This one has kind of a story to it. For the last 50 or so years, my wife’s family (on her mother’s side) has used this conch shell as a joke gift. It’s been passed back and forth many times. The real gift is hidden in the shell, or the shell is included as a part of the gift. Big laffs. Right now the shell is in my wife’s possession, but who knows how long that will last?

• The easiest way to stretch a large canvas evenly seems to be to put it on the stretcher unprimed, somewhat loosely. How loose? Put the canvas on the floor flat under the stretcher. Tack the edges of the canvas to the back of the stretcher without pulling. You then size it with a thin layer of hide glue. The glue tightens the canvas. If you do it right, the canvas is taut with no wrinkles. This is easier than trying to get it right using canvas pliers and trying to make the tension even across the whole canvas.
• I like using regular office thumb tacks initially, followed by staples or copper tacks when you know you’ve got the tension exactly right.
• The lead oil primer made by Natural Pigments is very easy to apply. It is much less viscous than other oil primers I’ve tried. That means you don’t have to thin it and it’s less likely to get all over the place. It dries to the touch very fast. A potential downside is that it doesn’t tend to fill the weave of the canvas like thicker primers do.
• It’s good practice to rub the surface of the canvas lightly with a pumice stone before sizing in order to open the fibers up somewhat to accept the glue. If you do this, however, you will create small blobs of fabric in places. After priming, you’ll need to wet sand or use a knife to cut these away.
• Upper Canada Stretchers makes really good stretchers. Check out the discounts for good deals.

Thanks to Nick Orban, who posted this on Facebook.

Because the structure of an oil painting is inherently complex, it’s always best to attempt keep both it and its various components as simple as possible. However, this element of simplicity should not necessarily extend to purchasing ready-made materials if the hope or expectation is to create higher quality work: generic materials have a strong tendency to produce generic work. While boutique materials are usually higher quality, this is not necessarily the case with the oil. And they still don’t impart the vital information about the nuts and bolts of the craft: at the end of the day, there is no real process, just a set of purchases, a pseudo-craft.

Go read the whole thing.

Badger brush set

Badger hair is traditional for making brushes used for blending oil paint, so I broke down and bought this set from Natural Pigments. There is a fan, a round, and two sizes of flats. So far, I’ve just tried the round, but for blending it is just lovely. I had been doing most blending with a synthetic round, and wow! The badger beats that by a mile. Highly recommended if you paint in a style that involves rendering. I wish I’d bought these a long time ago.

#2 Bristle flat brushes

These were cheap, so I bought a few. The handles are nicely laquered in a natural wood color. The ferules are firmly set and double crimped. The brush hairs are well set (flags facing inward), with the annoyance of a few stray hairs that needed trimming. The brushes hold their shape under heavy use and have the right level of resistance when moving paint. These are an excellent value for inexpensive brushes.

Velazquez medium

This is calcite ground with a blend of bodied and refined linseed oils. I’ve made basically the same stuff myself, but it’s convenient to have some already made up in a jar. It’s light gray and the consistency of oil paint. Mixed with paint it adds no color, but makes it more transparent. This is a good medium for velaturas and for making strongly tinting pigments less strong without losing body. I haven’t noticed that it has much effect on the brushing properties of the paint. They have a similar medium that’s specifically for impasto, but that’s not how I paint. This stuff won’t magically let you paint like Velazquez, but it is useful and inexpensive.

Recommendations include:

• Drawing a line along the weave of the canvas in pencil along the boundary beforehand, so that you can check to see that the edge of the stretcher is even with the canvas weave as you apply it to the stretcher chassis.
• Stapling or tacking from the edges of the canvas inward. This is exactly opposite from the way every other source I’ve seen says to do it.
• Using pushpins for the initial attachment of the canvas to the stretcher, for ease of adjustment, before final tacking or stapling.
• Letting the canvas settle onto the frame for a day or two, with adjustment as needed, prior to final tacking or stapling.

These methods differ from standard practice, but the author makes a good case.

(Note that I found this article via a related post by Randall Stoltzfus.

Brunelleschi was the first Renaissance artist to use the vanishing point and depth perception during this time period. Brunelleschi additionally noticed that when drawing Florentine buildings, all lines converged at the horizon line, therefore leading to the realization of the vanishing point. Other artists such as Donatello and Perugino helped to further cement the importance of depth during this time, culminating in Da Vinci’s Last Supper; never before had there been a painting with such mathematical accuracy in relation to depth perception and linear formation. The realization of linear perspective and the vanishing point was kept within Italy for years before flourishing throughout the rest of Europe.

The checkerboard floor pattern is one of the most obvious examples of original perspective. Alberti was one of the first artists to recognize this phenomenon, and named it as the “pavement” construction, as it typically led to the addition of a pavement scene. He later wrote a treatise entitle “De Pictura/Della Pittura” explaining the proper methods of perspective painting. His theories were based more on planar projections and calculations using the height of triangles in the distance, and also using previous mathematical concepts from Euclid.

The vanishing point and depth perception are concepts which we take for granted today because we have never known an art world without them; however, if you traverse through the ages, you will see pieces from the Middle Ages where the baby Jesus appears to be the same size as Mary because the artists had no way in which to signify perspective. It is amazing to view in art museums this subtle change in technique; many museums have paintings set up in chronological order, or at least by major movements. The Renaissance was truly its own movement within the art world, and symbolized a shift away from the chaotic, extremely fanatical world of the Middle Ages.

Without this kind of revolution within the art world, we would still be looking at one-dimensional art works, lacking a proper depth perception. This would prove to be a completely different world from the one we know now, perhaps even lacking the fundamentals of television and movies. Without depth in art, that could not have translated over into any other medium. Therefore, we owe a great deal to these post-Medieval artists who truly paved the way for modern art and art movements. Picasso would not have been able to exist without his acute understanding of the many layers of depth and perspective, and we therefore would have missed out on abstract art entirely as well as every subsequent modern art movement.

This post was contributed by Heidi Taylor, who writes about the online schools. She welcomes your feedback at HeidiLTaylor006 at gmail.com.

Commission agreement

1. This is an agreement between John Smith (“John”) and David Rourke (“David”).
2. David will create a painting according to subject matter and composition chosen by John.
3. The painting will be approximately ____ x ____ inches in size. It will be completed in oil paint using professional-quality materials and methods.
4. David will complete the painting, to the best of his ability, within three months.
5. John will pay David a total of _____________________ dollars (not including applicable sales tax) for the painting. Payment is due as follows:
   1. One third of the total price upon completion of this agreement. David will then create one or more preliminary composition drawings for review and approval by John.
   2. One third of the total price upon approval of the final composition drawing by John. David will then prepare the canvas and complete the painting within a mutually agreeable time frame.
   3. One third of the total price upon delivery of the completed painting.
6. Payment is not refundable. However, John can end this agreement at any time with notice in writing to David.
7. Framing is not included in the price.
8. Although John will own the painting and has the right to display it as he sees fit, David retains copyright of the image. This agreement provides John with authorization to use photographs of the painting for personal, non-commercial use. Any other use of any image of the painting or portion or derivative thereof requires prior authorization in writing from David.
9. David will deliver the completed painting to John when it is sufficiently dry for hanging. It is recommended that the painting receive a coat of protective varnish approximately six months after completion. Upon request, David will varnish the painting at no additional cost.