Saturday, December 27, 2014

Mounting your watercolours on a wood panel

Lately, I've been noticing that local galleries no longer sell all paintings in traditional frames. Floating frames and canvasses with black sides are the "in thing". Also at recent art shows, I've sold more watercolours mounted on wood panel than in frames with glass.
Last Spring, I started gluing my watercolours to wood panel. The first one I tried was a triptych. Here is a photo of it hanging in a local gallery.
Danielle Beaulieu's watercolour of daisies

At recent art shows, I've been getting lots of questions from other watercolorists on how to do this. Therefore, today's blog is about the process that I use to affix watercolours to wood panel.


1. Painting your watercolour
For large surfaces that are greater than 10" X 12", I suggest that you use 300 lbs paper. When I have used 140 lbs paper on a large wood panel, I have had mixed results with the paper buckling. Ensure that your finished painting is slightly larger (about 1/2 inch - 1.25 cm) than the wood panel Before starting, trace the outline of the wood panel on your paper and extend the lines to the edge of the paper. These lines will be used later line up the wood panel on the back of your painting. Now paint your masterpiece.

2. Prepping the wood panel
First apply Golden's GAC 100 Multi-Purpose Acrylic Polymer the top of the wood panel. When dry, it will seal the top surface and have a rough texture.  Next you finish the sides of the wood panel. Here are two options:
  • you can apply a clear acrylic water-based varnish such as MinWax Polycrylic finish which dries fast.
       or
  • you can paint the sides with a color such as black. I apply two to three coats of Golden's carbon black acrylic paint to the sides of the panel. I add a bit of water to paint to obtain a softer consistency to provide smoother sides. Sand the sides with a fine grit (220) sandpaper between coats and be sure to wipe any drips.
3. Gluing the finished watercolour painting to the wood panel
Ensure you are working on a very clean surface. Before gluing, you must first indicate on the back of the painting where the wood panel will be placed. I'm sure there are a number of ways to do this. Here is my approach: 
  • 3a - To mark the back of the painting, I start on the front of the painting by extending the lines of the painting  (lines from step 1) to the edge of the paper. Then I cut a small notch on the lines.
  • 3b - Turn the painting over and using the cut notches on the back of the painting, mark the lines where the edge of the wood panel will be glued.

  • 3c - I've been using Golden's Soft gel as an adhesive. The soft gel gives you a few more seconds than regular gels to adjust the wood panel to the paper should you need to adjust it. Apply generous amounts of the soft gel with a flat brush to the entire surface of the wood panel where you first applied GAC 100 Multi-Purpose Acrylic Polymer. Now turn the wood panel over and line it up with your markings. Turn the wood panel over again and push out any air bubble under your painting. I use my pastry roller for this step. If anything doesn't stick well, lift paper and apply more gel. Turn the wood panel over again and place several weights on top of it and let it sit overnight. This will press the paper tightly to the wood panel surface.  Using a paper towel, remove the excess gel from the sides of the panel where is meets the paper.
4. Trimming the extra paper
Once the glue is dry, you can carefully trim the extended edge of the paper with a sharp utility knife. Putting another piece of paper underneath ensures a cleaner cut.

5. Finishing the sides of the paper
You'll note that the white sides of the paper stand out and are distracting. This is especially true of 300 lbs paper. Using the same diluted Golden's carbon black acrylic paint as the sides of the wood panel, paint the sides of the paper. This is the step that makes me nervous since my hands shake. The more parallel the brush is to the sides of the wood panel, the least likely the paint will make its way to the front of the painting.

Note: I have not found a way to remove this acrylic paint from watercolour paper if the paint finds its way to the front.

6. Finish the painting
Since the painting is not protected by glass, you should finish the watercolor with several light coats of spray varnish. I use Kylon's UV Archival varnish. This spray varnish offers non-yellowing protection against fading, dirt, moisture and discoloration.

I hear that some people use wax to protect their watercolours. However, I do not know if that approach offers UV protection and if it tends to collect dust. Wax needs to be buffed after a period of time.

7. Hanging the painting
The final step requires that you attach D-rings and wire to the back of the wood panel for hanging.

I wish you good luck if you attempt this approach to framing your watercolours and feel free to contact me should you have any questions.

If you wish to enter a mounted watercolour into an exhibit, this approach may not be accepted as many watercolour societies still insist that watercolours be shown with mat and glass in frame. This is the case for some of the shows of the Ottawa Watercolour Society.

This week's art find is not an artist but an Australian TV company that produces some great videos showcasing some well know international artists.  The videos are now available on this Youtube channel.   In particular, you might like this one with the Three Amigos. Enjoy, I know I will.

Have a good week,
Danielle
  

Saturday, December 20, 2014

Painting and additional stress during the holiday season

At any time during the year, you may feel like you’re on the edge of overload. This situation seems to get worse during the holiday season. I know that I’ve been feeling like this for the past few months. I participated in five art shows this fall (thankfully all successful), work full time, teach fitness classes and then for some unknown reason I’ve been volunteering more and more with some of the local art associations that I belong to, much of this while I recover from a concussion. In addition, I’ve been trying to keep this blog of collections of learnings and my personal blog going. Lastly, but not the least important, is family. Amidst all of this I try to find time to paint – my escape from all of the above (except from family) and source of rejuvenation.

Though I am fortunate to have a high stress tolerance, I was beginning to feel the weight of the stress when you start adding the additional stress that comes with the holiday season. No matter what I do, I felt that I am falling just a little further behind in accomplishing everything I wanted to get done. Of course, that adds to my stress level.

I’m sure many of you are experiencing exactly the same predicament at this time of the year.

Maybe we can all learn from some basic time management principles to help us deal with the stress and allow us to paint – which is the truly relaxing activity most of us seek.

To learn to plan the ideal week, I invite you to read Michael Hyatt’s blog.  I won’t attempt to repeat everything Hyatt writes, but the basic concept is that by creating a template of your week – scheduling out your time in blocks – you become more efficient and complete your most important work. This might not be a novel idea since many time management gurus advocate something similar. It’s important that we find the tools and source of inspiration that motivates you.

Stress can be overwhelming and interfere adversely with our daily activities by contributing to feelings of uneasiness, anger and irritability. Our attitudes, perceptions and personality traits have a direct correlation to whether a source of stress is able to affect the body. If you feel that you need some extra support during the holiday season, please follow-up with a healthcare professional.

One tip to managing holiday stress is to find a stress-relieving activity. This will vary for everyone. However, I suspect that painting is common to many of us.

In my case - and hope yours also - I find myself fortunate to have discovered watercolours which offers an escape that is truly relaxing. This may seem oversimplified, but it’s amazing how taking control of my painting time has impacted my outlook on life. At the end of each day, I can now look back with satisfaction on the work I’ve accomplished and the progress I’ve made toward my goals, instead of feeling guilty that I didn’t get everything done.

Managing stress during the holidays is important because it affects the way we look at what we have to do and our relationships. How does your control of your time impact the art you are creating?

Today's art find is from Juan Lobaton.

Alors, je vous souhaite tous un Joyeux Noël!

Danielle

Saturday, December 13, 2014

Painting recognizeable trees

After a very dry article last week, this week's blog will be more practical. Many of us paint landscapes. Trees often provide the greatest clues as to what area of the world the landscapes are from. Today, a bit about the shapes of some trees.

Look at the silhouette and the general shape of a tree. For example, the shape of an oak should not be confused with a fir or weeping willow or a Cyprus cedar.  Painting trees that look like green lollipops on trees is not right. That practice should come to an end. But first you need to start seeing trees instead of just looking at them.

The 'secret' to painting believable trees is an understanding of the underlying structure of trees complemented by observation of different species. One of the fundamentals to successfully painting realistic trees is learning to recognize the characteristic shapes of different species. Look at the overall appearance of the tree and identify the overall shape of the tree. Is it shaped like a sphere, umbrella, cone, or tube, or is it simply irregular? Is it short or tall, fat or thin, straight or spread irregularly? Do the branches point upwards or downwards? Are the leaves dense or sparse? Has it spread naturally, has got broken branches, or has a gardener pruned it?      

And remember to look at the tree's root system. Trees don't just stick up out of the ground
 
Trunks:
  • Taper the width of the trunk from bottom to top, as well as branches and twigs.
  • For more character, paint trunks sideways in small strokes rather from top to bottom in one long stroke.
  • Trees in dense woodland tend to be vertical; lone trees may be angled due to wind.
Branches:
  • Branches aren't straight, aren't the same width throughout, and don't grow parallel to each other.
  • Avoid putting branches opposite each other on a tree trunk; trees aren't symmetrical unless they've been pruned that way.
  • Make branches cross over each other to create depth. Add appropriate shadows.
  • Leave gaps in the foliage and show branches in the gaps
Check out these various trees (photo from unknown source on Pinterest):
Various trees painted in watercolour

 Have a great week.

Danielle

Saturday, December 06, 2014

Have you ever wondered what is in watercolour paint?

Today’s blog will discuss standard paint ingredients. Information on these topics is scattered across a wide range of sources, from chemical engineering texts to art conservation studies. Hopefully, this article isn't too dry.  It was extracted from various sources on the web.

Every paint is a mixture of microscopic pigment particles, which provide the paint color, mixed in a liquid paint vehicle that holds the pigment in suspension and allows it to be applied with a brush, then dries to bind it to the support (paper, board or canvas). The vehicle also contains other substances that reduce manufacturing costs, adjust the visual appearance and handling attributes of the paint, and increase its shelf life in the art store.

The Backbone Composition
Each paint manufacturer develops a proprietary backbone composition — a basic recipe of pigment and vehicle ingredients — that is fundamentally designed to keep manufacturing costs under control and to get the best possible handling attributes for every pigment in the watercolor line.

The manufacturer then tweaks the exact proportions of this recipe from one pigment or paint color to the next, so that the texture and color of each pigment is put on best display and the differences in pigment dispersability, tinting strength or staining across the different paint colors are minimized.

The backbone composition is the foundation of the manufacturer's brand style and quality standards. It usually includes most or all of the following ingredients:


One or more pigments:
Pigments are chemical compounds with appealing or useful color attributes and that do not dissolve in water. Paints are a dispersion of tiny pigment particles suspended in the vehicle. All professional quality tube and pan watercolors are made with pigments.

Brightener, transparent or "white" crystals:
These substances lighten the value and increases the chroma of the dried paint. A few watercolor brands add one or more highly refracting substances as a brightener, to adjust or enhance the lightness or chroma of the finished color. These traditionally include alumina trihydrate (aluminum trihydroxide), titanium dioxide, or micronized barium sulfate (blanc fixe), but newer, more effective compounds are available. The particle size and specific gravity of brighteners is usually similar to the pigment, so they do not separate from the pigment when the paint is mixed with water.

Excessive amounts of brightener can impart a whitish or sparkly appearance to the dried paint, or can form a thin, whitish coating on top of dried paint applied as a juicy brush stroke. They often can compromise the lightfastness or permanence of the color. The most reliable method to assess paint formulations is the tinting test, which directly reveals the proportion and the quality of pigment used in the paint by dissolving it water or a large quantity of titanium dioxide.

The above are dispersed in a vehicle or medium consisting of:

Binder:
Traditionally and still commonly said to be gum arabic but, in some brands, actually a synthetic glycol. Pigment particles are dispersed through milling in a liquid vehicle that consists primarily (about 65% of vehicle volume) of a transparent binder. The binder carries the pigment particles as a viscous liquid so they can be applied with a brush; it binds the pigment to the watercolor paper; and it produces a brighter color by holding the pigment particles on the surface of the paper, rather than letting them be pulled by capillary action deep between the paper fibers. A diluted solution of gum arabic can be applied as a varnish or top coat to dried paint to reduce surface scattering and give the paint a deeper, richer color.

The binder usually determines the name of a medium — linseed oil for oil paints, acrylic polymer emulsion for acrylic paints, egg white or yolk for egg tempera. Watercolors are named instead for their solvent (water) and historically have used a variety of gums, starches or animal glues as binder. As is true with industrial pigment manufacture, watercolor and pastel manufacturers use only a tiny fraction of global gum arabic production. Some manufacturers have shifted to alternative binders. Very satisfactory watercolors can be formulated entirely of synthetic materials.

Plasticizer:
Usually glycerin is used to soften the dried gum arabic and help it redissolve. Unfortunately, watercolors formulated only with gum arabic and water have significant drawbacks. Excess paint in the mixing well will dry to a hard, glassy block that is very difficult to redissolve. To counteract these problems, the gum arabic is buffered with a carbohydrate plasticizer, usually 20% or less of vehicle volume. Nowadays this is most often glycerin (glycerol), the trihydroxy form of alcohol. Glycerin reduces the native brittleness of the gum arabic and minimizes the cracking or chipping of dried paint. It also helps the gum arabic to dissolve in water more quickly, and inhibits hardening (drying out) of the paint in the tube. 

Paint manufacturers can also use methyl cellulose, the binder commonly used in pastels and chalks, as a plasticizer, because it is very flexible when dried. In paints it also acts as a mild binder and solvent or dispersant.

Humectant:
Traditionally simple syrup or honey were used but now often inexpensive corn syrup, to help the paint retain moisture (especially in pan paints) is adopted. Unfortunately both glycerin and gum arabic will dry out relatively quickly, even if stored as tube paints. So some other substance is necessary to retain water or act as a humectant. Since the middle 19th century paintmakers have softened watercolor paints with a carbohydrate moistener, either a sugar syrup (nowadays glucose, in the form of corn syrup) or honey. 

Like gum arabic, these sweet carbohydrates are hygroscopic — they tend to absorb and retain water from the atmosphere — which makes the paints considerably easier to redissolve once they have dried, and extends the life of the paint in the tube. Humectants also extend the paint drying time so that washes can be manipulated more easily, and they may increase the staining effect of watercolors by prolonging the capillary action that pulls small pigment particles deep between the paper fibers. 

Honey is more effective than corn syrup at retaining water (in fact, honey will crystallize but never dries out), but it is also roughly 14 times more expensive. Used in excess, the sugars will also attract insects or mold.

Extender or filler, such as dextrin:
These are used to bulk out and thicken the paint without noticeably affecting the color. As larger amounts of glycerin and gum arabic are added to the paint — for example, in strongly tinting or finely divided pigments — the paint texture becomes stringy or taffylike, the gloss of the paint increases, and the paint bronzes more readily. These paints tend to lift (redissolve) too easily from the paper, which can lead to undesired blurring, bleeding or lifting of color areas when new paint is applied over or alongside them.

To counteract these problems, many watercolor paints are formulated with a colorless, inert filler added to thicken the paint and to make the various pigment and vehicle mixtures within a watercolor line of similar consistency. Filler is also used to subdue intensely tinting pigments such as the phthalocyanines or quinacridones, or simply to reduce the proportion of costly pigment in the paint.

The most commonly used filler is dextrin — a clear, gelatinous processed wheat or corn starch — which thickens the paint, alters the taffylike vehicle to a smooth, buttery consistency, and reduces surface gloss or bronzing in the dried color. Sometimes conservation grade, water soluble adhesives, including carrageenan or funori (a gelatinous polysaccharide extracted from a type of Japanese seaweed [genus gloiopeltis]), are used for the same purpose. Dextrin also acts as a binder in combination with (or, in poster paints, in place of) gum arabic.

Dextrin can also be used as an extender, to bulk out the paint and cut down on the amount of costly pigment used, especially in cobalt and cadmium paints. However, if too much dextrin is used, the paint will dry to a dull, matte finish and will be prone to flaking.

Manufacturing additives:
In particular dispersants (to prevent clumping of the raw pigment after manufacture and to speed up the milling of the pigment and vehicle ingredients) and a fungicide or preservative to suppress the growth of mold or bacteria. Binder, plasticizer and humectant are standard vehicle ingredients — even paints you make yourself will contain them. Most commercial paints also include additives, which are put into the pigment batch when the pigment is packaged in bulk, or are put into the paint during milling, and are passed along to the artist with the paint.

Most common is a dispersant or wetting agent that accelerates and improves the milling (wetting and mixing) of the pigment in the water based vehicle, much the same way as dishwashing soap divides and dissolves greasy dirt. Dispersants can be used as a labor saving shortcut in any paint, but they are more common in finely divided or water repelling synthetic pigments such as carbon black, phthalocyanines, alizarin crimson, transparent iron oxides and prussian blue; and in soft pigments that can compress or cake during milling, such as the cadmiums or ultramarine blue. Ox gall (the yellowish extract of dried bovine gall bladders) was and still is commonly used for this purpose, but synthetic surfactants are sometimes used instead. 

The painter notices the presence of wetting agents in the paint because they reduce the time it takes the paint to dissolve, cause the paint to stain papers (especially absorbent papers) more readily, and make the paint diffuse aggressively or shoot outward when applied wet in wet.

Water:
Water dissolves or suspends all the ingredients, carries them onto the paper, and evaporates when its work is done. Tube paints contain about 15% by volume of water — the miraculous substance that gives life to you and unpredictable energy to your watercolors. 

Paints are manufactured with excess water in the vehicle, as this reduces the viscosity of the vehicle and decreases the amount of time (labor) and electrical energy necessary to mill the paint. This water mostly lost through evaporation during milling, but also after milling when the paint is left to sit and age or stabilize. Some pigments or fillers absorb water very slowly, causing them to expand: these are the paints that "explode" or squirt from the tube when it is first opened, because they were not aged adequately before packaging. 

Creating an effective watercolor vehicle is a complex balancing act. Each ingredient contributes its own benefits and drawbacks to the formulation of the paint, and the best formulations are based on considerable manufacturing experience and consistently maintained quality controls.

The manufacturer's cost considerations aside — and those are usually a major consideration in commercial paint design — the pigment particle size, tinting strength and dispersability primarily determine the adjustments made to the backbone formulation.

This week's watercolour discovery is Irap Ashish who won the outstanding watercolour painting at the October 2014 BoldBrush Painting Contest.

 Have a great week
Danielle