Paint surfaces

A friend of mine paints art directly on the walls in her house. She also uses canvases, paper, and clothing for more portable art. I’ve also seen art painted on about any surface you can imagine—wood, metal, seashells, rocks, ceramic, plastic, etc. Much of fine art, however, is done on a stretched canvas. But what does that term mean exactly?

A stretched canvas is usually cotton or linen fabric that is literally stretched taut over a wooden frame. The frame pieces are called stretchers. Stretcher bars can be equal lengths to create a square or two sets of different lengths to create a rectangle. Before painting is done, the canvas is primed. (I’ll discuss this another time.)

Canvases can be purchased stretched and primed or some artists stretch and prime their own. This can be cheaper, but also allows for the exact size of canvas the artist desires.

Canvases are generally used for oil painting or acrylics.

Sometimes beginning artists use less expensive canvas board, which is primed canvas stretched over stiff paperboard. Read more!

Wei Tai

Traveling? Our featured artist, Wei Tai, will be participating in the Arizona Fine Art Expo, January through March of 2008. Click here for more information.

If your travels are limited to internet surfing, see more of Wei Tai’s work online, “Artist’s Magazine” shows their contest winners, plus a discussion of each painting.
The Artist's Magazine's 2000 Art Competition: Still Life
The Artist's Magazine's 2000 Art Competition: Landscape
In each category, scroll down to Wei Tai’s Honorable Mention to see the art and read about it.

And, of course, you can always go to the artist’s website directly to see more beautiful art. Read more!

Oils, not just a tube of paint

I’m not an artist myself, although both of my daughters are very artistic and through the years have created beautiful works of art in a number of media. This has given me a small intro into the world of art.

So instead of sharing my very limited knowledge on oils, I thought I’d find good resources online.

Marion Boddy-Evans has some good articles on About.com.
This article is clear and concise: “Drying Oils or Mediums Used in Oil Painting.” A companion article is “Oil Painting: Solvents and Resins”

This article by Alina Bradford, “Oil Painting Tips and Terms,” is aimed at someone wanting to learn to paint, but I found it of interest in understanding some of the steps that an artist might go through in their painting.

Many of the artists we feature at the gallery, paint in oils. Read more!