The Easel

Many of you know from reading our Gesso 101 posts that Gesso has been around a very long time. The origins of the Easel are much older. The concept of the Easel really is old as man. Necessity being the mother of invention; the first Easel was most likely devised when cavemen leaned pieces of bark against a tree to better view the scratchings they’d made on it with a sharp stone.

Throughout the modern world Easels are in use for so many purposes. There are probably more Easels in use for the creation and presentation of two-dimensional visual arts than any other use. Many of you would also be familiar with Easels used in many ways that go primarily unnoticed, such as fancy brass Easels that may hold a restaurant’s daily special board or the announcement of a reserved space for an event gathering.

We’ll spare you the long standing (pun intended) history of the Easel which has gone from relative obscurity to modern day tool of artists and many industries so that we can get right to information regarding The Easel’s art world applications.

There are a few different types of art easels. Very ornate carved wood or brass easels are often used to hold framed or unframed paintings, photos, drawings or any two-dimensional visual art for display purposes. This is not the most common way to display art for gallery showings and today is used more for display of a prominent individual piece or the prize of a collection at a gallery, museum, or at home.

The two most common easel styles are Tripod and H-Frame designs. Tripod easel designs are based on three legs with variations that include crossbars to make the easel more stable and an independent mechanism to allow for vertical adjustment of the working plane without sacrificing the stability that the three legs of the easel provide.

H-Frame style Easels are based on right angles and provide the most stable base on which to create. The posts are generally parallel to each other with the base of the easel being rectangular. The main portion of the easel consists of two vertical posts with a horizontal crossbar support, thus giving the design the general shape of an “H.”

It’s important to have the right easel. A good easel choice will take into account the type of painting you will be doing, the environment where you’ll be working and of course the scale or size that you’ll be working with.

There are several art production easels most artists are use; tabletop, paintbox, French, sketch, studio, and Taboret.

Tabletop Easels are among the least expensive. They are small so they don’t take up much space; they’re also convenient to store and carry since they’re foldable. Due to the table-top easel’s generally small average size, they aren’t suitable to use with large canvases. Available in both light metal and wood varieties these easels can be ideal for doing close work while seated.

Paint-box Easels make a great portable prop for beginners. In addition to holding your canvas, these easels are also comprised using a container box. The box is to be used for carrying/storing supplies. Great for outdoor painting due to they’re compact portability; the problem with paintbox easels is that they aren’t very stable so a steady platform is advisable.

The French Easel is very versatile. They’re comprised of a canvas carrier, adjustable extending leg tripod easel, and supply box in one package. French Easels are foldable so like the Paintbox and Tabletop Easels they are easy to transport. Many come with straps and/or a briefcase handle to further facilitate mobility. These easels can generally be adjusted for Tabletop use. Ideal for either standing or seated work, French Easels usually incorporate the means to adjust the working angle.

Sketch Easels are incredibly lightweight. They are commonly referred to as display easels because they can be used to display light works of art such as charcoal sketches or the like. However, since these painting easels are so lightweight, they usually don’t offer much stability. The may be ideal for light indoor impromptu work.

Studio Easels are almost always H-Frame Easels though very heavy studio tripods do exist. These easels can be incredibly large and are designed to stand on the floor. Considered the most stable of painting easels, studio easels are quite suitable to use when you need to work with large and deep-edge canvases. As with any standing easel they afford the artist the ability to ’step back’ to view work in progress on the same plane as the completed work will be displayed.

One of the drawbacks of studio easels is that they aren’t portable because they’re so heavy this drawback has the positive effect of allowing for quite vigorous painting. The Artist Studio Easel is as you might have guessed among the most expensive of art easels.

The Taboret Easel is called an easel but is only an easel in the loosest sense of the term in that you may use it (as any countertop) as an art platform. More of a cabinet providing ample storage to keep any work area organized Taboret are available in a wide array of styles and materials.

A Taboret does make an excellent addition to any artist’s studio area accommodating a wide variety of supplies; many Taborets can easily be used to hold a Tabletop Easel and can help make it a breeze to finish deep-edge canvas work. Some of the more robust designs sport several drawers and cabinets endowed with smaller organizational nooks, separations and cubbyholes; a Taboret may be equated to an artist’s ‘roll-top’ desk (sans Roll-top of course).

Well there you have it; a rundown of the easels most appropriate for artistic endeavors. Without any further ado or loud rebellion you should now be ready, armed with the links and info in this post, to take a stand for your art by acquiring an easel.

(Drum Roll Please…)

If you’ll recall from where we left off last time; we have pigment and we have binder. Here comes the answer you’ve been kept in suspense over. The primary factor in different grades of paint is the ratio of pigment to binder.

Binder comes in several differing forms, some runny, some thick, some sticky, and some jelly-like. Regardless the type, binder is generally much less expensive than pigment which is often derived from pure and sometimes rare elements. Thus paint with more binder and less pigment in the mix will be less expensive to manufacture than one with a lot of pigment, and less binder.

This ratio is called the Pigment Load.

Lower grade paints have a low pigment load, which makes them less expensive. The very best grades of paint have a high pigment load ratio. This applies to virtually all paints on the planet—watercolors, acrylics, oils, exterior paint, you name it!

Though there are varying costs for the different types of binder, delivery and storage method; the biggest difference between ‘cheap’ and quality paint -between inexpensive and quite costly, is usually all about the pigment load ratio. Of course at the upper end, the source, rarity, purity and type of pigment become primary factors in the price of the paint.

Acrylic Paint Grades

Artist (grade) acrylics have a high amount of pigment and contain little to no fillers which make them a top of line product. An artist can paint on a variety of surfaces with this grade of acrylic. Paper, canvas, and wood panels are just a few to mention.

Iridescent, pearlescent, interference, and metallic (grade) acrylics are a mix of conventional pigments with mica particles with a veneer of titanium dioxide. This combination of elements creates the lustrous shimmer of precious metals and mother-of-pearl.

Student (grade) acrylics have, sometimes, as little as half the amount of pigment of artist grade acrylic but have a high amount of filler. They are much economical than artist grade but do have some limitations to them. The biggest limitation to them, that I can see, is the lack of range of colors.

Incidentally, there’s no reason at all to spend the extra shekels on the higher-grade paints until you’ve used student grade to ‘flesh out’ an image on your prepared surface. It generally takes several applications to fill in for the absent pigment anyway, so if you like the way a piece is turning out you can always get the artist grade to go over and complete the painting.

Gouache (grade) acrylic has a couple similarities to the traditional gouache such as it’s opaqueness and matte finish, yet unlike the traditional it’s waterproof once dry.

Craft (grade) acrylics has a lot of the same characteristics of student grade acrylics. It’s a great economical choice to paint on everyday items such as wood, metal and fabrics to spruce them up. The another great benefit of craft paints over student grade is the great variety of colors available.

Exterior (grade) acrylic, our last but certainly not least. Although I was kidding about exterior grade acrylic paints earlier they are often used as artistic medium and are available in in several grades or pigment load levels themselves. As is apparent by their name they are formulated to withstand outdoor conditions. Exterior acrylic can adhere to a variety of surfaces to create murals, signs, and accentuate any architecture features. Think about it for a moment; exterior acrylic paint is seen more than any other grade of acrylic paint. I’m not speaking of the homeowner’s annual or biannual preventative coat. The murals in public outdoor venues are definitely viewed on a much larger scale than the masterpieces in art museum collections or small galleries.

Did that help clear up any ambiguity regarding the differences in grades of acrylic paint? Hopefully you now have a much better understanding of the differences as well as some creative ideas about how to use the various grades of acrylic based paints. More options to add to the mix when devising the creation of your vision. Enjoy!

I’m sure you’ve seen the jars and bottles of white goo in the aisle by the acrylic paints and have wondered, “What do these things actually do?”. Well, today, I hope to help clear up the mystery behind them. Acrylic mediums fall into four basic categories: Gel mediums, liquid mediums, specialty mediums and grounds. Within each category there exists a variety of diverse mediums. Each has its own unique qualities and capabilities that make it an indispensable part of any artist’s toolbox.

Gel Mediums

Let’s face it, acrylic gel mediums are great. You can do so much with them… glob them on thick, sculpt them, embed stuff into them, fill spaces with them, coat things, seal things; they are the best all-around, do-it-all mediums. Gel medium is milky white in its wet form, but will dry to a clear film, leaving the color of any added pigment unchanged. This is the medium to use when high relief and crisp textural detail is desired. It’s easy to manipulate with a variety tools such as brushes, fingers, palette knives or any other tool that you have. It also holds the smallest detail, such as a finger print, very well. Gel mediums are available in several different sheens; gloss, semi-gloss, and matte. This allows the painter to add or decrease the luster and tooth of the art. Another unique quality of this type of medium is its ability to encase an object much like an insect trapped in a piece of amber. Objects pushed or mixed into a blob of gel will be moderately protected from water, air, and the ravages of time once the gel is dry.

Liquid Mediums

Liquid polymer mediums go by several names. They can be labeled polymer medium, fluid or liquid mediums, or simply by the sheen they generate such as semi-gloss, or matte mediums. As with gel mediums, the primary functions of liquid mediums are to extend color and manipulate its luster. Secondary to those is its strength as an acid-free glue. This stuff is the super glue of the acrylic family. A layer of liquid medium can be used to protect delicate surfaces. The characteristic of the polymer film imparts flexibility to brittle materials like dried leaves and flowers or brittle paper products. Matte liquid mediums make a beautifully clear, transparent ground. The light tooth provides a suitable platform for not only paint, but dry materials as well. Drawing with charcoal, graphite, and colored pencils is facilitated by the fine frit of the matting agent.

Specialty Mediums

Specialty mediums cover a slightly larger group of products. Items that will be covered in this grouping will be texture gels and self-leveling gels.

Texture Gels
There are several different types of texture gels on the market. What makes them textural is the manufacturer adds particular matter to the gel medium. These particles include marble dust, pumice, ceramic beads, fibers, and various mineral compounds. Depending on the content, they range from transparent and translucent to opaque. This is a great surface for rough sketching with drawing materials, scrumbling technique, and mixed media which is one of my personal favorite techniques.

Self-Leveling Gels
Self-leveling gels are those which have a thick, honey-like feel. They are heavy, gooey, and sticky. Unlike regular gels, this material will level out completely into a thick, even pool. There is one important thing to keep in mind when working with a self-leveling gel. Think of how honey behaves when you stir it up. The air bubbles created by the agitation get trapped in the thick honey and take considerable time to escape. The same is true of self-leveling gel.As with all other gels, this medium will dry clear and extremely flexible. It is a fabulous adhesive for embedding heavier collage elements into a painting.

Grounds

The purpose of a ground is to protect and seal the support plus provides the paint with something to bond to. The two grounds I’ll be talking about will be modeling paste and gesso.

Modeling Paste
Modeling or molding pastes provide opaque textured grounds that can be modified in various ways. They have a putty-like consistency that ranges from light and fluffy to dense and heavy. Generally, modeling pastes dry white. The bulk of the gel provides a tough ground that can be sanded or carved into when dry. The high acrylic content helps to maintain a good degree of flexibility, allowing it to be applied to non-rigid supports with reasonable confidence. This ground can be used under, in or over other acrylic layers according to each painter’s preference. Also, modeling paste, can hold the texture of a high relief impasto to a hairline scratch.

Gesso
The most effective way to seal or prime your surface prior to painting with acrylics is to use an acrylic gesso. The most available type is white gesso though it does come in clear and tinted (carbon black and burnt umber) in specialty stores. We provide a couple of these options with our canvases.Artist quality gessoes have superior covering power and do not require more than two coats to make a solid ground. The chalk content gives the gesso its absorption and tooth, and lends it the ability to be sanded. To create a very smooth ground, apply the gesso in two or more layers while sanding each layer between coats.There you have it. Hopefully, I cleared up the mystery behind the odd jars white globby stuff you’ve seen in the art supply store. And if you haven’t seen these jars, but are now intrigued and want to try them out, check out this great online resource, Dick Blick Art Materials.