After a long season of healing—years of illness followed by a broken foot and, finally, a hip replacement—I found myself standing at the edge of something unfamiliar: silence. Not the peaceful kind, but the creative kind, where the well that had always felt bottomless suddenly seemed to echo. I had known other artists, including my husband, who had wandered through dry spells before. Mine, however, had never lingered longer than a month. Until now.

This one stretched on far beyond what I care to admit. I kept a toe in the water—teaching here and there, painting in brief, tentative bursts—but the current that used to carry me forward so effortlessly just… wasn’t there.

So I began again, quietly, by shifting my focus. Instead of chasing inspiration, I turned inward, pouring my energy into work that wasn’t meant for galleries or sales—only for the simple, stubborn joy of making. Out of that decision came a project that has slowly, steadily rekindled something in me: a series of seven portraits, one for each woman in my monthly painting group, including myself.

The more time I spend with these paintings, the more they give back. They draw me into the studio each morning with a sense of anticipation I haven’t felt in a long while.

I began with photographs—some I took, others shared with me—and translated them into careful drawings. Getting the proportions right feels like an act of respect, a way of honoring these women. They are dear friends, after all—strong, resilient artists who have stood beside one another through years of life’s shifting tides. I want to do right by them.

I asked each woman for her favorite color, letting that choice guide the palette of her portrait. Each painting leans into that color, balanced with its complement to bring out the nuances of her features. Before beginning, I added an unexpected layer: metallic gesso beneath the paint—gold for some, silver for others. I’m letting it peek through in places, hoping it lends the portraits a quiet, luminous glow, something just beyond the ordinary - just like my friends.

There’s more, too. I asked each of them to send me a single word for every member of the group—a small offering of how we see one another. Those words will circle the edges of each painting, a kind of whispered chorus framing the image, adding another layer of intimacy and meaning.

As I write this, the series is nearly complete. I feel full—of gratitude, of affection, of something close to awe for these women in my life. And yet, alongside that fullness is a thread of nervousness I can’t quite shake. What if they don’t recognize themselves in my interpretations? What if I’ve missed something essential, or worse, revealed something unintended?

More than anything, I want them to feel what I feel when I look at them: admiration, strength, a deep and abiding respect. I want them to see themselves reflected not just as they are, but as they are held in the eyes of a friend.

When the paintings are finally shared, I hope each woman takes hers home and carries that feeling with her—that sense of being seen, valued, and loved.

And perhaps, in the making of them, I’ve found my way back as well. Or at least the beginning of it. For now, it’s enough to keep going—to show up, to paint, and to trust that, day by day, the well will fill again.

Digital Organization: A Simple Approach

There’s no one-size-fits-all method for organizing your artwork, but I’ll share how I keep track of mine and hopefully, it’ll help you find a system that works for you.

My process starts with one thing: taking good photos of every piece of artwork I complete (or hiring a photographer to do it for you). Even if I’m not sure about a painting and end up painting over it (I guess that’s the beauty of being an artist!), I still take clear, high-resolution photos. This has become my personal time capsule, capturing the progression of my work over the years.

Here’s a system that works well for me:

1. Create Yearly Folders
   Start by creating a folder for each year, so everything is neatly grouped. Medium sized images live inside these folders for ease in seeing what I’ve created that year. Also inside the main folder, I also create a few key subfolders inside each yearly folder - here’s what I do, but you may find a better system that works for you!

• SUBS: For info on juried shows, group exhibitions, etc

• MARKETING: For marketing plans and other marketing documents

• LargeSizes: For large, high-resolution photos of your paintings

• SmNoWm: For small, online only images used in social media

• COMMISSIONS For contracts and images used in creating commissioned paintings

2. Naming Your Files
   When you take photos of each painting, resize them to 1920 pixels on the longest edge for most purposes (your medium resolution images) and name the file using this format:

• LastNameFirstName_TitleOfPainting_Dimensions_Price.jpg

• For example: BandurkaAngela_PointDuHoc_36x24in_2950f.jpg
  Note: The “f” refers to the framed price. If you don’t frame, just leave the “f” off - You can adjust the naming method to whatever makes the most sense for you.

• You can watermark the image if you like (see my sample, below), but you’ll also need un-watermarked images to submit to juried shows and such.

3. Sold Paintings
   When a piece sells, I change the photo’s color to gray (on my Mac, I can right-click the image and select the gray dot to organize it). If you’re on a PC or otherwise unable to color code your files, you might want to create a “SOLD” subfolder or copy the file there. You can also track where the painting is stored (in case it’s in a gallery, for example). To do this, just create a subfolder under “Submissions” labeled something like this:

• NameOfShow_Location_Dates

• For example: ConnectionsSoloShow_ColeGallery_June1throughJuly5 When the painting returns or sells, you can delete the images from this folder.

4. Destroyed Paintings
   If a painting is destroyed (painted over or discarded), I change the photo’s color to red. If you can’t change the image’s color, you could move the photo to the “Destroyed” folder and make sure to adjust your inventory records for the following year (be sure to check with your tax advisor on how to handle this properly). I recommend recycling the canvas by painting over it with gesso—use oil-based gesso for oil paintings and acrylic-based gesso for acrylics. If the painting was varnished, be sure to remove the varnish first.

5. Marketing Folder
   Use the “Marketing” folder to store any promotional content, like social media posts or ads. Organize them by date and location and keep any related documents (like your marketing plan) there. You could also keep your marketing plan in the “Business” folder—just go with what feels best for your workflow.

Physical Organization: Storing Your Artwork

Space can be tight but keeping your artwork safe and accessible is important. Here are a few methods that have worked for me:

1. Cabinet Storage
   I use two large cabinets (I bought them from an art supply store when they were closing) to store completed paintings and blank canvases for new projects. The shelves are lined with carpet to protect the artwork from scratches. I store the paintings upright and organize them by size to maximize space. For added protection, I place a sheet of cardboard or foam core between each piece, and face them back to back, with the protective layer in between the two faces of the paintings.

2. Hanging Your Work
   If you’re an artist who sells frequently, you might want to hang your artwork on your studio walls. I love the salon-style hanging method (where the paintings go from floor to ceiling), but make sure to leave enough space between your easel and the wall to avoid splatters! This method works well for those with a smaller inventory. I wish I had that “problem” of selling artwork quickly!

3. Flat File Storage
   If you work on paper, a flat file can be a fantastic solution for storing unframed works. They also double as a desk or work surface! My husband, Ron Stocke (an amazing watercolorist), uses stacked flat files to store his unframed watercolor paintings.

I hope this system helps you get a bit more organized with your artwork and inventory. Remember, the key is to find what works best for you and your creative process. Happy organizing!

1. Gather Your Supplies: Be Ready to Create!

First things first – make sure you have all the supplies you'll need before the class begins. It’s always a good idea to check the supply list ahead of time. If you’re unsure about anything (because let’s face it, art supply names can be super confusing), don’t hesitate to reach out to your instructor or the organization hosting the class.

You might be asked for a specific brush or material, but don’t stress if you don’t have the exact one. Art instructors usually recommend brands or styles based on their own experience, but it’s almost never a strict requirement. I know, as an art instructor myself, I’m always happy to help if you have questions about what to use!

Remember: the world of art supplies isn’t standardized (e.g., a #8 round brush from one brand might look totally different from another!). If you're feeling overwhelmed, just ask. It’s better to clarify than to guess!

2. Set Up Your Workspace: Your Creative Playground

Everyone’s workspace is different, and that’s what makes it fun! But here are some general tips that might make your setup even more inspiring:

• Tidy Up: A clean workspace can do wonders for your creativity – though, trust me, I’m the first to admit I struggle with this one too! Clutter tends to pile up on my desk and in my studio. But when I do manage to clear things out, I find it’s much easier to focus and get into that creative flow.

• Get Your Easel in Position: If you’re working with a standing easel, position it to the side of your workspace (e.g., on your dominant side). For me, as a right-handed artist, I prefer my easel on the right. If you have a small table for your palette, place it between you and the easel so your mixes are easy to reach and you’re not crowding the canvas.

• Room to Move: If you work flat, try setting up a small side table (even a folding one works great). It’ll give you space to hold your palette and supplies, and you can easily swivel between your canvas and your tools.

• Comfort is Key: Make sure you have enough room for all your supplies – paint, brushes, palette, water/spirits, and of course, your computer or device (don’t forget a stand for the best viewing angle). And remember to leave a little space between you and the canvas for that “breathing room”!

3. Check Your Internet Speed: Stay Connected

It might seem obvious, but having a strong internet connection is a must for online learning! You don’t want to miss a single brushstroke or important tip just because of a bad connection. Here’s a quick checklist:

• Test Your Speed: Google "test my Wi-Fi connection speed" and see how fast your connection is. Most ISPs also have apps or websites where you can check speed.

• Boost Your Signal: If your connection is slow, try restarting your modem. If that doesn’t work, consider moving your modem closer to your workspace or even getting a Wi-Fi extender. If you can, plug your device directly into the modem with an ethernet cable – this will always give you the most reliable connection.

4. Give Yourself Time: Focus and Unplug

Give yourself the gift of uninterrupted time for learning! Treat your class like personal development time – you’re investing in your creative growth. Here's how:

• Turn Off Distractions: Try turning off phone notifications, and let your family know you'll be unavailable for a little while. It’s not selfish to dedicate time to yourself – it’s essential for learning!

• Allow Yourself to Experiment: Don’t be afraid to make mistakes – this is your time to learn, experiment, and fail. And yes, that’s totally okay! Failure is part of the process, and each mistake is a step closer to mastering your craft.

5. Take Notes: Your Creative Journal

Writing things down helps to lock information in your brain. Whether you’re the type to jot down notes by hand or prefer typing, make sure you’ve got a note-taking method that works for you. Some ideas:

• Write Down Key Tips: Jot down the instructor’s techniques, tricks, and any “Aha!” moments. It’s easy to forget details, and having notes will make it easier to refer back later.

• Ask Questions: As you're watching, write down any questions that pop up. In live sessions, you can ask them directly after the demo, or even drop them in the chat for the instructor to answer. It’s always good to clear up any confusion while it’s fresh in your mind!

6. Homework: Practice, Practice, Practice!

Okay, let’s talk about homework – but in a fun way! We all know the word can sound intimidating, but in the world of art, homework just means practice. The more you practice, the better you’ll get, and the more you’ll be able to implement what you learned in class.

If your class doesn’t have a follow-up session, be sure to note down any challenges or questions you have during your practice. It’s a great way to make sure you’re really grasping the concepts and to prepare for future learning.

As Malcolm Gladwell suggests, it takes around 10,000 hours of practice to master a skill. But don’t stress about the number – it’s not just about talent, it’s about dedication and time. And remember, every failed attempt is just another chance to improve!*

7. Bottom Line: Have Fun and Get Creative!

Art is all about self-expression, and the most important thing is to have fun with it. So, as you dive into your online art class, embrace the learning process, make mistakes, and most importantly, play with your materials. Whether you’re working with paint, pencils, or something totally new, the key is to enjoy the journey.

Ready, set, paint!

Want to join me in an online painting session? I’m excited to announce that I’ll be one of the faculty of Acrylic Live 2025 this March - https://acryliclive.com/acl2025! Use code BANDURKA for 10% off your ticket at AcrylicLive.com!

*https://www.newyorker.com/sports/sporting-scene/complexity-and-the-ten-thousand-hour-rule

A lot of it comes down to your values (see my last blogpost about finding the values in your reference) - but some of it also comes down to figuring out some solid colour mixes that you can have in your toolbox!

Where do you start?

I like to work with a limited palette as much as I can, it just helps me stay harmonious in my colour mixes. But there are times when you want to expand your palette for certain paintings. Knowing what the main colours are in your subject matter can really help you narrow down your palette. With so many available pigments out there, how do you know where to turn?

Check out this great article by Ingrid Christensen about how to select a limited palette on Artsy. She talks about how having three main primary hues can be a strength, but when you have to add a secondary (orange, green, or purple) it can be handy to have a tube of it available.

What’s a good limited palette?

For me, I like Cadmium Yellow Light (a cool, opaque light yellow), Quinacridone Rose (a lightish, cool, translucent magenta), and Ultramarine Blue (a dark, cool, translucent blue), with Titanium White (an opaque cool white) and Burnt Umber (a warm, dark semi-opaque brown).

Using these five colours, here are some of the basic colour mixes you can create:

Ultramarine Blue and Burnt Umber make a great black! Use more blue to make it a little darker if you want. Add white for a rich gray (more blues make it a cool gray, more browns make it a warm gray) - you can really have power over your grays when you mix them. Plus all of these other mixes - and MORE! Playing with colour is how you really learn to use it.

When it comes to my work, those five colours can express almost everything I need to express. There are times, however, when I need to paint a lot of greens, or make a turquoise, or have lots of oranges - any of those extra colours that it’s handy to have a tube of that colour, but when I do, I also try to remove other colours if I can. I try to limit myself to five colours if possible so that I avoid too much colour confusion/tension.

This example to the left shows a painting where I had turquoise and warm red that I wanted to play off of each other - so I swapped my Ultramarine Blue for Turquoise and Cadmium Red for Quinacridone Rose. But there were areas that I’d need to warm up, and the Cadmium Yellow and Burnt Umber didn’t combine well with this new palette, so after some experimentation, I went with Azo Green (a yellow-green that when mixed with white reads as yellow and cooled down the heat of the Cadmium Red) and Transparent Red Iron Oxide (a brownish red that, when mixed with white and a little Azo Green made a great skin tone for my figure). It’s only through experimentation and detailed note-taking that I found this combo.

But! That’s something you don’t have to worry about if you’re just starting out. If you’re a beginner, just using a standard palette that I described at the beginning of this article is enough to make some pretty standard mixes.

Putting it into action

The video below is one that I recorded during a workshop and it shows my tips for creating easy colour mixes for painting, but I did do it during a colour theory workshop where I had an expanded palette of warm and cool versions of each colour. So I added an Indian Yellow (a warm, translucent yellow), Cadmium Red (a warm, opaque red), and Cerulean Blue (a warmer, semi-opaque blue) to my palette. I go over creating the effect of metallic golds, skin tones, greens, and skies. These are just the tip of the colour-mixing iceberg, but I hope they help you!

For hyper realists, there may be tens or even hundreds of values in a painting. For some cartoonists, there may be only one value of each colour in a piece. For the rest of us, having a rich range of three to ten values for each colour will suffice. For example, a block of wood may have a dark shadow, a midtone brown, and a light highlight. There most likely will be more values in there (reflected light from the table and such), but if you make at least those three values of brown, you’ll be on your way.

Your brain isn’t
always your friend!

It’s amazing how difficult it can be to figure out exactly what value your colours may be in a painting. Part of that is our biology - our brains are these amazing supercomputers that sometimes make assumptions (our brain never is living up to its full potential, as anyone who’s watched “Limitless” can tell you).

Supplies used here: Bee Deluxe Sketchbook, Pen, Grayscale and Value Finder by The Color Wheel Company, Grafix Clear Acetate Sheet (0.003” thickness).

As you can see in the video taken during one of my workshops back in 2018, above, most of us assume that the two grays (one in shadow and one in light) are different values because your brain makes assumptions about items in shadow versus items in light. The best way to find out what value you need your colour to be is to isolate it. You can do this with a piece of paper and a hole cut out of it, or by using a Gray Scale & Value Finder.

Nothing lives in a vacuum. It’s all about relationships. (Hug)

And these relationships tell your brain some important information. They let you know that on this flat, 2D surface that you want the viewer to believe is 3D, mountains get paler as they move up the image because they’re farther away from you than the darker mountains. Values also help to show you which direction the sun is coming from, which can help ground elements in the piece and keep them from floating. Liva Dias has a nice blog post about why value and value relationships are so important in your paintings.

The key is to
check your work

Using a value finder tool can really help you find the value of the colour you’re trying to mix and squinting your eyes helps you narrow it down. This tool is my favourite, there are other options and you can always make your own, as well! If you do decide to make your own, be sure to have a hole in each value so that you can help isolate that colour to find its values more easily. I like the Gray Scale and Value Finder tool that is made by Create-a-Color Wheel.

You can also use a sheet of acetate or any other clear plastic film that you could lay over your reference photo or painting to test your colours before committing. This works better when working on your paintings in the studio. For plein air painting, it’s better to get a gray scale tool and become comfortable with squinting.

Finally, be patient with yourself. Mixing the right value in just the right hue can be a long process. Start off with white if your colour is very light in value, and then add little bits of colour at a time. If your colour needs to be dark in value, start off with the darkest value of that colour (most of the time, it’s the colour out of the tube that you’re using) and then add little bits of another colour to change its hue or value as needed.

I find that if my value is right, I can be a little off on my colour and the painting will still work out. That’s when you start to realize that you can really have more power over colour, and then you can play with alternative colour palettes!

But that’s a blog
post for another day…

Find out more about Symbology in Still Life

Check out this article from March, 2021 by Emily Snow for TheCollector.com:
10 Common Symbols in Still-Life Paintings & What They Mean From flowers to seashells, decoding the symbols in still-life paintings can reveal a hidden world of deeper meaning. https://www.thecollector.com/still-life-paintings-what-they-mean

Painting teacups has been a way for me to connect with my past - my grandparents and great grandparents, as well as after-dinner conversations over tea with my mother during holidays when we spend time with my parents just outside of Vancouver, B.C.

Setting up your still-life painting can be a tricky part of creating an effective painting. Figuring out your lighting, what elements you want to add to the scene to give it a narrative, and how to frame the piece are all part of the challenges we face when starting.

What’s the story you’d like to share with your viewer?

For me, the first idea may come from a theme (like, writing a book while sipping tea; or stacking the teacups to store away after use) or it could come from a technical challenge - a particular cup with a pattern or colour that I love and want to try to capture.

Many folks like to use symbology or mythology in their still-life paintings, just as the masters did centuries ago (and still do). See the sidebar to the right for a link to a fascinating article about symbology in still life paintings.

the Three key Elements of a Still Life

ONE: SUBJECT MATTER
One of the first steps after the concept is the selection of elements that come together to tell the story. Gather all of the elements you can to help you craft the message, they could be memorabilia or symbolic items. Then you’ll want to play around with putting them together - how do they fit together? Do the colours feel harmonious (and even if they don’t, you can always change the colour while painting).

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For me, I like to think of a series of works at one time and how they’ll fit together. Here is an example from my sketchbook of some of the planning that I may do before painting. All little elements will be added after I actually start setting them up, but this process gives me a view of how the collection of paintings will be shown together.

Have you struggled with creating an effective layout?

Working in a sketchbook to work out the “kinks” before you apply paint to canvas is a great way to help focus and produce better paintings, in my opinion. It may or may not be for you, but give it a try and see what you think.

TWO: LAYOUT
Design is another big element of still life painting. Learning to create an effective design can make all the difference in your work. Learning to create a good flow of the eye, and balance in a painting is critical. The concept of PHI is just one way to think about good design (you may have also heard it referenced as the Fibonacci sequence or the Golden Ratio). Figuring out what your viewpoint will be for your work is also important here, will you get up high and look down on the subject (bird’s eye view), or down lower, looking at the still life from a comfortable seated position, or even lower, almost parallel with your subject - all are important in helping to craft the design of the painting. The best way to decide which way is better for you is to try many different ways of looking at your subject and then picking the design that you think would tell your story most effectively.

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THREE: LIGHTING
Lighting your subject can also be a part of the design, whether you light from above, in front, from one side, or the other - it can change how the shadows and highlights fall on your scene. The shadow and light in a painting are what create a sense of depth! I use a very bright, adjustable studio spotlight that can be moved easily to help light my setup. Check out this incredible, thorough video that walks you through some considerations when lighting your still life scenes. When working from life, it stays in place on the subject matter until I’m finished my painting but I always take a good photo with my digital SLR camera to make sure I capture the scene just in case I have to put everything away in a hurry or want to reference it once the painting is complete.

Want to take your still life skills to the next level?

If you’re interested in learning how to take your still life paintings to the next level but aren’t sure if a full workshop is where you’d like to invest your time and money, consider joining me for a live painting demo. There are a few in-person opportunities coming up to say hi if I’m in your area (note, with COVID I’m still sticking close to my home in the Pacific Northwest, but am hoping to add more locations in 2022), but there are also some great online demos coming up as well. I’m really excited about my upcoming live, online painting demonstration - Teacups and Florals, on July 30th. There will be more to come at GoTerracotta.org, so if you’re reading this after 7/30/2021, check them out to see what’s new.

• Upcoming Events Schedule: check out demos, studio tours, and speaking events that are coming soon.

• Online Classes and Workshops

• In-Person Workshops (this schedule is much lighter right now, but as COVID becomes more manageable I’ll be opening up more in-person classes and workshops).

To watch in full screen, click the icon in the bottom right corner.

There are many great resources out there on how to select a good palette knife depending on what you want to do (check out this thorough article on trembelingart.com about different kinds of painting knifes). Personally, I love a metal knife with a diamond shape on it - but you can use whatever you feel most comfortable with! It’s not about the tool, it’s about how you use it.

One of the most common questions I get from acrylic painters is “How do you keep your paint from drying out on your palette too quickly?”

The size of your palette knife can matter as well - I have a bigger knife for mixing large quantities of paint when I’m working really big, a medium-sized one that you’ll see in the video, above, and a little one for when I’m painting while travelling.

A palette knife helps me create a bigger mix of paint, which stays wet much longer than the thinner skinned blog I would make with a brush.

I prefer not to add medium to my paint unless absolutely necessary, to preserve the opacity and brilliance of the hue. But even when I do add medium to my paint, I tend to add it with a palette knife. This is mostly true for me when I’m working in oils and want to add a little fast dry medium to the first layer of paint.

AND there’s the added benefit of extending the life of your brushes. When you mix paint with your brush, paint gets pushed up into the ferrule, which can soften the glue that holds your bristles into place, and disfigure the shape of the brush as well. You could end up with a badly shaped brush that has bristles falling out. Sound familiar?

Whatever medium you’re working in, you can benefit from mixing your paint with a palette knife. And you may start to feel comfortable enough with that knife to start using it in a painting! (Subscribe to my infrequent email newsletter for a future article about using a palette knife to “deconstruct” your work!)

What do you think about using a palette knife to mix your paint with? Have you tried it?

I’d love to hear your thoughts and opinions in the comment section, below. Let us know what kind of palette knife you prefer, whether you’ll continue mixing with your brush, thank you very much, or want to try something new - lay it on me!

Join me for my first ever webinar-style demonstration held with Terracotta!

In this 2-hour demo, students may follow along as I paint a teacup, from concept to completion. Included in my “Teacups and Florals in Acrylics” demo will be several online resources that students can reference during the live event, a Q&A, and countless technique tips to help you cultivate your artistic process.

When: July 30, 12 PM PST

Let’s get to know each other a bit better over an afternoon tea!

Register online here: https://bit.ly/2TnxU7h

This week I was surprised when a friend on Facebook congratulated me for being part of the Editor’s Choice article in May 2020’s Southwest Art Magazine. I was able to download a digital copy of the magazine, since all the stores are closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic and I couldn’t run out to find one. What an amazing surprise during this strange time, to have found out that my work was recognized in this way. Below are screenshots from the issue.

My heartfelt thanks to Kim Agricola and the team at Southwest Art Magazine, and congrats to all of the artists whose work was selected for this honour!

Pinky

12x24-inches, Acrylic on canvas

Guilty Pleasures

18x24-inches, Acrylic on canvas

Three for Tea

24x12-inches, Acrylic on canvas

This painting won “Honorable Mention” in the International Society of Acrylic Painter’s 2018 Signature and Master Signature Member Show.

Top Heavy

24x18-inches, Acrylic on canvas

I'm honoured to have a one-person show at Lagerquist Gallery in Atlanta, GA, and just finished up the last of the series I'll be shipping off later this month! You can get more details about the show, here

Update: Unfortunately, Lagerquist Gallery closed its doors in 2019 after half a century of business. Please support your local galleries!

The 12x12s

These paintings are each 12x12-inches, small enough to fit any space!

This first little teacup, found at a small teashop in a neighbouring town, reminds me of my home. I grew up in a village in British Columbia, Canada, called "Chase" where the Dogwood is the provincial flower. As soon as I saw the cup, I had to buy it and the orange herbal tea is one I drink with my mom in the evenings. The second painting here is of sweetned iced tea, another favourite of mine, as sweetened iced tea is found all over B.C., and the south. It's so interesting to me as I find more and more similarities between my childhood home and the state of Georgia, where these paintings will be shown!

Dogwood Tea

12x12-inches, acrylic on canvas

Sweet Tea

12x12-inches, acrylic on canvas

Hydrangea Tea

12x12-inches, acrylic on canvas

Love

12x12-inches, acrylic on canvas

Tea & Cookies

12x12-inches, acrylic on canvas

A Cup of Comfort

12x12-inches, acrylic on canvas

Cleaning Up, Blue

20x16-inches, Acrylic on canvas

Blue: confident, controlled, even-tempered, sensitive, sentimental

Cleaning Up, Red

20x16-inches, Acrylic on canvas

Red: assertive, determined, extroverted, optimistic, passionate, spontaneous

Cleaning Up, Yellow

20x16-inches, Acrylic on canvas

Yellow: cheerful, creative, independent, intelligent, warm, analytical

Cleaning Up, Pink

20x16-inches, Acrylic on canvas

Pink: generous, feminine, friendly, kind, maternal, nurturing, positive, warm

Cleaning Up, Green

20x16-inches, Acrylic on canvas

Green: calm, compassionate, emotional, generous, loyal, patient, stable

The Cleaning Up Series of Five:

These five paintings are part of a mini family, grouped by colour and hiding a little element in the background of each. The teacups, once a cherished part of the home, are being packed away nowadays. Their beauty is being hidden away. My hope is that this mini series can bring their beauty to light again, after all, there is nothing better than drinking your tea out of real porcelain cups :) 

Nothing is ever going to be as good as the original, but I've just discovered a new resource for printing paintings on canvas that gives me the all options I need at the quality I've been looking for. Canvas Press does custom giclee prints on canvas - plus other great prints like wall murals and metal prints! I have a lot of paintings on odd sizes, like tall and skinny. Most outlets have standard print sizes and are not able to accomodate those kinds of irregular sizes. 

Here are some of the ways you can customize your print:

• Depth can be 3/4-inch, 1.5-inch or 2 inches (I always prefer a 1.5-inch depth)

• The edges can be the edges of the image wrapped around, mirrored on the edges, or color wrapped (I like a simple black edge)

• You can select the finish - standard, matte, or glossy! (for paintings, I usually go glossy to really bring out the darks)

• There are plenty of enhancements and artistic touches you can do for photos, but these aren't good when printing artwork

• You can also choose to have text added on the print (for signage when you're doing shows!?!)

• At the end, they ask you if you want a sawtooth hanger (NO) or a wire hanger (YES), a security hanger if you're showing the piece in a public space (Heck, YEAH!) or even nothing at all if you want to string the piece yourself and save some money!

The first time I printed a piece with them, I had some questions about the order - they were super fast and helpful! There is a great chat option to get help while you're working on your order.

The print just arrived and it looks great! I'm so happy with it I just had to share!

Hope this helps you as well :)

This image of my sketchbook shows some of the planning process. After arranging my subject matter about 200 different ways, I settled on this final design. Then came time to select my color palette. I like to work with complementary colours, and in this piece, I settled on a split complementary palette of Blue, Green and Orange.

The exact shade of blue I wanted for the book was mainly what I was working out, along with whether Cadmium Red would be a better red than a cooler red such as Quinacridone Rose. I wanted a warm colour palette so the Cadmium it was! Cerulean Blue Deep ended up being the best blue for this piece, it was closer to the split complement of orange.

Final colours used (all are M.Graham Acrylics unless noted below)

• Titanium White

• Titan Buff (Golden)

• Cadmium Yellow Light

• Cadmium Red Light

• Hooker's Green

• Cerulean Blue Deep (Golden)

• Ultramarine Blue

• Burnt Umber

Completed Painting

You can also create different types of texture on a canvas with your molding paint, then carve into it or even use tools to create different effects before it dries. For me, I tend to like a smoother texture.

This video shows you my steps to prepping my surface and the tools I use to do so:

Alla Prima: Fancy schmancy way of saying that the piece was completed in one sitting, y’all! No underpainting needed.

Analogous Colours: Three to four adjacent colours on a colour wheel.

Archival: This is just what is sounds like - you can archive it for future generations. I mean, hello? We’re not famous until we’re dead, right? Might as well hedge your bets.

Block In: Painting simple, large shapes with a few values and flat colour. Used as an underpainting when painting.

Brushes: Natural hair is more suitable for oil painting and watercolour painting. Synthetic bristles are better for acrylic painting because the paint is not sucked up into the shaft of the hairs the way natural hair tends to, and the brushes will last longer because of it.

• Ferrule: refers to the metal end of the brush that covers the base of the hairs that make up the brush bristles.

• Filbert: Thick, flat ferrule and oval-shaped medium to long hairs.  With its soft rounded edges, the filbert is suitable for blending and figurative work.

• Round: Round ferrule, round or pointed tip. Useful for detail, wash, fills, and thin to thick lines. A pointed round is used for fine detail. A detailer is a pointed round with very short hair.

• Oval Wash Brush: The oval wash has rounded hairs, flat ferrules, and produces a soft edge, with no point. A wash brush is useful for laying in large areas of water or colour, for wetting the surface, and for absorbing excess media. I prefer this brush for blending my oils (rather than a fan brush).

• Flat: Flat ferrule, square-ended, with medium to long hairs. Provides lots of colour capacity and easy maneuverability. Use for bold, sweeping strokes, or on edge for fine lines. Use heavier filling for heavier paint.

• Bright: Flat ferrule, short-length hairs, usually set in a long handle. Width and length of brush head is about equal. Useful for short, controlled strokes, and with thick or heavy colour.

• Fan: Flat ferrule, spread hairs. Natural hair is more suitable for soft blending, and synthetic works well for textural effects. Useful for smoothing and blending, special effects and textures. Personally, I use it every now and then to get a soft edge.

Binder: It’s what makes those bits of coloured pigment (made from dirt, bug blood, plants, and what-not) stick together and be applied to your support!

Colour: 

• Primary Colours: The group of colours from which all other colours are mixed from. They cannot be made through mixes. Most folks believe Red, Yellow, and Blue are the primary colours, but in truth the primary colours are Cyan, Magenta, and Yellow. In printing inks, black is added (CMYK).

• Secondary Colours: Colours that are made with primary colours, Green, Violet, and Orange.

• Tertiary Colours: The hues that are made by mixing primary and secondary colours. Yellow-green, Yellow-orange, Red-orange, Red-violet, Blue-violet, and Blue-green (turquoise).

Colour Chord: A plan or system for creating colour harmony in a painting. Can be formed with mixes of two, three, or four hues (also known as dyad, triad, or tetrad).

• Dyad: a colour chord of two colours, either complementary or split complementary colours.

• Triad: a colour chord of three colours, equidistant on the colour wheel (forms a triangle). The primary colours are triadic.

• Tetrad: A colour chord of four colours made with one of the following:

  • two pairs of complementary colours whose connecting lines are perpendicular on the colour wheel, forming a cross.

  • two pairs of complementary colours that are separated by a single pair of complements, forming a rectangle.

  • two adjacent (side-by-side) hues and two o pposing hues th at form a trapezoid.

Complementary Colours: Two colours that are opposite of each other on the colour wheel. Red and Green, Blue and Orange, Yellow and Violet, Yellow-green and Red-violet, just to mention a few…

• Near Complementary Colours: Two colours: one colour plus another that is adjacent to the first colour’s complement, Red and Turquoise, for example.

• Split Complementary: Three colours: one colour plus the two colours that are adjacent to the first colour’s complement, Red and Turquoise and Blue-violet, for example.

Fat: A term used to apply to paint with a high oil content.

Fat over Lean (or Thick over Thin): A way of painting with opaque media, where the first layer of paint is painted with the least amount of paint on the brush, it may be thinned down with fast dry medium. As you continue working on top of the bottom layers, the paint gets thicker and may have a slow dry medium added.

Foreshortening:  to reduce the size of the back parts of an object as it moves to the background and enlarge it in the foreground so that they appear distorted while creating them but give the perception of a three-dimensional space.

Fugitive Colour: It’s broken the law and has disappeared over the border. In all seriousness, it’s pigments or dye colours that fade when exposed to light (you know who you are, Alizarin Crimson.)

Glaze: A very thin, transparent coloured paint applied over a previously painted surface to alter the appearance and colour of the surface.

Ground: The coating material that you’re putting on your support to make it ready for painting (like gesso or glue with a brush or roller or spray)

• Gesso: This is a chalky ground that you apply to your support for painting on. It’s usually white, but you can get coloured or clear gesso as well. Typically when you purchase gesso in the stores, it is acrylic gesso and is best for acrylic paintings though you can use it for oil paintings, but conservationists recommend you purchase oil based gesso (made with a mixture of chalk, white pigment and glue).

• Primer: Coating material applied to a support to make it ready for painting, usually this term is used for gesso.

Horizon Line: Your eye line or eye level.  Typically defines where the sky and land or water meet.

Hue: another word for colour

Impasto: A style of painting characterized by thick, juicy colour application. Yum!!

Key: The dominance of dark or light values in a piece. High key paintings contain mostly light values (like a fog scene) and low key paintings contain mostly dark values (like a night scene).

Lean: A term used to apply to paint that’s been “watered” down with water or solvents.

Linear Perspective: a mathematical system for representing three-dimensional objects and space on a two-dimensional surface.

• One-point Perspective:  Using one vanishing point on a horizon line off which to draw lines that radiate from that point to give the viewer the perception of three dimensions. 1-pt perspective is not used often, mostly for roads or tunnels seen from dead center.

• Two-point Perspective: Using two vanishing points off a horizon line with lines that radiate from them to create the perception of three dimensions. Most of the time these vanishing points exist off the edge of the paper.

• Three-point Perspective: Using two vanishing points off a horizon line, with a third above or below the horizon to create the perception of three dimensions on a flat surface. Used mostly in creating perspective from a worm’s eye or bird’s eye view.

Monochromatic: One colour with its shades and tints.

Oil Paint: a slow-drying paint that consists of pigments suspended in a drying oil (usually linseed oil or walnut oil). The viscosity level of the paint can be adjusted using solvents such as turpentine or odorless mineral spirits or oil-based mediums. The drying times vary depending on the thickness of the oil paint. Oils do not evaporate the way that water does, it dries through oxidation (basically oxygen and oil work together to change their chemical makeup and become dry).

• Water Soluble Oil Paint, or Water Miscible Oil Paint: This oil paint’s binder (a modified linseed oil) has been engineered to be thinned and cleaned up with water instead of turpentines or spirits. It is painted with the same techniques as traditional oil-based paint.

Oiling Out: a term when painting in oils that refers to how some colors start to look chalky or change value as they dry. Some artists will rub a little oil medium on them while working (when dry) to keep values consistent while working. Varnish will make all your values right in the end as well.

Palette: The surface used to mix your colours on. Also refers to the range of colours used by an artist.

Pigment: Particles of colour. Common pigment types include mineral salts such as white oxides: lead, now most often replaced by less toxic zinc and titanium, and the red to yellow cadmium pigments. Another class consists of earth types, like sienna or umber. Synthetic pigments are also now available. Natural pigments have the advantage of being well understood through centuries of use but synthetics have greatly increased the spectrum available, and many are tested well for their lightfastness.

Plein Air: A hoity-toity way of saying, “to paint outdoors.”

Saturation: is also referred to as “intensity” and “chroma.” This refers to how bright, vibrant, and pure the colour is. A hue of paint straight from the tube is the most saturated that hue can be. Adding black or white or other colours will desaturate or dull the colour. Some colours are naturally more saturated than others. It’s not associated with a color’s value, how light or dark the colour naturally is has nothing to do with its saturation.

Shade: a darker shade of any hue has black added.

Support: What you’re painting on. Flexible supports include stretched canvas and paper, Rigid supports include wood panels with no sense of humor.

Tint: A lighter tint of any hue has white added.

Underpainting, or Layering In: A monochrome painting layer used as a base for composition.

Value: The lightness or darkness of tones or colours. White is the lightest value; black is the darkest. On a value scale, white is value10, black is value1and neutral middle gray is value 5.

Varnish: a clear film that covers a painting (whether painted on with a brush or sprayed on) to protect it when it is dry.

Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org; Dramatic Color in the Landscape: Painting Land and Light in Oil and Pastel Hardcover – May 16, 2014, by Brian Keeler. 

When I get a commission to do a painting, after we talk and decide on the subject/theme, I'll send the client some sketches which then help us figure out aspect ratio which then helps determine a price for the piece. 

After that's done, I have get down to business. The first question is: what colors will I use to create the commission? I have a number of colors I could choose from, and I don't want to be too literal. After all, as artists, we have some flexibility in choosing our colors for a number of factors including mood, time of day, and even to match decor (many artists are horrified at this, but I take it to be a fun challenge :)

INSPIRATION:

You don't have to slug it out alone! Whether you're just starting out, or are a professional in your field, inspiration for your color palette can come from anywhere: a painting you've always admired, or a poster on your wall, a piece of fabric, or an arrangement of items on a table. You can even buy books with coordinating color palettes in them. Some examples include: Color, by Betty Edwards; The Secret Language of Color; Color Scheme Bible; Color For Designers... and there are many more out there.

After a while you'll find yourself falling back on a few favourite palettes, but in the meantime it's just too much fun to play. 

Once I've settled on a couple of viable options as inspiration, I'll do mini color sketches in my sketchbook. Here is an example from a recent commission, you can even see my notes about what colors I used:

This is an exercise that you can do for every painting or just for ones you're stuck on. Get all that thinking out of the way so you can just get to the fun stuff - slapping the paint on the canvas!

Which color palette would you choose? The left, center, or right option? I'll let you know what the client decides...

Let me be super clear: the best photos come from professional photographers. I personally take my art to a photographer to be shot once it's complete. They do a great job and I know the files will be large enough that I can have them printed as gicleé prints if I want.

But - if you're looking to save money, here are some tips to shooting your own photos of your artwork:

• Photograph the paintings in daylight, with the artwork in a shady spot so that the sun isn't beating on it. If you're fortunate enough to have good lighting, you can place two spotlights with a light diffuser over them at 4pm and 8pm. That way you minimize shadows on your work.

• Save the varnishing for after you've photographed your work.

• Photograph BEFORE framing if possible. Don't photograph the frame, but if you do - make sure you have a photo WITHOUT the frame as well.

• Use the the best camera with the highest mega-pixels you can. Your cell phone does a great job at shooting candids, but the resolution just isn't going to be good enough for a good photo. If it's all you have, just know that it won't allow you to make edits later.

• Shoot in RAW format if possible. Then you can upload the file and make edits easily. I use my Canon Rebel xTi with the lens that it came with, shoot in RAW format and upload all my photos to Adobe Lightroom for editing. Check your camera's user manual to see if this is possible with your equipment.

• Make sure you place your artwork on a wall or flat surface with your camera at a right angle so that you don't skew the image.

• USE A TRIPOD.

• Edit your photos on your computer: make sure it's sharp and in focus, that the colors are good, and be sure to crop out anything around the edges of your work. 

Naming the Digital Files

When I'm done, I titled my files with my name, title of work, size, medium, and price - like this: AngelaBandurka_RainyDay_12x12_Acrylic_500.jpg. Then I always have the specifications for the work at hand. Saves me time when entering shows and such.

To Watermark or Not?

I watermark all of my JPGs that appear on social media and my website with a simple ©AngelaBandurka in the bottom left corner of each image. This is made easier through Lightroom, which just populates that info for me when I export. 

For show entries and galleries, I send files that have NOT been watermarked. 

Why the difference?

When putting your work out into the "webisphere", it can be copied and "pinned" and shared and the like without your knowledge or permission. If you want people to know who painted that picture, having your watermark with your name makes it easy for people to find you later. This is especially easy if your name and your website's domain name are the same. For example, my website is www.AngelaBandurka.com. If your URL is www.CrazyPainter3000.com; you might want to put your URL in your watermark.

Make it easy for folks to find you :)

Even at that, you'll want to replace your brushes - at least once a year or every 5-10 paintings depending on how rough your surface is or how well you care for those brushes. Your brushes matter - you can't get a nice crisp line from an old, frayed brush!  Keep those old, frayed brushes for some of the messier, softer edges you might want to create in the background of your piece.

Hopefully this video helps you to care for your brushes. NOTE: I usually wear Medical Grade Nitrile Gloves while doing this to protect myself.

Here are links to the cleaners I recommend in this video:
1) For OIL BRUSHES (you can use this for all brushes, but I prefer it for my oils): Jack's Linseed Studio Soap

2) For ACRYLICS and WATERCOLOR BRUSHES: The Masters Brush Cleaner is a cake of soap in a little container. Easy! Rub the brush on the cake to get the soap on the bristles, then work it into your palm. I demonstrated using Pink Soap by Mona Lisa.

Using their website, I uploaded my high resolution photographs (I usually shoot my own paintings with a digital DSLR camera that I purchased at Costco five years ago) and for less than the cost of an 8x10 canvas print at their competitor's website, I got an amazing 30x20-inch one! You can use your computer, tablet or phone to upload your files. Less than a week after uploading the file, I was called in to the Silver Lake location to pick up my order. Nicola, the gal behind the counter was super friendly and helpful. Plus this month there is a $10 coupon in the Costco app or coupon book. Bonus!

One of my friends, a photographer who shows his work at galleries around the country, told me that he uses Costco exclusively for printing his photographs, something that surprised me. It's good to know that!

Needless to say, I'll now be able to offer canvas prints to my collectors - scroll to the bottom of this page to see which pieces are available for purchase at this time. I'll also have some canvas prints at Edmonds Art Studio Tour this September!

AVAILABLE NOW FOR PURCHASE AS A CANVAS PRINT (contact me if you'd like another painting made into a canvas print):

When using transparent media you need to start with your lightest values, leaving pure white from the start, avoiding that white area as you work to keep it white. Since I usually paint in opaque media (acrylic and oil) this is the opposite of how I usually work, where I layer my lights over my darks.

For watercolor that means start off with black paint and work very watery, using less water as you progress. Just keep layering your values as you work. Every now and then stop and really look at your source image. Evaluate how dark one shape is next to the other, and then revise.

For graphite, which is also a translucent media, you’d start with an H pencil, using very little pressure - then towards the end you’d end up using a B, maybe even a 9B for the blackest blacks.

TIPS:

• Darks approach, lights recede. This is a standard rule, but there are times when that rule may be broken, like when there is a strong light source in the foreground. Making sure you're following at least two of these rules at any one time will help you create a better piece of art.
• There is more contrast in the object closest to you. You will also see more detail in the objects nearest you, though you can focus your detail on the area you want to draw the eye to for a better design flow.
• Objects are bigger when they're closer to you and get smaller in the distance.

or reference, below is an opaque media study done the exact opposite way, but with all the darks being laid in first and bright white highlights sitting on top:

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The first step of this process was to send some sketches - I wanted to see if the client preferred having the space be the "hero" or have the couple themselves as the main feature. In the end he wanted to highlight the space and make the two of them be more of an added bonus.

After the sketch was selected, I sent Kevin my price list with my suggestions for aspect ratios (how tall versus how wide) and he selected 18x14-inches for the final piece.

I ordered the canvas, then prepped it with a thin coat of light molding paste, which dried fully before it was covered with a mix of clear gesso and yellow and iridescent gold paint for a warm, bright underpainting.

Next, Kevin and I met in at SAM with a female friend of theirs for a photo shoot. Since I never did get to meet his beautiful girlfriend, he sent me photos of her that I could use to put her in there.

And then, the painting commenced. I used my iPhone 6's Time Lapse video feature to record the process of painting this piece, which occurred over the span of a week or so. I edited all those little in-progress videos using Adobe Premiere Pro and laid in some free stock music.

After presenting a first proof of the painting, Kevin had three minor edits to it and when completed, finished off the edges of the canvas with black paint, I varnished the piece, and strung hardware on the back for hanging. The last step was to deliver the painting.

On April 8th, I delivered the piece to the staff at SAM. They set it up the following day and the proposal happened at 6pm on April 9th, 2015. 

I wish them all the luck in the world as they move forward with their lives together, and am so honoured to have been a part of this amazing wedding proposal!

There are many different ways to add texture to your work. You can add it with your support choice, as a process on the base layer, throughout the process, or during the final steps.

Palette knife artists use very thick layers of paint, which creates texture on its own. The work of Van Gogh included visual and tactile textures through the use of brush strokes and very thick paint. Other artists like a very smooth, even texture. It all plays in to your style and enjoyment of the painting process. Whatever support of style you choose, I recommend you apply gesso to your support (even if it's pre-gessoed by the manufacturer), and in some cases you may need to seal the support (like when you paint on a piece of driftwood from the beach - I use Golden Acrylics' medium: GAC 100).

Below are a few examples of how you can create texture before, and during the process. At the end of these samples, you'll see how you can add some texture to the final stage.

Click on any image to see it up close!

SAMPLE A

TACTILE: Hard, slightly absorbent - Canvas panel, thin coat of white gesso, thin coat of high flow acrylics in neutral grey 6
VISUAL: Acrylic paint in limited palette, painted with a filbert brush

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SAMPLE B

TACTILE: Soft, absorbent - Canvas panel, thick coat of white gesso applied with a soft brush; lastly an layer of clear gesso mixed with liquid acrylic in napthol red medium (3:2)
VISUAL: Acrylic paint applied with filbert and round brushes, final coats dry brushed on

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SAMPLE C

TACTILE: Soft and very absorbent - Oil paper, no gesso used
VISUAL: Acrylic paint thinned with Airbrush Medium to work it wet into wet onto the paper

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SAMPLE D

TACTILE: Hard, slippery - Canvas panel, thin coat of gold gesso
VISUAL: Acrylic paint applied with a small filbert brush in a pointillism style, allowing the gold to show through

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SAMPLE E

TACTILE: Soft and matte - Canvas panel, thick coat of light molding paste, applied with a large flat palette knife, then coated with a thin layer of white gesso
VISUAL: Acrylic paint applied with a small filbert and round brushes

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SAMPLE F

TACTILE: Hard and very slippery - Canvas panel, thin coat of soft gel medium, applied with a flat palette knife
VISUAL: Acrylic paint applied with bright (flat) brushes

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SAMPLE G

TACTILE: Hard and slightly absorbent - Canvas panel, coat of white gesso
VISUAL: Acrylic paint applied with a large round brush with thick paint

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SAMPLE H

TACTILE: Canvas panel, thin coat of white gesso
VISUAL: Multiple layers of paint and medium

• acrylic paint applied as a representational painting
• layer of GAC 800 (medium that applied in thick layers without "crazing" - or creating rivers and valleys as it dries) poured on and spread with a soft brush, sprayed with rubbing alcohol to remove bubbles; allowed to dry
• layer of Acrylic Ground for Pastels, allowed to dry
• colored pencil
• layer of GAC 800
• layer of Acrylic Ground for Pastels
• colored pencil
• Red paint applied, the carved into with brush handle (sgraffito)
• layer of Glass Beads Gel

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Final Step

At the very end, you can choose to finish your painting with a gloss or matte finish (or something in between, or a bit of both, if you prefer.) As you can see here, all the paintings were finished with the top left corner in matte varnish and the bottom right corner in a gloss varnish. As you can see, the gloss deepens the colors and their values, and brings out the texture more. If your texture is smooth all the way through, you can achieve a very glossy finish, the softest and most absorbent textures will diffuse some of the shine. 

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Experiment with it and make it your own!

In the pear, below, I mixed Ultramarine Blue and Cadmium Yellow Deep to make green, using different methods of color mixing. The paint I used is Golden Heavy Body Acrylic, and I painted this example on a smooth hardboard (what you paint on and its texture is as important as the paint and technique itself!) Keep reading for explanations of each section:

Complete, Physical Mixing

Using my two colors, I mixed them together using a palette knife until the color was smooth and completely mixed. I painted it on with a flat brush.

You can also achieve complete mixes by painting one color on your surface, then, while it's wet, mixing in the second color completely. Can be tricky, so use caution.

Tools used: Blue and yellow paint, palette knife, palette, flat brush, primed hardboard.

Incomplete Mix

Using a palette knife, I picked up a little of each of my two colors and spread them on the surface, allowing each color to show without completely mixing together.

Tools used: Blue and yellow paint, palette knife, palette, primed hardboard.

Scrumbling

I painted a layer of blue on the surface of my piece and allowed it dry. Then I used a brush loaded with the yellow, then wiped off a little bit, and proceeded to rub the yellow paint around on top of the blue layer. The texture of your surface will make a big difference in the appearance of this technique, so experiment with it!

Tools used: Blue and yellow paint, paper towel, flat brush, primed hardboard.

Glazing

Using transparent layers can be a way to make your colors look very luminous. You have to be careful of the texture of your surface, as very porous surfaces will react differently than harder surfaces. I started with a layer of yellow paint, then glazed over it with the blue. The order that you layer your glazes will make a difference in the look here, as well. Again, experiment and try it out!

Tools used: Blue and yellow paint, glazing medium, palette, flat brush, primed hardboard.

Sgraffito

I painted a layer of blue on the surface of my piece and allowed it dry. Then I painted a thick layer of yellow over it, and while it was still wet used the wooden handle of my brush to scratch lines through the yellow paint, showing some of the blue underneath through it.

Tools used: Blue and yellow paint, flat brush, primed hardboard.

Optical Mixing (Proximity)

Also can be called pointillism when dots are used - this technique can be achieved with lines and dashes or any shape side by side to create an optical mix (think of the impressionists!). In this example, I painted yellow dots and blue dots side by side with a wooden dowel. (I dipped the end of the dowel into a blob of paint, lifting it straight out of the paint and then pressing it down on the surface.)

This is the technique printers use to "mix" thousands of colors out of Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and Black.

Tools used: Blue and yellow paint, wooden dowel, primed hardboard.

Dry Brushing

This is a technique I employ regularly, since acrylic paints tend to dry very quickly and I don't like to use mediums with them. Your surface texture will play a large role in this - so experiment. The more texture, the more pronounced the effect. Usually I'll opt for covering my canvas with a light molding paste before priming and painting, allowing me to create my own slightly uneven but subtle texture. Here I used a coarse molding paste applied to the surface with a palette knife, and after it dried overnight I painted a layer of blue paint and allowed it to dry as well. Then I loaded my brush with yellow paint and wiped off the excess (until the brush was nearly dry); and then, applying very little pressure, I spread the yellow over the blue as if the brush were a palette knife.

Tools used: Blue and yellow paint, coarse molding paste, palette knife, flat brush, primed hardboard.

Color temperature was always confusing to me. I didn't "see" it - when an instructor would say, "do you see those warm yellows there, and the blue in that shadow there", I was honestly lost! I didn't see those colours! It took years of training (and I'm always learning and growing as an artist so the training continues) to teach my brain to see the way an artist sees. This is something you CAN learn :)

Here is a very simplistic example of how you can work on a piece, ignoring temperature at the start - and then add it after the fact.

The PALETTE

These are the paints I used, click on the images to see them up close:

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The DEMO

Place your mouse over the image to read the text (mobile users, scroll down to the text for the images), click on the arrow or a thumbnail to see the next slide.

Paint your picture using values of the main colours. Don't worry about shifting any temperatures yet, just get your values right.

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Really LOOK at your resource: do you see any areas that seem "warmer"? If the answer is no - do not despair! A good rule of thumb is to choose to do opposites: warm highlight/cool shadows OR cool highlights/warm shadows. You'll see it after you've been training yourself to see it for a while :) 

WARMS:

Pink: I added a touch of yellow to my pinks (see the outside petals, for example.

Green: I added some more yellow my greens to warm them up. I also added a touch of warm browns to the background in a couple of places (red and yellow with a bit of blue).

COOLS:

Pinks: I added a tiny bit of blue to my pink - see the cooler shadows in the center of the flower.

Greens: I added more blue to my green mix, and in a couple of places I even used a touch more blue in the darker green value to add some cools in the background.

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STEP ONE: 

Paint your picture using values of the main colours. Don't worry about shifting any temperatures yet, just get your values right.

STEP TWO: 

Really LOOK at your resource: do you see any areas that seem "warmer"? If the answer is no - do not despair! A good rule of thumb is to choose to do opposites: warm highlight/cool shadows OR cool highlights/warm shadows. You'll see it after you've been training yourself to see it for a while :) 

WARMS:

• Pink: I added a touch of yellow to my pinks (see the outside petals, for example.
• Green: I added some more yellow my greens to warm them up. I also added a touch of warm browns to the background in a couple of places (red and yellow with a bit of blue).

COOLS:

• Pinks: I added a tiny bit of blue to my pink - see the cooler shadows in the center of the flower.
• Greens: I added more blue to my green mix, and in a couple of places I even used a touch more blue in the darker green value to add some cools in the background.

My example below uses acrylic paints, but you can also do the same thing with oils! On the left is the original painting, on the right is the same painting with a layer of cadmium yellow dark mixed with a generous amount of glazing medium.

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Using Acrylic paint:

• Allow you finished painting to dry.
• Mix some paint with glazing medium (you can also use matte or gloss medium). Ratios can vary depending on how much you'd like to tint your piece. Start with about 1:8 paint to medium and then mess around with the ratios to achieve the proper effect.
• Apply the glaze with a towel or soft cloth to cover as thoroughly as possible.
• After the glaze has dried go back and brighten up the white highlights of your piece.

Using Oils:

• The steps are the same - you must allow the painting to dry first!
• Instead of acrylic medium, you'll need to use an oil medium. Utrecht makes a nice Glazing Medium, but you can also use Galkyd mixed with a tiny bit of stand oil to create a nice glazing medium.

When painting from photos or from life, you are the one who gets to decide what stays and what goes in your work. If you have a photo of a scene you'd like to capture on canvas, but feel that the background is too distracting - replace it with another background or edit the existing background to work better. Just make sure that it's contextually relevant and that it doesn't detract attention away from your main subject. How can you do that? 

Here are a couple of examples of how I solved that problem on some of my paintings from 2008 (back when I did a lot more note-taking and sketching of my pieces):

Patrolling Bourbon Street: Partial background edit using another photo

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In the painting above, "Patrolling Bourbon Street", my original photo was backed by a quiet side street. I wanted to show more of the business of the street, so I took another photo that had a characteristically crowded New Orleans party crew in it and just merged the two a bit.

First Kiss: Complete background swap using another photo reference

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In this example, "First Kiss", I had a background that was too busy and distracting. So I actually grabbed a photo from my mom's garden, blurred it in photoshop, and then used it as the background instead. Creating a blurrier background helped keep the focus on the main subject.

Pickin' Dandelions: Creating a better background using known design principles

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Finally, sometimes you have to paint a background as you see it, step back and revisit before editing it to work more effectively! In "Pickin' Dandelions" I had originally included that dark strip of shadow in the background at the top of the painting. After revisiting, I realized that the dark shape was pushing my background too far forward, and instead I wanted to push it to the background where it belonged. I added some lighter greens to the top area, with more blues to cool the temperature of the grass in the distance.

One of the best tools in studio is my New Wave Easy Lift palette, perfect for my acrylic paintings. If the paint dries in thick globs, it's a breeze to just peel it off - but most of the time I find that I'm using all of the paint and only a thin skin of paint is left behind. If I use my palette knife to scrape the paint off, I'm left with scrapes and streaks on the surface of the palette! What's a gal to do?

My solution: peel off the thickest paint, then use it as an eraser, to easily peel off all of the remaining paint! Super easy and so much more environmentally friendly than throwing away a paper palette :) 

You can get a New Wave Easy Palette at Artspot in Edmonds, and if you are taking one of my workshops, let them know as you will get 10% off.

PS: this sounds like an ad, but I did not receive any compensation for this blog post. 

I teach an Atelier class on Thursday nights at Cole Gallery, and this month I'm focusing on drawing. There is so much stuff out there that you can draw with and on, that I decided to list some of my favourite options. Please know that this is not, in any way, a complete list. These are just some of the ones I tend to demonstrate with. 

Drawing Implements:

• Graphite Pencils: The "B" pencils are "bold" and soft, and make dark lines without much pressure. The "H" pencils are "hard" and make light lights without much pressure. Light pressure must be used with the H pencils because they can easily groove into your paper. 
• Watersoluble Graphite pencils: These fun pencils can be manipulated with a brush and water, making them a very fun and versatile sketching tool.
• Carbon pencils: Very sturdy and soft, dark marks can be made with carbon pencils.
• Charcoal: (In all forms, I prefer to use compressed charcoal as they are less prone to breakage and make a little less mess.)
  • Pencils: I like to have at least a soft and a hard plus white charcoal. General's is my favourite brand :)
  • Sticks: Using a stick is fun because you can get nice, wide strokes using the side of the stick.
  • Loose: Loose charcoal is super messy but helpful when creating a very large drawing. I use a brush and/or a chamois dipped into my jar.
• Conté crayons: these are chalky crayons mixed with some clay. They have a very nice touch and rich colours, and a matte finish. There's a reason these have been loved for years by many artists! 
• Pens: I love the Faber Castell pens, they use India Ink and are permanent once dry, making them a great tool to use with water based paints when you don't want to bleed the ink. Plus the hold a fine tip better than their popular tan-coloured competitor.
• Pentel Brush Pen: This is a great brush pen, and it can be refilled. I believe ARTspot has one there - not sure if it's refillable or not, but the brush itself is very nice and makes tiny fine lines up to large sweeping strokes either way! (Click to see what it looks like, here.)
• Pan Pastels: I use pan pastels for the first stage of my portrait work, working them like a palette knife as I lay in my features. I will have a sample for viewing at the next class (I demonstrated its use in the Taste of Atelier class back in August :).

Paper/Surfaces (see samples, below):

• Newsprint Pads: These are great for sketching quick studies. Inexpensive and the greyish-white colour of the paper allows for some white charcoal to show a bit.
• Sketch Paper: inexpensive, has a nice texture that shows in your work. Great for working out the details of a drawing and creating a piece that can be transferred to a final sheet of archival quality paper.
• Stonehenge, Hot-Pressed Watercolor Paper or other 100% archival rag paper: Very sturdy and can withhold some water based media for a customized surface. Will allow deep grooves for creating texture. Beautiful surface for final drawings.
• Pastelbord by Ampersand: A slightly sandy texture that picks up charcoal marks easily and quickly. Doesn't require a drawing tablet or table and is easy to frame.
• Matte Acetate: a very translucent, plastic surface with a matte finish allows you to draw right on it with a very smooth outcome. Can be extremely trick to work with - as any fingerprints will show, and erasing damages the surface instantly.
• Toned paper: a light grey or tan paper is fun to work on - it has all of the middle values ready to go - just add black and white to create contrast :)
• Create your own surface: Paint a little "Pastel Ground" medium on to almost any surface - Golden makes a nice version. It's slightly sandy texture picks up marks easily and its translucent nature allows you to apply it over a painting so that you can draw over it with charcoal or graphite or pastel!

Erasers 

(Note: you should save your eraser for the final step in your drawing, unless it is one of your drawing implements used to "draw" within dark areas as you work. Erasers do slightly damage the surface of your paper):

• Electric Erasers: allow you to quickly and easily pick up graphite/charcoal to make bright highlights. ARTspot carries these handy tools.
• Kneadable Erasers: have many uses, but my favourite is to use it when I've made a value too dark. I can press the eraser onto the area and lift off some of the darkness.
• White Eraser: I like the stick kind of eraser. This one is my fave - I can use it for drawing with!

I attended a free presentation by Barbara De Pirro (rep for Golden Acrylics) that discussed mediums and what they could be used for. It was a lot of great info to take in, and I wanted to share it with you!

Some of the products that were most intriguing are:

GAC Specialty Polymers

("Golden Artist Colors", or "GACK!")

• GAC 100: This seals your surface, so if you like to paint on wood and want to retain the look of the wood in your piece, paint this clear polymer first and let it dry. Then you're ready to go and you won't have to worry about the sap or oils from the wood interfering with your painting! This product is also good for painting on other surfaces that need to be sealed - fabrics that you stretch on canvas, for example. Dries stiff and clear.
• GAC 200: Great to add to your paint for outdoor murals or to prime hard surfaces like glass and metals!
• GAC 400: Will dramatically stiffen fabrics for cool sculptural effects! 
• GAC 700: Great for glazing
• GAC 800: Perfect for imitating encaustic techniques, you can pour thick applications of this one without worrying about it forming valleys and cracks (those annoyances are called "crazing") - can be tinted with yellow for a beeswax look. Air bubbles? Just spritz a little rubbing alcohol on it to get rid of 'em!
• GAC 900: This is fantastic for painting on fabric while keeping the fabric's softness and flexibility! Heat set it in the dryer when you're done and you're "golden"! (sorry, couldn't resist)

Golden Gels:

you can apply up to 50% gel to paint and still retain your colour! That's due to the high pigment load in Golden paints - you couldn't do that with student grade paints.

• Soft Gel is great for collage glue. Feels soft and buttery.
• Regular Gel is the same viscosity as Heavy Body paints - like toothpaste.
• Heavy Gel and Extra Heavy Gels are stiffer than regular gel and are great for creating thick, sculptural effects.
• Clear Tar Gel: Great for marbelling effects and dripping lines on your project. Be sure to apply in thin layers to avoid "crazing" (see GAC 800 description for definition :)
• Self-Leveling Clear Gel: levels flat when poured, also must be applied in thin layers!

Golden Pastes:

These are opaque (covers what is under them), and you can mix in some paint but you'll get a tint of the colour since the pastes have a white opaqueness to them.

• Molding Paste: dries smooth, good for imprinting on!
• Light Molding Paste: dries with a slight tooth, flexible and highly absorbent.
• Hard Molding Paste: dries smooth and hard - great for sanding and carving
• Coarse Molding Paste: bright white and toothy
• Fiber Paste: When dry, looks like handmade paper (toothy)!
• Crackle Paste: Do not rush its dry time, or it won't crack :)

Golden Grounds:

• Absorbent Ground: great for watercolor techniques with watercolor or acrylic washes. Also slightly toothy and porous.
• Acrylic Ground for Pastels: awesome tooth, great for drawing wit all media including pastel and pencils. Translucent!! So it can be applied in thin layers over other drawings/washes :) Be sure to spray each layer with a blast of varnish before painting on another layer of ground!

There was so much more information than this in the presentation that I couldn't possibly put it all up for you - but please refer to Golden's website for more details about their products at www.goldenpaints.com, including a great newsletter and detailed descriptions of how to achieve certain effects! They are also one of the few companies that have excellent customer service and welcome calls to their technical support line: 1-800-959-6543.

And you're always welcome to call ARTspot to ask any of their knowledgable staff what medium/gel/paste might work best for your project! If they don't know, they'll find out!

I'm going to try to answer that for you, here:*

EASELS

I've used a couple different kinds of easel when painting plein air. I'm going to give you my opinions (these are my opinions and only mine, I'll let you make up your own minds but hope that this will be a helpful guide until you get there);

Pochade Box: This is a little wooden box that sits atop a tripod. Super compact and is what I have been using the last couple of years. My palette sits inside the box and then I have a mini toolbox that sits on the easel below the pochade box.

PROS: Super easy to travel with as it'll fit in your backpack, best system for air travel and if you're hiking.

CONS: Can be very wiggly, and strong gusts of wind can easily tip over your setup so be sure to weigh it down with a bag of rocks or something, won't allow for larger painting supports.

French Easel: This is a nice wooden box with legs that flip out and under that box, and the top of the box flips up and holds your support. 

PROS: Can hold all your supplies, offers a larger working size, makes a nice studio easel and well, also works as a table easel, very sturdy.

CONS: Those legs are a bit of a pain to set up and take down and even break after a few years, sometimes your brushes may slip out of a crack in the side when you're setting up/taking down, Heavy to carry and kind of awkward when hiking through the bush.

Field Easel: These easels are the least expensive option, and look like the letter "A" with a back leg steadying the whole thing.

PROS: Affordable, compact, accommodates many sizes.

CONS: Very easily tipped over, be sure to weigh it down; you will have to hold your palette while you paint so be sure to get one that's comfortable to hold.

PAINTS

Call me crazy, but I love painting outdoors with my acrylic paints! Yes, they dry quickly; but if you know how to work them outside they're amazing. And I don't use a retarder to slow the dry time. I have played around with the new OPEN Acrylics but I found them to get sticky and strange so I gave them up after one season. Water soluble Oils are my next favourite options for plein air - the trick with oils is to make sure you park nearby to store your wet paintings in. Or have a compact wet paint carrier. Have I mentioned that I love to paint outdoors with my acrylics? I can stack my finished pieces and throw them into my luggage for the flight home!

Only pack the basic colours, don't try to carry your entire palette.

Here is my basic plein air palette:

• Titanium White
• Titanium Buff
• Dioxazine Purple (you might want black, this is what I use for black instead)
• Anthroquinone Blue (super dark, but I can lighten easily)
• Cadmium Yellow Light
• Cadmium Red Medium (my warm red)
• Quinacridone Crimson (my cool red)
• Burnt Umber
• and sometimes I'll bring Turquoise Deep as well (my warm blue)

SUPPORTS

Canvas or board? I have brought prepped canvases with me, but they're bulky. Boards are awesome, but then I have to frame them (I don't want to have to do that if I don't have to) - so my favourite supports are either:

• Real Canvas Pad: this is a pad of actual canvas. You can paint on this and then easily roll it to ship home or fit into your luggage easily
• Primed Oil or Watercolour Paper: I prefer to paint on the hot pressed watercolour paper that I gesso before painting on. If I'm using oils, I'll paint on Oil Paper! Then if a piece turns out well, I can mount it on to a cradled board or canvas (see my blog post from March 2014 for steps on how to do that: http://www.angelabandurka.com/blog/2014/3/13/old-trusty-faithful)

PALETTE

Paper palettes are the most compact and disposable option, and therefore are my favourite when traveling. But I also love the New Wave acrylic palette. The smooth surface of the acrylic palette makes it all right for the paints to dry - they'll just peel off. Done!

OTHER

• I'll bring a few pairs of non-latex gloves for keeping my hands clean
• some paper towel (I prefer the blue shop towels)
• a couple of plastic shopping bags for my garbage
• lots of fresh, clean water to keep me hydrated
• a camera so that I can double check my values back in the studio and touch up my paintings
• sunscreen, and a hat! maybe even an easel umbrella
• a cell phone
• any permits necessary (sometimes I am traipsing around forestry service roads or state parks and ignorance just won't cut it, people!).

A NOTE ABOUT AIR TRAVEL

Flying with your paints can be tricky. What I do to avoid trouble is I load my tubes into a ziploc bag and pack with my checked luggage; along with a printout of the MSDS Health & Safety Sheet (Golden has them available for printing at http://www.goldenpaints.com/healthsafety/msds/; check to see if your brand has some). Travel with watercolour paint is easier - I use pan paints and then there isn't any fear of them being tossed.

*NOTE: I'm just one person showing you my methods. That doesn't mean I'm right! It just means that this is how I do it and if you have a better way to do it - go for it (but be sure to tell me, too. Never stop learning and improving :)

Here's what I did - I decided to take this 24x20 inch canvas and cut it to 18x24 inches, then "glue" it to a new canvas! Below is the original composition:

So here's what I did

First, I measured and drew with charcoal, the two inches that I was going to remove.

Second, I cut away the canvas off the stretcher bars, using a sharp Exacto blade and heavy pressure. Note that I away from the painting, on the outside edges. That way I could trim as much or as little as I needed, and if I accidentally made the line crooked, it wouldn't matter.

Third, the excess is taken off and I trimmed all four edges.

Fourth, using black paint, I painted the edges and top half of the sides on the NEW canvas I was going to glue the painting to.

After that was dry, I grabbed my soft gloss gel and applied it generously to the entire top of the new canvas; and the entire back of the painting. Then I positioned the painting over the new canvas and removed air bubbles with my hands, working from the center to the outside edges, and pressing down on all the edges firmly. 

Lastly, I turned the painting facedown on top of a slick surface (the back of my self-healing cutting mat) and again pressed out any air bubbles from the back before piling heavy books and such on top of the canvas (inside and on top of the stretcher bars).

And the final product is....

A Cowboy’s Prayer:

An old cowboy was riding his trusty horse followed by his faithful dog along an unfamiliar road. The man was enjoying the new scenery, when he suddenly remembered dying, and realized that the dog beside him had been dead for years, as had his horse. Confused, he wondered what was happening, and where the trail was leading them. After a while, they came to a high, white stone wall that looked like fine marble. At the top of a long hill, it was broken by a tall arch topped by a golden letter “H” that glowed in the sunlight.

Standing before it, he saw a magnificent gate in the arch that looked like mother-of-pearl, and the street that led to the gate looked like gold. He rode toward the gate, and as he got closer, he saw a man at a desk to one side. Parched and tired out by his journey, he called out, ‘Excuse me, where are we?’

‘This is Heaven, sir,’ the man answered.

‘Wow! Would you happen to have some water?’ the man asked.

‘Of course, sir. Come right in, and I’ll have some ice water brought right up.

As the gate began to open, the cowboy asked, ‘Can I bring my partners, too?’

‘I’m sorry, sir, but we don’t accept pets.’

The cowboy thought for a moment, then turned back to the road and continued riding, his dog trotting by his side.

After another long ride, at the top of another hill, he came to a dirt road leading through a ranch gate that looked as if it had never been closed. As he approached the gate, he saw a man inside, leaning against a tree and reading a book.

‘Excuse me,’ he called to the man. ‘Do you have any water?’

‘Sure, there’s a pump right over there. Help yourself.’

‘How about my friends here?’ the traveler gestured to the dog and his horse.

‘Of course! They look thirsty, too,’ said the man.

The trio went through the gate, and sure enough, there was an old-fashioned hand pump with buckets beside it. The traveler filled a cup and the buckets with wonderfully cool water and took a long drink, as did his horse and dog.

When they were full, he walked back to the man who was still standing by the tree. ‘What do you call this place?’ the traveler asked.

‘This is Heaven,’ he answered.

‘That’s confusing,’ the traveler said. ‘The man down the road said that was Heaven, too.’

‘Oh, you mean the place with the glitzy, gold street and fake gates? That’s hell.’

‘Doesn’t it make you angry when they use your name like that?’

‘Not at all. Actually, we’re happy they screen out the folks who would leave their best friends behind.’

~~author unknown~~
http://blog.chron.com/hoofbeats/2012/01/a-cowboys-prayer/

Recently, while at ARTspot, an art supply store in Edmonds, Washington, I noticed two very similar charcoal pencils made by the same supplier: Faber-Castell. They had the same names on them but different coloured grips: one was tan, and said "PITT CHARCOAL" and the other was black and said the same thing on it. Both had Soft, Medium, and Hard options. What's the difference?

After some experimentation and lots of research (it wasn't clear to me on F-C's website) I discovered the difference:

The Black one is uncompressed charcoal - it's natural charcoal. On the back of the pencil in small text you'll see the word: "Zeichenkohle."

The Tan one is compressed charcoal. On the back in small print is the word: "Reisskohle."

On the right here is a visual of my apple-to-apple comparison on toned pastel paper.

My PRO/CON list for each:

Zeichenkohle/Natural Charcoal Pencil:

• PRO: Smooth charcoal with no barbs in my test
• PRO: Erases well
• CON: Lead breaks extremely easily (you can see this in the photo)

Reisskohle/Compressed Charcoal Pencil:

• PRO: Responds well to pressure, allowing for easy shifts in value
• PRO: More stable, less fragile than the natural charcoal
• PRO: Erases well
• CON: Has some barbs every so often. Be careful! I've heard General's Compressed Charcoal has no barbs, but I haven't compared that here.

Here is a piece that I created, using a photo I had taken of my puppy, Oliver, as reference,drawing with the Compressed Charcoal pencils, General's White Charcoal for highlights, a short-haired brush for blending as I work, and toned pastel paper:

Click on any of the photos to see them up close and personal.

Step one:

The setup. I grabbed a bunch of varying sized teacups and saucers, played around with the arrangements until I got one that I liked. Here I have a variety of patterns and solid colours that are stacked together with the largest on the bottom moving up to the smallest ones on top. I had to use some museum putty to hold them together like that :)

The strong light source was coming from the right side and I set up a neutral gray background behind the setup.

Next, I played around with my viewfinder to see how the stack would fit best on the canvas.

Here is the prepped canvas, ready to go: First I applied Golden Light Modeling Paste, followed 24 hours later by a coat of Liquitex Clear Gesso mixed with Golden Fluid Acrylic in Napthol Red Light.

The drawing goes on with a pastel pencil in a shade that will not make my colours look muddy when it mixes with my paint. I chose a warm ochre.

Here is the drawing, but I felt like it was too low on the canvas - there was too much negative space in the top area, so I wiped it off with a damp towel and started again. Your drawing is the most important part so you need to get it right :)

Ahh, that feels better!

Next I laid in the darkest darks of the background - the "table" and shadow.

Next up: the background lights. I made the bottom left corner the darkest of this light beige-y-grey area, getting lighter at I moved up to the top.

Working one teacup at a time, I was able to keep my paint wet on the canvas, which allowed for blending. Acrylic paints dry fairly quickly so working with a large brush and completing one shape at a time is essential when creating a realistic effect.

Recycling bins can yield wonderful tools for mixing paint! I like the hard edges of the yogurt cups for wiping my brush off after mixing. Plus I can pop this puppy into a ziploc baggie and it'll keep for a week!

The final step after completing all the teacups was to re-do the background. I applied the paint very thick from my yogurt cups, working with loose brushstrokes to create texture in the background.

THE FINAL PRODUCT:

Stacked

40x12 inches

Acrylic on canvas

Close-up views:

 Gotta have it? Buy this piece at Cole Gallery, www.colegallery.net!