When I paint with acrylic, the texture of the canvas always shows through. Is this normal?
There’s a lot of variables here. Sounds like you’re using canvases from the craft/ art supply store, already stretched? Nothing wrong with that, but if you want a smoother surface you can fix it. Even a lovingly hand stretched premium canvas on workshop built stretchers will show fabric grain, depanding on it’s priming.Primer is, in this case acrylic gesso. It’s the same binder as the paint but with calcium carbonate and maybe titanium white. It’s the white coating on the canvases you buy, but with only one coat. You just buy some, and add more coats. Run some sandpaper on it between coats to break the surface and give it some “tooth” so the next coat sticks well. Not to extreme- just a casual sanding. Anyway, the gesso will fill in the gaps and the surface will get smoother.Some texture is normal for a painting, but all painters pretty much add more primer (the acrylic gesso) to pre made canvases. And we all use them at some point, they’re cheap and easy and if you don’t know how to stretch canvas they’re what you’ve got.Enjoy!
Gesso too tacky, want smoother texture.?
Did you do a few layers with sanding in between? Well, if that doesn't work, I did see that someone in school had straight-up poured gesso onto the canvas (w/canvas laying flat on sawhorses). Maybe you could try that. I hear that you should not, in fact, water down the gesso, but it will take quite a few layers, switching your direction of brushstrokes for each layer and sanding between, like I say... Good luck!
Gritty texture that's sometimes in ice cream?
Ice! If you could look at ice cream under a very high-powered microscope, you would see tiny ice crystals, each them surrounded by globby chains of fat - that is, the ice cream is 'emulsified'. When the ice cream melts slightly and refreezes, that nice arrangement of ice and fat gets disturbed - the crystals melt, run together as liquid water, and refreeze into crystals large enough to feel in your mouth. So why does this happen? If you get ice cream like that in a grocery store, somewhere along the line, it wasn't stored properly. If you make the ice cream at home, it likely was a combo of not being frozen fast enough (at home freezers aren't really up to the task) and not being stirred enough - again, the water managed to run together a bit before it was frozen completely.
What is the best material (surface) for oil painting besides canvas?
I want to paint a piece that is approximately 4' x 6' and fairly thick, maybe in the 1.5"-2" range. I have all the materials to complete the oil painting except the surface. My problem is that I want to get the most inexpensive solid surface possible that will also withstand the test of time (yes, I know all art eventually deteriorates... but you know what I mean). I'd also love if I could buy it from a convenient place like Home Depot. I've used composite board in the past but I hear that it warps after a while. Any other suggestions for materials that have worked for you? How much do they cost? Thanks!
Why do so many artists hate acrylic paint?
I've known many other artist over the years and at least half of them use acrylics so I really can't say so many hate acrylic paint. I've used strictly Golden Acrylic Paint for twenty years now and won't ever go back to oils. Because acrylic paints are just as good now, just as durable and flexible now, as oils the only reason I can see to not like them is that they dry so much more quickly than oils. Perhaps artists who paint slowly, who want to or need to re-work their paintings many times over don't find acrylics appealing but I happen to love the fast drying time, happen to love being able to rest my artist's hand on the canvas of already dried areas when i'm doing detailed work. i happen to love not having to worry about accidentally smearing paint while waiting for it to dry.
How can a man earn happiness?
We all know the story of two men sent to prison, given a white sheet and were asked to paint a picture of what they saw. One person drew a picture of the dry sand and the other a picture of stars and moon.Now I’m not here to argue who was the glass half full guy or who was the glass half empty guy. From your point of view, the one looking at the star may be great, from my point of view the one who drew the sand may be great and yet another person may come up and say, “Hey you don’t go to prison for nothing and since both of them are in one right now, they are equally bad”.The problem is never the problem. The actual problem is your attitude towards the problem. What’s your take on the situation?The thing is circumstances do not matter. You always have a choice. You can always choose to seek happiness in whatever you do or you can choose to lament and complain no matter what has been given to you.Try to find happiness in whatever you are doing and enjoy the journey because the happiness is in seeing the person you become in the journey. Not in the destination.
How do I create a market for art that is not easily categorized?
I cannot be completely sure, but your art could be called Informalism, but the problem with this name is that I´m not sure you follow exactly what they meant it to be. But in the use of materials is similar, because the materials were very important, and it was usual to use sand, soil, minerals, etc. It was called differently in each part of the globe but the essence was similar. But before I continue, see the works of this artist, Antoni Tàpies:"Grey Relief in Four Parts", 1963 Mixed media with sand on canvas"Palla i fusta", "Straw and wood", 1969His art was called Tachism, as part of informalism. You should also check the works of Dubuffet, that might interest you. Some of his works also were called Tachism or tachisme, but it´s more usual to called Art Brut or marginal art:"Life without a man III"He used sand and gravel to create some of his works. More about him here:MoMA Opens Jean Dubuffet ExhibitModest Cuixart was another Informel artist, that used different materials. I don´t know which he used here:"Pintura i Matèries", "Paint and materials", 1960In the next webpage you will find more information about it. It says that people like Pollock were also informel artists, even though he used oil, not "earth" materials (but if you think so, oil is also an earth material):'Informalism' and the new figurationLast, I want to show you an artist I am sure not many people know outside LatinAmerica, or even Colombia, called Mauricio Gómez. He uses sand, soil, sparkles, etc, and it doesn´t have any color that are not from the materials used, as your works. I don't know if he could be called informel artist either. Sorry if the photos are not very good, I had to take them myself from his book:"Sonrisal", 2001. Translation would be something like "smilout, like joining smile with out."Artemio", 2001. Artemio is a name, but a very farmer name, I would say."Tres pelos", "Three hairs", 2001So start to learn about informalism, maybe then you will know if you are one of them or not.
What are the similarities and differences between sand, silt and clay soils?
All soils are similar in that they are made up of inorganic particles, usually derived from weathered rock or airfall volcanic material, and include organic matter from decayed plant and maybe animal material. The inclusion of the organic matter differentiates the soils from the simple deposits of raw materials, e.g. sand, silt and clay.The soil texture relates to the particle sizes in the soil. Most soils include a range of particle sizes dependent upon their parent material. The predominance of one particle size, large for sand, smaller for silt and microscopic for clay, determines the classification of the soil, which may include descriptors from two of these categories, e.g. sandy silt, silty clay, sandy clay, etc.The soil structure relates to the chemical bonding within the soil matrix. Sandy soils, having larger particles, have a far lower particle surface area to volume ratio meaning that there is little chemical bonding within the soil and hence it has a weak structure. At the opposite end is the clay soil that has a very high surface area to volume ratio and hence is very strongly bonded, resulting in almost impermeable soils. In between are the soils which are useful for agriculture because they have sufficient structure to remain stable under cultivation and to hold water.The age of soils is an important factor, young soils tending to have relatively weak structures while older soils are well structured. Very old soils may have most of the nutrients washed out of them and effectively be an inorganic matrix of silicates and feldspars.That is a very brief summary of soils; for more details consult any of the many available books on soil formation and soil physics - there may also be online references.