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All posts by: Elena Test

In: News

Watercolours from the backstage

Free Online Workshop: Watercolour From The Backstage (How They Are Made)

Free online watercolour workshop with Elena NL.

Once a month, I offer free online workshops.

Last fall, we had a short journey to watercolours and gouache. This time, I’d like to show you how watercolours are made, what they have inside, what ingredients look like, what’s the difference between organic and mineral pigments, what manufacturers do to save on costs and how artists “pay” for that. And yes, questions of toxicity and ethics will also be covered.

This workshop is free, virtual and live. Recording may be available.

February 4, 2023, (Saturday) 12-1 PM EST.

If interested, please register by email elena@rusart.ca , and we’ll send you a link to the ZOOM conference with a password.

You don’t need anything to prepare for this workshop except for your questions.

Please email to elena@rusart.ca to get a link. The workshop is free, but we need to know how many people to expect and want to minimize the risks of spammers.

No to Cobalts and Cadmiums
In: Pigments

Why We Say “NO” To Cobalts and Cadmiums

Historically, artists have issues finding pigments that would provide intense primary colours. Most mineral pigments used belonged to colours found in clays, or earth: such as ochre, umber, iron oxide, some earth green and blue-grey. However, bright yellow, red and blue were always a challenge to find. 

Because chemistry as a science wasn’t that developed yet, artists extracted transparent intense reds from plants, such as, Madder roots (Rubia tinctorium), or insects, such as dried bodies of the female cochineals. All they provided very intense different shades of red colours, but they faded quite fast, like most plant-derived colours. Also, the colours were transparent, which was perfect for glazing, but didn’t work for full coverage.

For opaque red, artists utilized vermilion extracted from mineral called cinnabar. It’s quite an old pigment used for many centuries around the globe. You still can observe it almost unchanged on Ancient Greek abd Roman wall paintings, as well as at Renaissance canvases. However, painting with it is quite toxic. Chemically speaking, it’s Mercuric Sulphide (HgS). 

In 1817, a German chemist discovered a new element, cadmium, which became the foundation for new shades of red paints. However, commercial products of cadmium started a whole century after its discovery, in 1919, when a patent was registered for the production of cadmium orange and cadmium red. It’s opaque very intense red that varies from orange to deep red.

A drawback is toxicity. “Cadmium poisoning has been reported from many parts of the world. It is one of the global health problems that affect many organs and in some cases it can cause deaths annually. Long-term exposure to cadmium through air, water, soil, and food leads to cancer and organ system toxicity such as skeletal, urinary, reproductive, cardiovascular, central and peripheral nervous, and respiratory systems.” (Rafati Rahimzadeh M, Rafati Rahimzadeh M, Kazemi S, Moghadamnia AA. Cadmium toxicity and treatment: An update. Caspian J Intern Med. 2017 Summer;8(3):135-145. doi: 10.22088/cjim.8.3.135. PMID: 28932363; PMCID: PMC5596182.).

Cadmiums are especially toxic in pastels, when you inhale the dust, and in watercolours, gouache or acrylic, when soiled water goes directly to water drainage and soil. And this is a question not personal safety only, but also environment.

For blue colours artists were using minerals such as lapis lazuli, apatite etc. Ultramarine colour made by grinding lapis lazuli into a powder, was one of the most expensive pigments. The name ‘ultramarine’ literally means ‘beyond the sea’, because the pigment was imported into Europe from mines in Afghanistan by Italian traders during the 14th and 15th centuries. 

In his fresco painting, Leonardo was reusing this precious pigment many times. Fresco painting implies applying colours on top wet plaster without any binder, as this plaster serves as a binder between pigment particles. After painting, Leonardo carefully drained water from a cup, where he washed his brush after ultramarine use. As particles were very heavy (they are, technically, just very fine sand pieces of a rock), the pigment saddled down and was reused.

Apart from Lapis, artists used other kinds of blue. Mayan blue comes from heated clay, which was quite light fast due to its mineral origins. Famous indigo blue is derived from Indigofera tinctoria plant. 

Smalt, a pigment made from cobalt blue glass, has been known at least since the Middle Ages. However, the isolation of the blue colour of smalt was discovered in the first half of the eighteenth century by the Swedish chemist Brandt. In 1777, Gahn and Wenzel found cobalt aluminate during research on cobalt compounds, and cobalt industrial production started in early 1800’s. 

Cobalt refers to mild toxic pigments. The most worrisome form of cobalt poisoning occurs when you breathe it into your lungs. So, definitely, not recommended for pastelists, airbrush use and fresco painting. When used in watercolours, acrylic or oil, usually cobalt is not a big concern. 

To me, cobalt extracting IS a concern. Although cobalt is mined in several countries,  the Congo is by far the largest producer. More than half of the world’s cobalt resources are located in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and over 70% of the world’s cobalt mining occurs there, and child labour is involved.

“Of the 255,000 Congolese mining for cobalt, 40,000 are children, some as young as six years. Much of the work is informal small-scale mining in which laborers earn less than $2 per day while using their own tools, primarily their hands.” (The the Wilson Center, The DRC Mining Industry: Child Labor and Formalization of Small-Scale Mining, By Michele Fabiola Lawson on September 1, 2021).

In RUSART products we use no cadmiums due to their environmental impact, and we use only one kind of cobalts – cobalt turquoise, originated from France, being sure that we’re not contributing to slavery and child labour.

(c) RUSART

Oil Painting
In: News

RUSART Naturals Oil Brush Cleanser in Use

We’ve already talked about different ways how to clean brushes fro oil paints. Most ways are either toxic, or messy, or both. Elena, RUSART’s owner, is very sensitive to turpentines and solvents. Even a short exposure to those chemicals “rewards” her with sever headaches that last a day or two. Working mostly with oil paints, Elena developed a very simple and efficient formula for cleaning brushes – RUSART Naturals Oil Brush Cleanser.

Just three simple natural ingredients:

  • Lemon essential oil
  • MCT coconut oil
  • Glycerin

Mixed in right proportion, they provide amazing results. This all natural medium cleans your oil brushes in seconds and keeps them soft, flexible, as if they are brand new. It’s a cleanser and conditioner at the same time.

We recommend to use gloves while cleaning, as lemon oil (as well as many citrus natural oils) applied on skin and exposed to the sun may form pigmentation in your skin.

Watch this short video that shows how to use it:

Retouching Medium in Use
In: Practice

RUSART Retouching Medium in Use

What is a purpose of retouching medium for oil paintings?

Sometimes you need to have a break from your arts, but oil paintings do not like when you abandon them. After 2 weeks a layer may become completely dry and fully cured. That means a painting layer will not bind well and eventually will peel off or show scratches after mechanical (physical) contact. To prevent this apply retouching mediums between the layers.

What is it made of?

Retouching medium may have different ingredients, and may be toxic or non-toxic. Usually, it has the following key components:

  • Oil. Normally, linseed or walnut oil
  • Gums and resins based on tree saps. Normally, dammar and/or turpentine gums.
  • Spreading and dissolving agents. Gums have to be turned into water-free liquid form. Natural resins and gums can be “liquified” by heating in oil or dissolving in solvents, such as turpentine.

To make our RUSART Naturals Retouching Oil Medium  we melt dammar resin and turpentine gum in linseed oil at certain temperature for prolonged time. Then, we add essential oils to increase spreading properties and replace toxic solvents. Our medium has simple and natural ingredients:

  • Polymerized linseed oil creates adhesion, brightens dull areas and prevents sinking.
  • Turpentine gum improves adhesion and adds flexibility to layers.
  • Damar resin increases durability of a film.
  • Lavender and Rosemary essential oils increase spreading and replace toxic solvents.

How to use retouching medium?

Apply retouching medium with a wide medium-soft synthetic brush. Then, let it sit for at least 1-2 hours to be absorbed by dry layer and to create proper adhesion. After that, remove excess of the medium with a soft cloth (if needed) and paint as normal. You may need shorter or longer wait time, depending on  techniques you used and time passed since you touched your work last time.

Retouching medium usually increases drying time of a new layer.

Dulce Tapp artist
In: Artists

Featured Artist: Dulce Tapp

Meet Dulce Tapp

Dulce is a mixed-media artists working preliminary in collage techniques. Her works are very easy to recognize: bold Mexican colours, balanced composition and contemporary motives braided with vintage elements.

Dulce’s Story

Dulce Tapp was born in Mexico City and studied Architecture at The National Autonomous University of Mexico. After graduation and obtaining her professional degree, she worked on several projects under the supervision of different architects.

Dulce Tapp art

More than 20 years ago, in 1991, Dulce immigrated to Canada and decided to make a big change in her career. With her background in design and a creative mind, she started taking different art courses, and after a few years she decided to make a full-time career as a mixed media and collage artist.Dulce Tapp art

Since then, Dulce’s artworks has been exhibited in different galleries, in cafeterias and public business, as well as art fairs and published in magazines articles.
If you want to see her works in person, they are on display at Orange Art Gallery in Ottawa, ON, and you can always find her on Instagram @dulcetappart or Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/dulcetappart/)

Collage as a Form of Art

Dulce Tapp art“As a collage artist, paper is one of the elements that defines me in the design and process of my graphic representation“.
The collection that’s presented here called “The Catrinas” is an artistic representation of Dulce’s Mexican Heritage. She uses a very particular way of dressing and applying makeup to the main character, Catrina. Dulce designs cloths and backgrounds combining her creative imagination with bold colours that she associates with herself.
The use of mixed media and collage allows Dulce to transform and repurpose previous materials and images to create new compositions.

The colourful backgrounds full of paper and paint are interwoven to create a unique and dynamic piece, distinguished by its beauty.
Always combining different techniques has leaded Dulce to a final product with a strong visual impact to the viewers.
“With my experience, tools and perseverance I am always willing to face any challenges along the way because I always know that a new collage will be another masterpiece“.
How to use watercolour medium
In: Practice

How To Use Watercolour Medium?

If for oil or acrylic painting we have many mediums to choose from that serve in a different way, watercolour medium sounds a little bit weird: why watercolour needs a medium? There is no texture to build, there is no need to increase or decrease drying time? Why do I need medium for watercolours?

In fact, most watercolorists paint without any mediums added. However, there are some situations when medium helps us improve painting performance.

What is watercolour medium?

Generally speaking, watercolour medium has arabic gum as a main component. Traditionally, all watercolours had arabic gum as a binder. However, with time in mass production arabic gums was partially replaced with other sugar-based ingredients (such as dextrin) to reduce costs.

Arabic gum is a natural sap from certain kinds of Acacia trees. It’s used a lot in baking and RUSART, for example, buys food-grade arabic gum from grocery vendors to make sure high safety standards. Bakers add arabic gum to icings, chewing gums, fillings etc. as it acts as stabilizer preventing sugar from crystallizing, as well as emulsifier, providing even and smooth consistency of products.

For artist’s purposes, we use arabic gum solution with some additives. For our RUSART Naturals watercolour medium we use a small amount of honey and glycerin as plasticizers and essential oils as preservatives. 

We performed a few tests  with RUSART Naturals watercolour medium and, now, sharing the results with you.

Watercolour medium separates painting zones

 We applied watered down watercolour medium first on one half of the paper sheet and let it dry. Then we applied paint in wet technique on bare paper and on top of medium applied.

As you can see, watercolour medium prevents paint from bleeding, creating quite obvious borders between the colours.

Why? Arabic gum works like glue and holding agent, not for watercolours only. For example, for hot enamelling techniques, when artists spread glass powder on metal surfaces, they use arabic gum based holding agent, if they desire to affix enamel to certain areas.

Watercolour medium helps with washing out lines

We gave experimental pieces sometime to dry and then we used just water and squirrel imitation brush to wash out paint.

Paint came off effortlessly from the paper WITH medium, leaving behind completely white lines. Without medium paint didn’t come off in full. 

Why? Watercolour medium created a fine film between paints and paper that prevent paints from being absorbed by cotton fibre. SO, if you’re planning to correct your painting a lot, or you’re working with synthetic organic pigments (hanza yellow, naphthol red, pyrrole red, Phthalo blue or green etc.) use watercolour medium to be able to correct your lines after application. All synthetic organic pigments have stronger staining properties than mineral pigments. 

Mineral pigments don’t show that dramatic difference. Also, if your paper contains less cotton, watercolour medium’s effect will be less intense.

Watercolour medium makes some colours look brighter

As you see from the picture, colours at the top half look more intense than at the lower part of the paper. Also, you can notice beautiful flow patterns that medium helps create. However, there is a reverse side of that. Excessive use of arabic gum leaves shine and slightly tacky finish.

Why? Arabic gum is technically sap, and medium made with this gum can be considered as water-based varnish, that changes optical properties of the painting layer.

Watercolour medium helps covering oily surface 

Watercolours are water-based and grease or oil on paper surface repel watercolours. Do you remember kindergarten experiments with painting in watercolours on top of lines made with wax/oil crayons? 

Unfortunately, when we touch paper with hands, some grease from finger tips can stay on paper and affect painting outcome in unexpected way.

Arabic gum helps make your work smoother. We made an experiment. First, we drew some lines and smudged them with soft pastel. And even soft pastels can contain oils or waxes. Then we used watercolour medium and spread pastel powder with a brush. Left side doesn’t have any medium applied, and you can see that spreading is not that smooth, as well as some oily spots show off.

The right side looks softer and has no visible oil stains.

Why? Arabic gum here works as the finest film, covering oil and everything else, taking only smallest particles into the layer.

 

Make your own experiments and open new opportunities with arabic gum medium! But use it wisely. As you see, it may have some “side effects”.

(c) RUSART

How to use tinting pastes
In: Practice

How to use tinting pastes?

Tinting pastes have very wide range of use and will bring more ideas to creative artists. However, there are only few artists who ever tried them. Here we’ll try to break barriers between creativity and tints.

What are tinting pastes?

Tinting pastes are technically water-based colour concentrates. ‘Water-based’ means they can me used with any water-based paints and mediums: acrylic, watercolour, gouache, plaster, concrete, alcohol ink, PVAc tempera, gesso, acrylic textured pastes, latex paint etc. This also means DO NOT use with oil-based paints and mediums, they are not going to work.

‘Colour concentrates’ means it has pigment or dye (for RUSART Deco tints we offer pigment-based pastes only) dissolved or suspended in water. To keep this solution and mixture  even and prevent from mold growth, tinting pastes also include organic acids (CH-based), pH-neutralizing agent and preservatives. 

Ways to use tinting pastes

There are many ways how to use them. 

  1. Adding colour into a primer for pastel. So, you can make your own colour and texture with less money spent.
  2. Adding colour into a primer, gesso or textured pastes for acrylic painting. It’s less expensive and creating surface with paints and it’s also creates soft underpainting.
  3. Adding some new colours into alcohol inks.
  4. Tinting your concrete, plaster or clay for your creative projects, such as sculptures, moldings, pottery etc. 
  5. Add some colour into epoxy resin creations.
  6. Enhancing gouache, acrylic paints, or watercolours.
  7. Dying textile.
  8. Painting on plaster, like in fresco techniques.

The list can be longer and longer and it’s limited just your imagination and creativity. 

Some tips

There are some tricks on how to make your experiences with tints more predictable and enjoyable.

  1. Mix desired colour from concentrate BEFORE applying to your medium and try promotions in a small amount first. Colours have different staining properties as well as different opacity and strength. As always, yellow colours tend to be weaker than blues or greens.
  2. Mix your colour thoroughly before adding it into a medium, so your colour will be even.
  3. Cement, gesso, gouache, plaster contain chalk and/or other components that affect the resulting colour. They work as white paint in mixing, so test the colour first.
  4. Work in well-ventilated area. Even though VOC is quite low for tinting pastes, they contain acids and may cause some irritation or allergic reactions. Normally, if you’re not sensitive to ordinary acrylic paints, you’ll be fine with the tints. They have the same components as preservatives and stabilizers.
  5. If you use gesso, plaster, gouache, cement as a medium for tints, after drying colour may look lighter than in a wet form due to chalk that those mediums contain. Tinting pastes don’t contain chalk.
  6. Tints are very concentrated and a bottle can last quite long.

Enjoy your creative time!

Why watercolours fade
In: Paints

Why watercolours fade after drying?

Watercolours are very enjoyable, but right after drying results may not be what you expected: colours changed, faded and become pastel-looking. Why does it happen?

Excessive paint fillers

In a modern world we buy paints at stores and unfortunately we can’t be sure about what’s inside. To increase profits, some manufacturers excessively use fillers. For example, ultramarine may include a lot of clay, yellow colours – chalk, red colours barium sulphate. When water evaporates, chalk layer shows up and instead of vibrant colours we see pastel tones.

For some pigments mineral base may be necessary. Synthetic organic pigments, such as pyrrole red (PR254), Phthalo blue (PB15), Phthalo Green (PG7), as well as bismuth yellos and many others will need a base to show their brightness in full. Like pyrrole red (PR254) without any base will look transparent ruby, Benzimidazolone Yellow (PY154) will not cover paper evenly without a mineral base. So, sometimes, calcium carbonate (PW18), kaolin (PW19) or  Barium Sulfate (PW21) are really good to have, but excessive amounts of these ingredients lead to colour fading after drying. Watercolours in pans tend to have more of them as fillers and extenders, while watercolours in tubes normally contain more glycerine and preservatives.

Chalk in paper

Watercolorists usually prefer cold press, acid-free, 300 by weight cotton paper. These characteristics provide more controllable painting. However, that’s not everything that we need to know. Paper, that we’re buying for watercolour is white. It may be brilliant white or kind of ivory, but anyways – white. This means that fiber was coloured and bleached. Normally, for paper coloration manufacturers use titanium white as the most stable and popular white pigment, but they may add chalk and other components listed above (PW18, PW19, PW21 etc.) that show off through paint layer and cause fading.

Lack of arabic gum

Historically, watercolour binder was arabic gum. It’s a natural sap from acacia trees growing from Senegal on the west coast of Africa all the way to Pakistan and India. Its sap dissolves in water and turns into slightly amber coloured solution, which works as a glue for pigment particles. However, arabic gum is quite expensive and requires some stages of purifying, heating etc. to be used as a binder. As it’s considered to be polysaccharides manufacturers replace arabic gum with dextrine (kind of sugar). Most manufactures claiming that paints have arabic gum as a binder in fact use more dextrine than the gum. 

Dextrine indeed works very well as a glue and creates good adhesion between particles, but it has very poor spreading properties. As a result, watercolours lose their natural gloss and shine and turn into matte and pastel looking surface. 

By adding arabic gum watercolour medium you can improve paint performance.

(c) Rusart

Nadine Sallinen Artist
In: Artists

Featured Artist: Nadine Sallinen

Meet Nadine Sallinen

Nadine is an artist residing and working in BC, Canada. She has had a fascination with art since childhood. She started initially with watercolours, drawing with pencil, coloured pencils, pen and ink and acrylic painting, and then to using pastels. She discovered that pastels suited her style and love of detail. She learned drawing and painting from an old-fashioned mail order course many years ago, and took a watercolour workshop in her 20’s. For a time, Nadine set art aside while working and raising a family, only to get back to it after her kids moved on to live their own lives. Returning to the use of familiar mediums was enjoyable, and exploring new techniques from books, online, and taking a few workshops, brought new challenges and variety to pursuing art every day.

Nature as a Subject, Pastel as a Medium

Nadine’s main subjects are inspired by nature – animals, flowers and landscapes. Some of her paintings have been inspired by the scenes and images from her trips to Japan and Europe. Recently, art has become important not only as a creative activity, but also for personal growth and enjoyment; paying attention to details calms her spirit and feeds her soul. A bedroom converted into a studio means she can just close the door, and anything in progress can be picked up the next day where she left off. This is her happy place.

Nadine Sallinen ArtistAlthough pastels are Nadine’s favourite medium, she has recently returned to working with watercolours with Rusart handmade watercolours. They are smooth flowing, have a range of vivid, deep colours, and working with them has opened up a new outlook to using this medium. Using good quality pigments and quality papers removed the sense of unpredictability from the application of watercolours. In addition, combining the experience gained in using watercolours and gouache as an underpainting to pastels, brought a new enjoyable dimension to her art.

More Art By Nadine

Nadine Sallinen ArtistNadine is a member of the Pastel Artists of Canada and the Coast Cultural Alliance of BC. Her instagram account is @nadinesallinen and a facebook art page Nadine’sArt. Her website is harmonyandbalance.ca  She has had a few exhibits locally, and her art has sold to private collectors in the US, Canada, and Brazil.

Her motto is:

“Everyone can do art.” Simply get started with a basic set and begin creating. Buy the best quality supplies you can afford – it does make a difference.

Granulation in Watercolours
In: Paints

Granulation in Watercolours

Watercolour is a very unique medium, and as result we see depends on many factors:

  • paper
  • amount of water used
  • paint quality
  • brushes and
  • mediums.

Today we’ll take a closer look at granulation. 

What is Granulation

Generally speaking, we observe granulation in watercolours when pigment particles don’t evenly cover the paper during or after painting. Granulation implies sedimentation and sometimes flocculation.

These two processes are very similar to each other, but not the same. While the sedimentation occurs when pigment particles separate from each other and naturally fill imperfections in paper or settle down on a surface, the flocculation happens when pigment particles form some random textures and patterns. Heavy mineral pigments combined with high pigment load allow you to achieve both, sedimentation and flocculation.

Why Granulation Happens

Chemistry and physics explain everything. As watercolours (like any other kind of paint) contain binder and pigment, here we get relationship between their masses, particle sizes and densities. When pigment is lighter and finer than the binder we get smooth washes, and when pigment’s particles are bigger and rougher, we get granulation. It happens because binder can’t hold particles well together and water that we use during painting breaks the adhesion between them.

What Pigments are Granulating

As rocks, metals, and other minerals are usually heavy, natural mineral pigments tend to show more granulation, such as:

  • cobalts blue and green – PB28, PG19 etc.
  • cadmiums ed and orange – PO20, PR108 etc.
  • earth green PG23
  • some ultramarines PB29
  • Siennas and umbers PBr8, PBr12, PY43 etc.
  • Oxide iron black PBk11
  • Van Dyke NBr8

PBk11 shows very strong granulation that explains this pigment’s use in many mixes to achieve granulation properties. For example, in such mixes like Payne’s Gray, forest green, deep blue or deep brown colours.

Also, paints made from semi-precious stones are very granulating, such as malachite, lapis lazuli, sodalite, serpentine etc.

For the smoothest washes man-made synthetic organic pigment would be the best choice. Their particles are so fine that a lot of milling cycles required to achieve good bond between the particles and a binder. Here are some examples of smooth (non-granulating) pigments:

  • phthalo blue and greens PB15, PG7
  • Pyrrole red PR254
  • Hanza yellow and orange PY65, PY3, PO5
  • Quinacridones, including reds and magenta PR122
  • Perylene Red PR149
  • Alizarin Crimson NR8

As you could notice, bright yellow and red colours are normally smooth, while blues and blacks have naturally more granulating options. 

How to Increase Granulation in Watercolours

There are many ways how to show more texture in your watercolours:

  • Use more water. As water dilutes binder using more water provokes sedimentation
  • Add granulating pigments. Adding colour containing PBk11 while mixing will increase granulation
  • Use textured paper for sedimentation and smooth paper for better flocculation. As heavy particles tend to fill the gaps and holes, pigment will settle down in “dents” in paper. To show flows of particles we should use smooth paper to direct the paint.
  • Add granulating medium

Experiment with your paints to achieve desired appearance. Most of RUSART Naturals watercolour paints are granulating as we prefer non-toxic mineral pigments for our paints when it’s possible. If mineral pigments are toxic or not ethically sourced we use synthetic man-made pigments. 

Watercolour free workshop
In: News

Free online watercolour workshop for beginners

Free online watercolour workshop for beginners with Elena Nahum Leroy.

A lot of artists choose watercolour as a medium to begin with and have many questions regarding techniques, materials and use. We decided to offer a free introductory workshop on watercolour main techniques and show some useful tips on mixing colours.

It’s free, online and scheduled August 11 (Thursday), 2022, 8pm EST. 

If interested, please register by email elena@rusart.ca and we’ll send you a link to the ZOOM conference with a password. 

If you want to follow what we’re going to work with there, please prepare: 

  • 3-4 watercolour paper sheets
  • 2-3 cups of clean water
  • paper towels or Kleenex
  • Soft round brushes size 3 and 8, flat wide brush, one any synthetic medium hard brush (like for acrylic)
  • Watercolours in pans (12 basic colours)
  • Cardboard of paper size or larger and tape
  • Pencils and eraser

It’s a demo workshop, meaning I’ll be showing and explaining techniques, but I’m not checking what’s going on with your work in progress. However, you’re free to ask questions.

Characteristics of Watercolour Paints
In: News

Characteristics of Watercolour Paints

Watercolour is one of the oldest but still innovative painting medium with a lot of characteristics. These glue-based paints still have more interesting to offer, while techniques and results vary from light and translucent washes to very intense and deep lines. As watercolours offer working with transparency of layer, texture of paper, paper composition, softness of a brush used, for more predictable results watercolour paints have many parameters that may or may not be listed on a tube or pan. And with more new pigments appear on the market in manufacturers’ disposal new parameters arise.

  1. Transparency
  2. Light fastness
  3. Granulation
  4. Staining
  5. Stability

We will talk about each parameter separately in other articles; here we will cover just general meaning.

Transparency

The same pigment depending on pigment grit, place and method of extraction as well as additives and fillers used. Transparency shows how much the colour is capable to cover the previous layer of paint. The more transparent the colour the less intense it covers.

Lightfastness

This term now is gradually being replaced with weather resistance as not only the light cause fading and other changes in colours. Mostly, we pursue colours with high lightfastness as neither artists to collectors like to see paintings faded.

Granulation

If the first two characteristics refer to all paining mediums, granulation, staining and stability belong mostly exclusively to watercolours. Granulation is a process in appearance when little particles of pigment show visible grains. Some people like granulation while the others avoid. Granulation is neither good or bad, just a property of a paint. Granulations looks amazingly in washes, but may be not that predictable in mixing colours.

Staining

Natural mineral pigments, such as ochres, siennas, umbers, cobalts etc, belong to true pigment “category”, when pigment and binder make mixtures that can be completely washed out and removed with water. However most modern pigments, especially organic ones, work mostly like dyes. They don’t make a homogenous mixture with binder. Instead, they colour something (another pigment, paper, plaster etc.). Such pigments can be staining, especially if the paper is very absorbent, like pure cotton. When you make a line it not always can be washed in full as paper gets coloured.

Stability

This refers mostly to property of keeping the colour in mixtures as well as showing uniformed colour while painted. For example, some pigments mixed together do not make even colour. This is fair especially when we mix mineral pigment with organic synthetic ones, Then the resulting colour may not be stable, however it doesn’t mean it will fade with time as it can have highest lightfastness. At the same time some mineral pigments made from natural stones (labradorite, malachite, lapis lazuli, serpentine etc.) even without any mixing with other colours may show unexpected shades depending on amount of water and medium used.

George Yaneff
In: Artists

Featured Artist: George Yaneff

George Yaneff is a Bulgarian-Canadian artist working in his own unique style full of colours and texture.

George’s Short Bio

That’s how George is describing his way to paint and techniques he is using:

“After the Art Academy -1986
and the marriage and Alice – the first daughter was born and the book covers design and the immigration to Austria – 1988
and the copies of icons and the old masters and drawings on the grave stones and my first mural and ….
the arriving in Canada – 1990
and the computers and Marini – the second daughter born and the taxi driving and the graphic design and the divorce and the murals and the 3D animation and the 9/11 event and the taxi driving again and some murals again and few commissions and the car accident and …
finally I am here, where I really wanted to be, even before the academy:
Oil painting!
Textures, colors, music (Miles Davis), light, surfaces, lines, forms, music (Stan Getz), light, warm colors, textures, music (John Coltrane), lines, surfaces, light, forms, cold colors, music (Gerry Mulligan), textures, forms, light, warm colors, textures, music (U2) and peace …”

George’s As an Artist

George’s motto is being borrowed from the great French artist Pierre-Auguste Renoir: “To my mind, a picture should be something pleasant, cheerful, and pretty, yes pretty! There are too many unpleasant things in life as it is without creating still more of them.”

George’s favorite technique is called Scumbling. A scumble is a dry and broken application of paint. It’s really the opposite of a glaze but the two are often confused as they are both ways of optically modifying an underlying paint film.
A glaze works by covering an underlying area of a painting with an unbroken film of translucent paint. The resulting painting will change colour, appear deeper and – critically – reduce in terms of contrast. Conversely a scumble consists of a broken film and it is designed to work with – rather than cover up – the underlying painting. The result tends to be livelier, more textured and a little rougher.

What Art Critics Say About George’s Artworks

The following paragraph is from the booklet of Casa Loma’s Art in the castle show:
“In the ‘cubist artwork’ of George Yaneff, objects are broken up, analyzed, and reassembled in an abstracted form-instead of depicting an object’s one viewpoint, this artist depicts the subject from a multitude of viewpoints to represent the subject in a greater context depicting movement and sound!”

George’s Art Shows

GROUP SHOWS:

  • Sofia, Bulgaria – 1987
  • Budapest, Hungary – 1989
  • Toronto, Canada – since 1994 to…
  • Toronto Art Expo – March 2008
  • Art in the Castle (Casa Loma) Toronto – November 2008
  • Art-2009 – June 2009
  • Montreal International Art Expo – 2009

SOLO EXHIBITIONS:

  • Impression Art Gallery, Toronto – March 3 to March 27, 2009
  • The Paper Mill Gallery, Toronto – September 29 to October 11, 2015
  • The Paper Mill Gallery, Toronto – November, 3 to 27, 2018

UP COMING SHOW:

  • Lakeshore Village Gallery, Toronto – June 27 to July 11, 2022

You can find George’s works at his website: http://www.georgeyaneff.com/

How to prime your canvas
In: Practice

How to choose right canvas: Part III, Sizing and Priming

How to choose the right canvas and why they are different – are most common questions in any art shop. We’ve already talked about stretching options as well as choice of fabric for your canvas. This time we’ll discuss the final step before your art appears on canvas – sizing and priming.

Canvas, when it’s raw, is just piece of fabric, meaning it absorbs moist and dyes before, during and after painting process. These mean if you paint on untreated canvas:

  • paint colours will look much different from what you have on your palette while you’re mixing colours
  • your painting will change with time and keep changing in unpredictable way

Also, as bare fabric is soft, makes folds and wrinkles fast that means any paint that forms a film (such as acrylic or oil) after drying may crack and fall off. 

That’s why sizing and priming are very important. 

Sizing For Canvas 

Before any primer or paint layer applied on canvas the fabric has to be sized. Sometimes we can skip priming, but sizing is a must. Why?

Canvas is a piece of fabric, which has threads weaved along and across each other. All this weaving process leaves micro-holes between the treads, creating air circulation and exposing your painting to humidity and other weathering from inside. Also, unsized canvas works like a strainer allowing micro leakage of the paint through it. Sizing is aimed to seal the gaps between treads and create one solid base for your painting.

Size is technically glue that covers all holes and gaps. Historically, artists were using glue made from natural materials. The most popular one was rabbit hide glue as well as bone glue that provides jello-kind substance and dries forming smooth and relatively stable film. 

Normally, artists were applying one layer with high-concentrated glue that looks like jelly and then, after full curing, they applied another 2 or 3 coats of glue that was much thinner and smoother.

I have to say, this kind of glue smells terribly and needs immediate application before it gets bad. RUSART Naturals offers sizing for canvas in 2 steps based on this old recipes. We added some essential oils into it to prevent from mold growing and eliminate bad smell.

Later, artists began using gelatine instead of bone or skin glue that offers similar properties. 

Nowadays, most manufacturers use synthetic sizing for canvas, such as Poly Vinyl Acetate or acrylic resin. As primer usually is also acrylic based, usually cheap canvas doesn’t have any sizing and has only primer, which makes canvas not suitable for oil painting and barely stable for acrylic painting. 

When buying a canvas, just look through it against the light: if you see light coming through gaps between the treads, stay away from this canvas (unless you want just to play around and show it away after short use). Good canvas always blocks the light well.

Primer For Canvas

Priming is important in making decision how to choose a right canvas. It’s technically the first layer that provides adhesion with canvas. Bad adhesion leads to peeling of painting layers and early damage.

However, priming is not always necessary. For example, a lot impressionists such as Claude Monet and many others worked on sized canvas without any primer applies and such technique also provides some interesting effects.  

Primer can have different kids of base: oil or emulsion. 

Oil-based primer consists of linseed oil mixed with chalk and white pigment. Historically, this kind of primer was used for oil painting as it provided a better adhesion between oil painting and canvas.

Before oil painting was developed in 16th century, artists used primers based on egg-yolk, casein (milk), rabbit skin glue or other kids of stable glues. This primer was mostly used for wood.

Then, artists were mixing oil and glue-based primers and created emulsion primers. Chalk and white pigment serve as hard particles suspending in flexible oil-water emulsion. Such primers reduce risks of cracking and shrinking.

There are many kinds of emulsion-based primers, including casein, polyvinyl acetate, acrylic and others. Well-primed canvas normally has 3 layers of primer before art work begins. 

Another thing that is very important to know when choosing a canvas is how much chalk was used in your primer. If for acrylic or tempera painting this factor doesn’t play the main role, for oil painting it’s crucial. Chalk is a very porous material and absorbs a lot of binder. This may cause a lot of problems for oil painters:

  • Uneven drying
  • Fading of colours
  • Cracking of painting layer

Only trusted canvas should be used for most important artworks.

(c) RUSART

Featured Artist - Judith Brown
In: Artists

Featured Artist: Judith A. Brown

Meet Judith A. Brown – a watercolour artist from Alberta

Judith A. Brown is a watercolour artist from Spirit River, Alberta and has been artistically inclined since childhood.  She began painting in the early 80s and soon chose watercolour as her main medium.  She has taken courses from:

  • Jack Reid
  • Jake Mohl
  • Romain Teisenhausen
  • Bob Guest
  • Jim Adrain and
  • Dean Reeves

Also, she was studying from instructional books, videos and DVDs.  Judy has shown in and spearheaded art shows all over the Peace Country for many years, often as a member of the Peace Watercolour Society,  the Three Generation Watercolour Artists, or in gallery members’ shows. Her works are in public and private collections in Canada, the U.S., Europe and Australia.

Featured Artist - Judith BrownJudith A. Brown as an artist and art instructor

Judy was born in Regina, Saskatchewan, but has lived in five of the provinces. After receiving a Master’s degree in biochemistry from York University, Judy focused a lifelong interest in physical and learning disabilities. She was working with special needs children at the public school in Spirit River, where she moved with her husband, Harvey, in 1977.

Today, Judy greatly enjoys retirement from her official career. While she’s busy with various community and provincial boards and committees, she always packs a good supply of brushes and paint when there is a chance for a camping trip or an outdoor painting excursion.

In her art classes, Judy’s approachable style and knowledge of learning differences combine with her artistic know how to make art accessible and successful for everyone.  Her students range in age from 2 to 100. Judith volunteers at schools, lodges and long term care units, proving that it’s never too late to pick up a paint brush. She finds art to be an invaluable tool in her many community endeavours, always stressing sound techniques along with creativity and discovery.

“My paintings reflect the peacefulness, beauty and serenity of our landscape. Painting is a way of trying to capture and express these images and feelings on paper.” 

Judy is awed by the incredible beauty, colour and atmosphere of the world around us. Her favourite subjects to paint are water and snow. She is fascinated by the delicate translucence of prairie skies and finds never ending subject matter in her Peace Country surroundings in northern Alberta.

Featured Artist - Judith BrownLearn more about Judy

You can see more of Judy’s work by visiting Peace Watercolour Society  or on facebook and clicking on Members and Judith A Brown.  

Want to become our featured artist? Learn how

How to Clean Brushes from oil paints
In: Practice

How to Clean Brushes From Oil Painting?

Here we’ve collected many ways how to clean brushes after oil painting and prolong their life.

What artists really don’t like about oil painting is that it’s messy. Cleaning brushes, maintaining workspace neat takes much more efforts than when you work with watercolours or acrylics.

Rinsing in turpentine or white spirit, or mixture of both

Turpentine and white spirit are  quite different, when we’re talking about painting. However, when it’s about brush cleaning, we can treat them as the same substances. Technically, they just break up oil and that’s how your brush comes out clean and neat. As both turpentine or white spirit are toxic, never pour liquid into toilet bowl or sink. Recycle properly, when possible. If special disposal or recycling is not available, just pour liquid into a jar, fill it with paper towels or cloth enough to absorb most of the content, close your jar tightly and dispose.

Pro’s:

  • easy to get and use
  • cheap
  • can be used during painting process, as well as for final brush cleaning after use

Con’s:

  • very toxic
  • can be smelly
  • requires special disposal
  • can damage delicate hair (kolinsky or other soft hair)

Rinsing in vegetable oil

If you’re lazy and paint frequently, you can use just regular vegetable oil for cleaning your brushes. Fill a glass jar with with 2 inches of oil and simply rinse your brushes there. Remove paint residue with paper towel. To prevent brushes from hardening, keep your brushes immersed in oil until the next use. Oil can be reused as paint will simply settle down on the bottom of the jar. Make sure that your brushes are suspended and don’t touch the bottom of the jar with oil to prevent brush damage.

Pro’s:

  • easy to get and use
  • cheap
  • can be used during painting process, as well as for final brush cleaning after use
  • non-toxic

Con’s:

  • doesn’t clean your brush in full, so you should keep your brush soaked in oil all the time

Rinsing in vegetable oil and freezing

If you’re planning to make a long break between oil painting, or don’t want to keep your paintbrushes soaked in oil all the time, after rinsing your brushes in oil you can wrap them with a plastic bag and place in a freezer. 

Pro’s:

  • easy to get and use
  • cheap
  • can be used during painting process, as well as for final brush cleaning after use
  • non-toxic

Con’s:

  • doesn’t clean your brush in full, so you should keep an eye on your brushes

Cleaning with dish soap

As dish soap is a good degreaser, you can simple wash your brushes in it. After full cleaning, leave your brushes horizontally to dry completely before the next use.

Pro’s:

  • easy to get and use
  • cheap
  • non-toxic

Con’s:

  • can be used only after painting session
  • requires long time for full drying before the next use
  • doesn’t work for delicate brushes (kolinsky etc.)

Dry cleaning with paper towels

Some artists use just paper towels and wipe the brushes until they get completely dry and paint removed.

Pro’s:

  • non-toxic
  • can be used during painting process, as well as for final brush cleaning after use

Con’s:

  • requires a lot of paper towels, so this method is not environment friendly
  • doesn’t work for delicate brushes

 Different  manufactured brush cleansers

Please refer to their instructions for pro’s and con’s.

RUSART Naturals Oil Brush Cleanser

If you really care about your brushes, try RUSART Naturals this easy-to-use cleanser for oil paint brushes. This all natural medium cleans your oil brushes in seconds and keeps them soft, flexible, as if they are brand new. It’s a cleanser and conditioner at the same time.

How to use Rusart Naturals Oil-Based Brush Cleanser:

  • Wipe paint residue from your brush with a paper towel or cloth
  • Shake a jar well before every use
  • Wash your brush in this solution for 5-10 seconds or until clean
  • Remove product leftovers with a paper towel or cloth

The solution can be reasonably reused even if looks soiled. Don’t forget to shake a jar before every use.

Pro’s:

  • non-toxic
  • cleans in seconds
  • works even for delicate brushes
  • brushes can be stored for a long time after use

Con’s:

  • price
  • intended to use after work, not as a cleanser during painting.

(c) RUSART

Yellow Ochre Pigment
In: Pigments

Pigment guide: Yellow Ochre

Yellow Ochre is the second popular pigment in use for paints after titanium white. Ochres are one of the most ancient pigments used even in cave-paintings. Chemically speaking, yellow ochre is naturally or synthetically hydrated iron oxide. As most mineral pigments, yellow ochre has excellent lightfastness and varies in transparency from very transparent (like yellow mars or travertine) to opaque.

Technical Data on Yellow Ochre

With colour index 77492 pigment formula varies, depending on method of manufacturing and treatment. PY42 stays for synthetic oxide, while PY43 is natural. Natural iron oxides include a combination of one or more ferrous or ferric oxides, and impurities, such as manganese, clay, or organics.

Normally, they are used together in paint-making. When heated this pigment changes its colours to red shades and gradually transforms to PR101 pigment that also belongs to iron oxide family.

Due to wide range of usage yellow ochre can show colours from neutral yellow through orange to brick red and blackcurrant.
PY42-43 is one of the most comfortable pigments to work with as they provide excellent mixing and grinding properties in all binders: oil, acrylic, watercolours, gouache, egg tempera, PVAc etc.

Oil absorption ratio varies from 15 to 30 g per 100g, which makes this colour perfect to work with: it’s drying neither too fast nor too slowly.

Although yellow ochre can be found in many places, the most common quality sources of these pigments is France, Italy and Cyprus. What about safety, when in paints PY42-43 is not toxic at all, but dust can contain small amounts of heavy metals, manganese, lead or other minerals. So, when you work in pastels or raw pigment avoid dust and use protective gears.

Different Names of Yellow Ochre

Paints made with this pigment may have many different names as hues and transparency varies.
Here are some of the most common names:

  • Yellow Ochre (Light, Pale, Deep etc.)
  • Golden Ochre
  • Indian Yellow Transparent (hue)
  • Mars Yellow
  • Iron Oxide Yellow
  • Light Ochre
  • Mars Orange
  • Orange Oxide
  • Raw Sienna
  • Natural Yellow
  • Natural Sienna
  • Mars Yellow Orange
  • Brown Ochre
  • Natural Ochre

(c) RUSART

In: Manufacturing

How to choose right canvas for your goals – Part II (Support)

Support for your canvas is another important “ingredient” of a successful painting. Your canvas can be stretched on wooden bars or glued to a cardboard or wood, or can be used as canvas paper. Let’s take a look for these options and see how they work.

Stretched canvas

Stretched canvas has many benefits before other kinds of support:

  • Framing is not required for such paintings
  • Paintings look more presentable and expensive
  • Restoration gets easer

In general, I prefer stretch canvas over other options. However, not all stretchers are the same. There is something we can choose and something we can’t test when purchasing.

As artists, we can choose depth of canvas: is it gallery or regular. I’d suggest for canvasses longer than 24 in gallery stretchers, because narrower canvas can show signs of deformation with time. Large canvasses (over 60 in) should have extra supporters, that keep corners strait.

Also, a good support literally stretches the entire canvas, meaning the stretching bars are not completely flat and have sort of ledge (see pic.) 

All these are things we can choose and check before buying.

However, there is something we can’t check before making a purchase – that’s quality of wood itself. Quality stretching bars should be made of hard wood, such as oak, fir, birch, beech or harder sorts of pine. Most Canadian-made stretching bars are made of pine. Also, good stretcher should be fully kiln dried and have relative humidity between 8% and 15%.

Cheaper canvasses are made of softer wood and normally not fully dried. With changing environment (temperatures and humidity indoors), these bars change their shapes, get crooked and can show cracks. That’s the main problem of cheap wood. 

Sometime ago I got very expensive paintings of Russian Avant-Garde that were not treated respectfully by a previous owner and were stretched on wood plank from a construction store. As a result, frames got crooked and even caused damage of painting layer. So, now I have to restore them.

Stretched cavas in general is more expensive option than any other kinds of support for canvas. Especially after 2021, then lumber prices jumped up incredibly. For that reason artists look at other alternatives.

Canvas on Board

Canvas on cardboard is another option for artists. However, it can hold only small sizes (up to 16 in) otherwise painting will cause cardboard deformation. Canvas on cardboard also requires framing that adds extra costs and may eliminate and savings against buying stretched canvas.

If for acrylic painting canvas on board can be a good alternative to more expensive canvas, for oil painting this option is unlikely to work well. The problem is in polymerization of oil in the binder.

Cardboard is a very absorbing material and literally drains oil from your painting causing colour fading, unpredictable and uneven drying time as well as faster aging.

Canvas Paper

Canvas paper is an option to test colours or to make sketches on the go, but, unfortunately, for more valuable works it’s not an option at all. Usually, canvas paper is more fragile than normal canvas, has acrylic emulsion  primer rich in chalk to create a thicker look. All these makes further stretching impossible without damage to a painting layer.

In addition to that, for oil painting we have all the problems with uneven drying, faster aging and fading, because chalk is very porous and absorbs oil.

Art supplies local pick up Ottawa Gatineau
In: News

Art Supplies With Free Local Pick Up in Gatineau (near Ottawa)

If you live in Gatineau, QC or Ottawa, ON area, this good news is for you as now we’re offering free local pick up.

Order any items, and enjoy free pick up (could be the same day).

How does it work:

  1. Choose any items online and apply any coupons
  2. Check Local “Pick up” as shipping method
  3. Pay online with a credit card or PayPal. Quebec taxes will be applied (that’s legislation)
  4. We’ll email you when your order is ready for contactless pick up

If your items are weather sensitive or items are out of stock, we’ll let you know about that. Refunds will be issued to your original method of payment.

Our address is 128 Rue des Marronniers, Gatineau, QC, J9J 9T9.

Thank you,
RUSART Team

In: Artists

Featured Artist: Kira Sokolovskaia

Meet out featured artist – Kira Sokolovskaia, a talented pastel artist, who worked at RUSART as an art instructor from 2017 to 2020.

Kira is from Moscow, Russia, where she graduated from Stroganov Moscow State University of Arts and Industry in 2011 with major in graphic arts. About the same time, she realized that her favourite medium was pastel, and her inspiring subject is beautiful nature around. She uses bold colours, confident lines, and applies no smudging. To create a more expressive look, Kira is working on sand paper (yes, regular sand paper that can be found at construction store). Dark tint of paper provides kind of outlines around colourful lines that make Kira’s drawings more impressive and eye-catching.

Kira is also a talented illustrator with a lot of books published. For her illustrations she is choosing mixed media practice, combining elements of collage, gouache painting, and drawing. Although she loves to paint with oils too, she finds pastels the great source of inspiration as a medium.

In 2013 Kira moved to Canada and settled down in Burnaby, BC, where she still resides with her family. She became a member of the Burnaby Artists Guild, Federation of Canadian Artists, and Pastel Artists of Canada. Kira participates in art exhibitions on the annual basis and provides workshops. She is greatly inspired by the nature of BC, trees and mountains. She loves  painting in open air and is sure that working outdoors is the best way to understand distance, color, volume of objects an artist wants to depict.

Kira loves to study and regulary watch lectures (and reads books) on science(evolution,biology), history, art history and archaeology. The best way to draw something is while listening to a scientific podcasts.

You can see her artworks at her website www.culufin.com , and illustrations at www.kiradraws.com

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