Journey Art Supplies Blog
Tips, Tricks, Thoughts, and inspiration from across the art spectrum.
Acrylic Gouache or Watercolor Gouache? What's t...
Are you just beginning your incredible journey in art? Welcome aboard to a beautiful new world! There's so much to learn and many ways to express yourself, and we're excited to have you with us! However, one thing you might be experiencing as a novice painter is trouble understanding what the different mediums are. No doubt you've heard of oil and watercolors, but what about gouache? What is that stuff, anyway? Also, how in the world do you pronounce it?First, the easy part! Gouache rhymes with squash but with a G, so it sounds like "gwash." The word gouache comes from the Italian word "guazzo," meaning water paint, or paints suspended in water. It can also refer to the technique of applying oil paint over tempera or a gouache underpainting. Gouache painting has been around for over a thousand years, and in that time, artists used this media to create historically significant, dynamic pieces of art. What is Gouache? Gouache paint consists of a mix of natural or synthetic pigments, water, and gum Arabic (sometimes yellow dextrin) that acts as a binding agent to hold the paint together. Occasionally, chalk may be used to give the paint extra heft or body, and some varieties add propylene glycol. Traditional gouache tends to become brittle when it dries, so additional additives attract water to help the paint layers stay more flexible over the long term. The most common types of gouache today are acrylic gouache and watercolor gouache. What's the Difference Between Gouache and Watercolor? On the surface, gouache and watercolor are made of the same basic materials but differ in other, more specific ways.Watercolors use tiny particle sizes so the paint can be spread thin enough to be near-transparent. Gouache has larger particles and more body to look heavier, denser, and opaquer after it dries. Like watercolor, gouache can be re-wetted and bound to the paper it is on, but gouache paints can't be watered down to look more translucent. Gouache doesn't build layers of color as well as watercolor. While gouache can be reactivated with water, it is essential to note that too much can turn it into a powder on the surface that easily rubs or crumbles away. What's the Difference Between Acrylic Gouache and Watercolor Gouache? You'll see the terms watercolor gouache and acrylic gouache and may wonder if there's anything that separates the two. Acrylic gouache is made out of acrylic paint, which dries down to a matte finish, behaves the same way as watercolor gouache, covers well, and is opaque. The key that separates acrylic from watercolor gouache is that acrylic gouache is permanent when it dries. You can attempt to lift the paint a bit, but it does not behave or react like watercolor. Additionally, acrylic gouache does not flow or spread like watercolors. Once you place acrylic gouache paint down and it dries, you can't move it. Where Can I Get Acrylic Gouache? There are two prominent creators of acrylic gouache, and Cheap Joe's is proud to be able to provide them for artists like you to create and use. Holbein Acrylic gouache and Chroma's Jo Sonja Artists' Colors. Both have excellent, creamy consistencies that can be thinned with water, and many artists adore using these for creating murals. The permanent nature of these acrylic gouache paints, high covering power, and durability, being lightfast and drying to a velvety matte finish that reflects light naturally make them highly desirable to artists around the globe. We hope when it comes time for you to experiment with gouache that we've been able to help you choose whichever suits you best, watercolor or acrylic gouache. Make sure to bookmark and visit Cheap Joe's Art Stuff Blog for helpful tips, tricks, thoughts, and advice on all sorts of artistic endeavors to help inspire and inform!
Acrylic Gouache or Watercolor Gouache? What's t...
Are you just beginning your incredible journey in art? Welcome aboard to a beautiful new world! There's so much to learn and many ways to express yourself, and we're excited...
Encaustic Painting: What is it and where did it...
Answering our phones and emails is a lot like opening a box of chocolates: we never know what we will get! We get all kinds of excellent questions here, and one of them was about encaustic painting. What is Encaustic Painting? Encaustic painting is an art form painted with pigmented wax on a substrate, such as a wood panel, and is fused or burned in through a heat source like a heat gun or propane torch. Color mixing is achieved through the application of heat to the substrate itself or a hot palette. Encaustic is a Greek word (enkaustikos) meaning "to heat or to burn." Encaustic painting is an ancient technique used by the Greeks, who used wax to caulk ship hulls. It is estimated that the style of art was also used by the Egyptians as early as 100 AD.Encaustic paint consists of natural bee wax and dammar resin (crystallized tree sap). Pigmenting the bee's wax gave rise to the decoration of warships, and the use of encaustic on panels rivaled the use of tempera in the earliest known portable easel paintings. Modern Encaustic Painting Today, you don't need a wood surface to create encaustic paintings, as heavyweight paper mounted to a hardboard works just as well, but the option to still use wood as a surface remains. Ampersand Claybord is another surface that is suggested for those interested in encaustic painting. It's a kaolin clay-covered hardboard that's absorbent and comes in a smooth or textured finish. Tools for Modern Encaustic Painting What sort of tools can you use today to try encaustic painting? At Cheap Joe's, you'll find that we have a wealth of tools and supplies specifically designed for modern encaustic painting. A few examples of them are: • Encaustic Paint Sets• Encaustic Mediums• Encaustic Waxes• Encaustic Paints or Hot Cakes Paint Sets• Encaustic Starter Kits• Natural Bristle Chip Brush sets, Painting, and Palette Knives• Metal palettes• Heat guns Beginner Tips for Encaustic Painting • You can't paint with beeswax alone. It's not durable enough, so it's essential to use beeswax with damar resin. • It's vital that if you use brushes, you use natural bristles. Synthetic brushes will melt.• As encaustic mediums do not deteriorate your brush, and the wax can always be remelted, you can leave your brushes without cleaning them if you want. Though if you're going to clean a brush, dip them in melted paraffin or soy wax to clear off the color, then clean them of wax by leaving them on a hot surface and wiping them clean when the wax is melted. • Encaustic is an expensive medium, so take some time to consider your budget before you begin. If you're ready to jump all in, a complete kit or starter kit is a great way to get everything in one go. • You'll need a griddle or hot plate to melt your medium; the most important aspect is to make sure it heats evenly, whichever you choose. • You will need fusing tools. When encaustic painting, you will be fusing layers of wax applied in layers. Fusing merges these layers. You'll need a tool to use heat that allows each layer to soften enough to merge with previous layers. • Choose flat bottom metal tins for melting and adding pigments to your medium. • Your ideal substrates for encaustic painting should be absorbent, rigid, and heat resistant. Substrates like: wood, untampered Masonite, canvas or linen stretched over a panel, plywood, drywall or plaster, heavyweight paper, print-making paper, and even plexiglass should you wish. At Cheap Joe’s, every day, we are amazed and humbled to learn something new about art and art mediums. Thanks to customers and passionate artists like you, we're always seeking new ways to express, create, and provide them to you! Is there a medium or technique you'd love to learn more about? Please, feel free to leave us a comment or get in touch with us. Your question might inspire our next informative blog post to encourage artists all over the globe wanting to try a new style of art!
Encaustic Painting: What is it and where did it...
Answering our phones and emails is a lot like opening a box of chocolates: we never know what we will get! We get all kinds of excellent questions here, and...
A New Kind of Canvas: Shoes Were Made for Paint...
What’s the least-conventional thing you’ve ever painted on? A windowpane? Maybe a tree branch? What about shoes? Canvas is canvas, right? At least, that’s how I see it. For this project, I picked up a pair of plain, white shoes from a local thrift shop and gave them a brand new life using Golden High Flow Acrylics.
A New Kind of Canvas: Shoes Were Made for Paint...
What’s the least-conventional thing you’ve ever painted on? A windowpane? Maybe a tree branch? What about shoes? Canvas is canvas, right? At least, that’s how I see it. For this project, I...
Decorative Tole Painting: A Modern Heritage
Tole painting is probably the most common and widely practiced arts of all among beginners and novice artists. The most beloved family objects tend to be high-quality utensils or furniture, painted freehand with favorite patterns, colors or flowers, humorous themes, family in-jokes, or illustrations of favorite or family stories.
Decorative Tole Painting: A Modern Heritage
Tole painting is probably the most common and widely practiced arts of all among beginners and novice artists. The most beloved family objects tend to be high-quality utensils or furniture,...
Create Captivating Art by Understanding How You...
Understanding how to hold and direct your viewer’s attention is an important part of the design. When you’ve trained your eye to follow the visual forces in your painting, you can begin to design your paintings in a more creative way
Create Captivating Art by Understanding How You...
Understanding how to hold and direct your viewer’s attention is an important part of the design. When you’ve trained your eye to follow the visual forces in your painting, you...
Oil Painting Tips for Those New to Oils
Hello Artists, beginners and experts alike! This week, our blog post is inspired by a request from Tanya M. Nevin of Van Gough's Ear Paint Studio (check out her work!). She recently inherited a ton of oil paints from her late father, also an artist. Tanya has been painting with acrylics for over twenty-five years and she's not quite sure how to transition into working with oils. Well, Tanya and I are actually in the same predicament! I've never really used oil paints heavily either. So, what do we do when we don't know what to do? I start by asking questions of others that do. I was all to happy to take this opportunity to research the fascinating world of beginner oil painting and share the top 5 oil painting tips I found most helpful. Let's dive in and learn some great first-time oil painting tips together, shall we? 1. Prepare Your Painting Space Oil paints themselves and the solvents you will need to clean brushes with will come with strong scents; as such, you'll want the space you'll be painting in a well-ventilated area. If possible, make sure there is also plenty of room to keep all the items you need in reach and ready, like mediums, painting surfaces, turpentine, brushes, paints, etc. If possible, you may want to make sure your oil painting space is entirely separate from your acrylics or watercolors. In some cases, it's incredibly easy to grab a tube of Opera Rose watercolor instead of oil because the tubes look very similar. 2. Slow and Steady There's nothing more exciting than trying something new and learning a new art medium. However, it can frequently go from exciting to overwhelming very quickly if you jump right into trying to get all the colors, brushes, canvasses, etc. There's no shame in starting small and slowly. It's always good to start with a small painting surface and a limited paint palette to experience the way the paint applies and feels on the brush and how mixing it differs from other mediums you are familiar with. If you're looking for an excellent budget option, did you know that Gamblin creates a free paint called Torrit Grey? Torrit Grey is Gamblin's solution to ensuring high-quality pigments that float in the air of their factories and get filtered away from workers to keep them safe. To keep the environment safe, Gamblin re-uses these pigments to create a one-of-a-kind color tube of grey. Each shade of grey is different, and they also run an annual contest that artists can enter for a chance to win free stuff. 3. Prime your Surface If you don't have some Joe's Prime Stretched Cotton Canvas or Joe's Prime Cotton Canvas Rolls, which are 100% cotton duck that has all been pre-primed for painting with oils, you will absolutely need to prime your surface. Why? Oil paints have oils in them, and when you paint with them on an unprimed surface, the oils begin separating from the paint. Once they separate, they start seeping into an unprimed canvas, wood, or paper and can quickly ruin the piece of art you've worked so hard to create. Luckily, at Cheap Joe's, not only can you get pre-primed surfaces, but you can get highly budget-friendly primer options like our Joe's Prime Really Good Gesso, which starts at $3.59 for an 8 oz jar and can be used to prime for oils and acrylics. 4. "Thick over Thin?" "Fat over Lean?" Have you discovered the phrase "fat over lean" when researching oil painting tips yet, but have no idea what that means? These phrases refer to the layers in which you should try and paint with oils. Thinner paints with less oil for the bottom, or first play, then thicker, more oily paints go over the thinner layer. This ensures your painting dries at the correct rate. If your painting dries at the incorrect rate, you could have cracking. To make paint 'fatter' or oilier, you add more oil to it, and to make it 'leaner' or thinner, you add a solvent such as turpentine or a fast-drying medium. This helps each layer absorb oil from the layer above it evenly. If you didn't know it already, certain colors are known to have faster drying times too, and they can be incorporated into your lower layers. Paints that contain Cobalt, Manganese, and Lead can be added to other paints to speed up the drying process. On the other hand, certain paints are known for drying slowly, such as Quinacridones, and should be avoided on lower layers. 5. Keep Clean Oil paints, like many art mediums, can get extremely messy. In some cases, depending on the ingredients, oil paints can be pretty toxic if ingested or absorbed into your skin—but don't let that frighten you! It's all about keeping your work area and self as clean and organized as possible (and out of reach of children and pets) while learning how to dispose of everything responsibly and adequately. Paints, mediums, palettes, and anything else with oil paint should be disposed of in or at a Hazardous Waste Facility. Rags, paper towels, and items with less mess on them can be contained in a glass jar or a fire-safe trash container. But the containers must be fire safe because oil paints and solvents are highly flammable, and they could spontaneously combust when drying out! Hopefully, these five beginner tips will help you transition into your new oil paints, Tanya! I can't wait to see what you learn and all you can do! Good luck and good painting!
Oil Painting Tips for Those New to Oils
Hello Artists, beginners and experts alike! This week, our blog post is inspired by a request from Tanya M. Nevin of Van Gough's Ear Paint Studio (check out her...
Hue Paints: What They Are and Why They're Worth...
When ordering paints, especially watercolor paints, customers are wary about ordering colors that include the word Hue in them. They are told that these are substandard paints and should be avoided at all costs. This is not true at all. There are Hues and then there are Hues. Let me explain.
Hue Paints: What They Are and Why They're Worth...
When ordering paints, especially watercolor paints, customers are wary about ordering colors that include the word Hue in them. They are told that these are substandard paints and should be...
DIY 3D Christmas Tree Holiday Card
Take your handmade holiday cards to the next level with this three-dimensional Christmas tree card! Simple materials like cut paper and glue are embellished with glossy embossing powders that give these cards that holiday bling
DIY 3D Christmas Tree Holiday Card
Take your handmade holiday cards to the next level with this three-dimensional Christmas tree card! Simple materials like cut paper and glue are embellished with glossy embossing powders that give...
"Guidelines" by Skip Lawrence
Skip Lawrence offers some Guidelines for finding a more personally expressive, creative, and sincere way to paint. From the Palette Magazine.
"Guidelines" by Skip Lawrence
Skip Lawrence offers some Guidelines for finding a more personally expressive, creative, and sincere way to paint. From the Palette Magazine.
Hue And You: Some Thoughts On Color Selection b...
Is this the way you choose colors for a painting? 1. Pull a few tubes of paint at random out of your paint box 2. Start painting 3. Hope for the best. If this is your method of color selection for a painting, you can do better.
Hue And You: Some Thoughts On Color Selection b...
Is this the way you choose colors for a painting? 1. Pull a few tubes of paint at random out of your paint box 2. Start painting 3. Hope for...
Finding Your Space
Your treatment of pictorial space (how much you emphasize the illusion of depth) depends on your expressive intent. Here are your choices, their advantages, and their disadvantages. Reprinted from the Palette Magazine
Finding Your Space
Your treatment of pictorial space (how much you emphasize the illusion of depth) depends on your expressive intent. Here are your choices, their advantages, and their disadvantages. Reprinted from the...
"Painting A Series" by Anne-Marie Harvey
Anne-Marie Harvey demonstrates how you can explore new approaches and develop a style by Painting A Series. Reprinted from Watermedia Focus Magazine now called the New Palette Magazine.
"Painting A Series" by Anne-Marie Harvey
Anne-Marie Harvey demonstrates how you can explore new approaches and develop a style by Painting A Series. Reprinted from Watermedia Focus Magazine now called the New Palette Magazine.
