can create some interesting effects when used with acrylic paint. First you would squeeze out some paint blobs directly along one edge of your support. You can layout whatever colors you wish. Then with one fluid motion you would drag the paint across the support with your squeegee, which will smear and mix the paint and create some very unique and interesting designs. You may need to alter your squeegee a bit as the rubber blade that comes with most squeegees may not be rigid enough to drag the paint. You can remove the rubber blade and in its place glue in a regular wooden ruler. This will give you a flat sturdy edge to manipulate the paint.

I hope you have enjoyed this article on acrylic painting techniques. Take some time today to experiment with these techniques and have fun. Happy Painting!

Ralph Serpe is webmaster and founder of Creative Spotlite, a free arts and crafts community. For more free art lessons like this, visit: http://www.creativespotlite.com today. Visit our blog, http://www.artinstructionblog.com as well for even more free art instruction.

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10 Simple Acrylic Painting Tips | Do's & Dont's, Be a Better Painter

12 Easy Painting Hacks You Need To Try

Jack Vettriano Prints - The Painter of the Singing Butler

Beginnings

From very humble beginnings, Jack Vettriano has risen to become one of the most successful living artists. Born as Jack Hoggan in 1941 in Fife, Scotland, he grew up in an industrial landscape. Like most of his peers, he left school aged 16 and entered the coal mining industry as an apprentice mining engineer. It was some years before he began exploring the artistic talents which have given him world renown.

INSTAGRAM

His earliest paintings were copies of impressionist paintings but, in 1998 he submitted two canvases to the Royal Scottish Academy to be shown in their annual show. This marked a breakthrough in commercial terms for Vettriano as both paintings sold on the first day of the exhibition and, crucially, he was approached by other galleries who wanted to sell his output.

Other commercially successful exhibitions followed in places around the world including Edinburgh, London, Hong Kong, Johannesburg, and New York.

Jack Vettriano prints: $1m

Many art critics dismiss Vettriano's work as 'vulgar' and 'devoid of imagination'. This criticism doesn't seem to affect the sales of his work though. According to the daily UK newspaper, The Guardian, he earns £500,000 (around $1,000,000) a year in print royalties alone. Maybe his prints are so highly valued because they are very romantic and evocative of a bygone, more elegant age.

Singing Butler and Others

The Singing Butler, his most famous work, which romantically shows an elegant couple dancing on a beach attended by what seems to be a maid and a butler sells more posters and postcards than any other painting in the UK.

Billy Boys is another iconic Vettriano painting that crops up in print form in lots of stylish locations. Once again, it's a beach scene which shows four immaculately dressed young men strolling along the shoreline.

Almost Turneresque is the hugely romantic 'Dance Me To The End Of Love' which shows three couples, once again, elegantly dressed, dancing through a misty haze.

INSTAGRAM

Celebrity Client List

Vettriano has studios in Scotland and London. He is represented by the Portland Gallery, London and includes Jack Nicholson and Terence Conran amongst his collectors. In 2003 he was awarded the OBE.

Now it's easy to join the Celebrity Set and own your own copy of one of Vettriano's iconic and stylish paintings. Get the best deals on Jack Vettriano prints.

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15 Arts & Crafts Hacks You'd Wish You'd Known Sooner!

Acrylic Paints are Different From Oil Painting

Acrylic paint comes in a tube, just like oil paint. However, since acrylic paint is water-based meaning it dissolves in water instead of oil-based meaning you need to dissolve it in oil or turpentine, it's much easier to clean up after. You can soak your brushes and clean your hands in plain tap water, instead of smelly and flammable chemicals.

Another advantage to acrylic paint is that it dries much faster than oil paint usually
overnight. If you're working on a painting that needs to be done on time, that's
important. Acrylic paint was developed as a water-based alternative to traditional oil
paints.

Acrylic paints can be diluted with water, but become water-resistant when dry.
Depending on how much the paint is diluted with water, the finished painting can
resemble a watercolor or an oil painting.

Acrylic paint is a fast-drying paint containing pigment suspended in an acrylic polymer
resin. Different from oil painting as watercolor is different from oil painting. There are
techniques, which are available only to acrylic painters, and there are also restrictions,
which are unique to acrylic painting.

Acrylic paints can achieve an oil-paint-like effect, and do so in much less time. Applied
to look like oil paints, acrylics are somewhat limited due to the superior color range of
oil paints, and the fact that acrylic dry to a shiny, smooth.

Acrylics paints are sometimes used in place of watercolors because acrylics dry closer
to the desired color slightly darker, usually, while watercolors dry lighter and often
unpredictably, especially for beginning artists.

Roger King has been writing articles on decorative interior painting for several years, and has been helping people find and review the best value for interior painting solutions.

Visit his web site www.decorativeinteriorpainting.com for free tips and guides for your next painting project

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Affordable Paintings: Art Prints Buying Guide

The fastest way to bring beauty and style to a
room is to put up prints of beautiful paintings. Here's what you
should consider:

Painting Prints Price Range:

Expect
to pay somewhere in the neighborhood of $50-$500 for an unframed
print--anything less than $50 is likely a poster. You should
expect to pay a similar amount to have the print framed--note that many
prints are designed to be exhibited without frames.

Before
art prints were sold online, the only way to get them was through
galleries or museum shops, which had to charge a large markup.
Nowadays, art prints rarely cost more than a few hundred dollars, and
it is possible to find good-quality prints for under $100. Still,
those lower prices generally come on prints that have been put on
sale. Expect to pay more for perennial favorites like Van Gogh's
"Starry Night".

Selection

There
is at least one print of every painting or photograph on display in a
museum anywhere. Thanks to the internet, you can find the right
art print among the tens of thousands in existence and have it sent to
you, regardless of where the original is located. Since websites
will let you browse thumbnail images of the artwork, it's easy to find
a particular piece even if all you know about it is the name of the
artist or even just the time period in which it was created.

Painting Print Media

Prints are available in a variety of print stocks.

Prints vs. Original Paintings

If
all you're interested in is a picture to decorate your wall, rather
than in collecting, prints are a better value than original
paintings. Here's why:

* Expense.
Creating an original work of art generally takes weeks. If you
had to employ someone for several weeks or several months, how much do
you think it would cost at even a modest salary? That's why
original artwork generally costs at least thousands of dollars.
In order to have a real chance of your work of art having investment
value, you need to buy the work of an artist who is moving up in the
art market.

* Questionable
investment value. Original artwork only has investment value if
the price goes up eventually. Very often, the price does
not. In short, if you're interested in investing, buy
stocks--it's a safer bet. Only buy art because *you* value it.

* Knowledge.
You need to be very knowledgeable about what you are doing. Make
no mistake: there's plenty of fraud in this business. There is
also plenty of wishful thinking on the part of art dealers when it
comes to a work's long-term market prospects

Ready
to make your home more beautiful with prints of great paintings?
You're already in the right place: the internet has numerous websites
offering an unbelievable array of art prints. Start looking now.

Joel Walsh has written a buying guide for art prints at: paintings [http://www.a1-paintings.com]:[http://www.a1-paintings.com]

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Fluid Art STRING PULLING