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Acrylic Painting Tip 1: Keeping Acrylic Paints Workable

Acrylics dry much faster than oils so my advice is to squeeze only a little paint out of a tube at a time. Also take a look at the palette you are using. Some have a waxy finish to them. These are ideal as they will not absorb moisture at of the paint. Alternatively, frequently flick water from your brush on to the lump of paint. In a dry climate the paints will start to set within 20 minutes of being squeezed out from the tube.

Acrylic Painting Tip 2: Blot your Brushes

Keep to hand tissue paper or a towel. Remember to blot the excess water from your brushes before you apply to canvas. Otherwise, you’ll have water running from the bristles down on to the canvas in messy streaks. Blot your brushes or pay the consequences!

Acrylic Painting Tip 3: Opaque or Transparent

Depending on how you apply the paint acrylics can be either opaque or transparent. Apply thickly from the tube and mixed with a little white. If diluted down with water the acrylics will appear in essence, much like watercolors with a similar effect.

Acrylic Painting Tip 4: Acrylic vs Watercolour Washes and Oils.

Once acrylic paint dries that is it! Unlike working with oil paints, you can not re-work an area of the canvas hours later and, unlike watercolors, acrylic paint is totally insoluble. If you have made a mistake, all is not lost! You can paint a new layer over the top.

Yarka Russian Primed Linen canvas

Since the Dutch invented oil painting back in the fourteenth century, oil painting has been one of the most popular and widespread mediums chosen by artists around the world. For many people who do not paint or who would like to, Oil painting seems perhaps daunting at first. Let it be known, oil painting is not as complex as people first assume. All one really needs is lots of enthusiasm and patience to learn. One also will require a small selection of brushes, a surface to paint on, should it be wood panel or canvas pre-stretched or not, a variety of color oil paints and some solvents.

Whilst many different surfaces are available to paint on, primed canvas is usually the most popular. Canvas can be bought by the yard and you can buy it already assembled or you can do this yourself providing you have the correct materials; artist stretcher frames, which are sold as single wooden slats that interlock with each other to form a frame; canvas, which is stapled to the frame; and gesso, which is applied in a couple of coats to the canvas in an even manner. This is basically used so that when you begin to paint on the canvas, the paint is not absorbed too quickly.

But, for the rest of us, here are a few tips submitted by a friend of ours -

“Checking original paintings’ authenticity

"Do I have an original Leonardo Da Vinci Mona Lisa?!" - nope, but you DO have a Fernando Botero!

If you do not know much about original hand made art but you would like to purchase a painting there are a few simple ways of checking that what you are about to spend your money is not machine made. So many ‘supposed’ limited edition “hand painted pieces of art” are absolutely nothing more than photographic replicas of the originals which have been manufactured not by the artist who laid down their signature, but by publishing companies. As crazy as it is, a great number of signed lithographs and giclees are also in this category. The only thing original about these “copy prints” are the hand-applied signatures. Here are some ways of thoroughly checking the painting you are buying.

- Checking the back of the canvas as well as the sides is important.

- Look at the type of wood that has been used.

- Remember to ask your seller as many questions about any kind of stamps or numbers that you find either on the back of the canvas or on the wooden stretcher bars. The more they can tell you about the history of your painting the better.

- Research where the artist’s other work is. Is there an identical painting hanging in a museum somewhere, for example? If so, it’s pretty certain you’ve a copy, not the real thing!

- Ask an expert!”

Due to the slow process and techniques used (in addition to the large scale of many of his paintings), he completed relatively few major paintings over the course of his artistic career.  The first major piece that received attention for its style was titled A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte and took an entire two years to complete due to its large ten foot dimensions.  The subject and composition appear to be very Impressionistic in nature and many art lovers may be reminded of Monet’s Madame Monet and Her Son by the large figure of a woman in the foreground of a green park area as well as the general look and color scheme of the painting.  Unlike Impressionism, the works of Seurat were not painted en plein air as many Impressionists practiced, but rather in a studio working with painstaking care and careful attention, not the fast brush strokes of other artists.  The entire aim was to exhibit the gains of Pointillism and color theory, whereas his contemporary Impressionists struggled to capture one fleeting moment within their paintings.  When observing Seurat’s paintings in this light, it becomes obvious that his canvases seem more grounded and stable that the mere impressions that are delivered by Impressionist art.

Some of Seurat’s other famous paintings are titled: Bathers at Asnières, Le Chalut, Le Parade, Le Cirque (unfinished), Les Poseurs of 1887, and a series of works of Honfleur Harbor.”