 |
home introduction preparation drawing & composition useful links demonstration Shore,Sea & Sky
The Old Luggers online- Academy of Marine Painting:
Equipment and Colours
Every self-teach book of painting begins with a chapter on materials. I’ll try to condense this into a single table for Oil, Acrylic and Watercolour – but first the basics for any sort of painting. Somewhere to work – indoors, avoid direct sun, a north facing room is best. At night? - use full spectrum daylight strip – tungsten light is essentially yellow so that in the morning your work may look bluer than you intended. Outdoors shade your work ( acrylic and water colour dry in hot sun in seconds). Shade your eyes – (hat not specs) or you’ll squint at the subject. Easels? I used an old stepladder and four clout nails for years, but you do need something. A stout studio easel and a portable sketch easel for outdoors – on windy days anchor it with a tent peg and a length of clothes line. A sheet of six ply board propped at the back resting on your table works well for indoor watercolours. And oh yes a table. Mix oil and acrylic on a sheet of toughened glass ( old cooker door) over white lining paper on your table. Disposable tear-off paper palettes for oil and acrylic save a lot of scraping off. A sharp one inch chisel is best for that job – palette knives are too flexible. A white enamel butchers’ tray makes an ideal watercolour palette. Use tall screw top coffee jars for water – screw the lid on when going out. Kling Film to cover unused fresh paint on your palette, cotton rags and torn-up newspaper by the ton and kitchen roll to lift excess colour, moisture or whatever. Get the most out of your expensive brushes: soak hardened acrylic brushes in methylated spirit, lengthen worn bristles by heating the ferule over a candle flame and then giving them a gentle tug with a pair of pliers.
Oil l Acrylic l Watercolour l
|
Charcoal sticks |
l |
Pencils, 2b to 6b |
l |
|
Brushes, hog |
l l |
Brushes, nylon |
l l l |
|
Brushes, sable and camel to ‘000’ |
l l l |
Brushes, ‘Rigger’ |
l l l |
|
Sable ‘mop’ |
l |
Sponge pieces |
l |
|
Erasers, ‘putty’ and ‘typists’ |
l |
Palette knives |
l l |
|
Mahl stick |
l l |
Proportional dividers |
l l l |
|
Masking fluid |
l |
Genuine turps and linseed oil |
l |
|
Quick-dry thixotropic glaze medium |
l |
Matt and gloss acrylic glaze medium |
l |
|
Gel retarder |
l |
Tube colours |
l l l |
|
Pochade box |
l |
Pan colours |
l |
|
Prepared canvas OR roll canvas plus stretchers, staple gun, tacks, canvas pliers and acrylic primer |
l l |
Watercolour papers 140lbs and upwards – including tinted papers to choice |
l |
Suggested Colour Selection for Marine Painting
Large tubes or pots of white – titanium is the most brilliant and goes furthest – and a standby tube of designers’ gouache white for repairing ‘lights’ in watercolour – not orthodox but it sinks less. All the blues! . . . cobalt, ultramarine, prussian, monestial, coeruleum and turquoise. Deep violet. Alizarin crimson, vermillion hue. Cadmium yellow, deep and pale. Raw sienna, golden ochre. Burnt umber BUT in sanity’s name don’t use them all in the same picture - choose your dominant colour and use as few as possible of the others, often only in small points of local colour. For greys and blacks mix blue with burnt umber and white. For warm greys use more burnt umber or more blue for cooler. For average 'darks' in this palette use cobalt blue in the mix. For very dense blacks use ultramarine or prussian for densest of all.
Mahl Stick - use a 3 ft length of 1/2inch dowel rather than cane – it makes a better straight edge for rigging -no joints.
Proportional dividers – for scaling up sketches and photos. Make them from two 1 inch wide x 18 inch long strips of 3mm ply cut to a point at each end. For a 2:1 increase set the pivot at 6 inches from one end (for example) and so on. Make the pivot with a half inch long machine screw and wing nut to release and tighten.
Pochade box - a useful pocket size hand-held oils box for spontaneous sketches around 6" X 4". Carries a basic range of colours plus tube medium and slots to keep fresh work safe and separate until you get home.
|
© Austin Hill 2000
Home Introduction Preparation, Drawing & Composition
Shore, Sea & Sky The Newfoundland Project
Useful Links Demonstration Top of this page
The Old Luggers online Academy of Marine Painting is an ENTIRELY VIRTUAL establishment, a FREE -TO -AIR leisure and recreational site which we hope you'll enjoy and even pick up some useful painting hints. Any of the Old Luggers material can be downloaded and copied for recreational and private but not commercial use. Apart from the many illustrations reached via the links, all the images in Old Luggers are from copyright work by British marine artist Austin Hill. And finally - a LUGGER is a traditional small working boat carrying a loose-footed four sided sail hung from a yard, but you knew that of course !