MASKING TAPE HORIZON LINE - Tape is a great way to make a perfectly straight, crisp horizon line on your canvas that you can paint right up to or over onto. Make sure that you are working on a dry canvas! Measure carefully up from both bottom corners and mark the side with a pencil. Stretch the tape carefully across the canvas starting at the pencil mark on one side to the other. If your canvas is rather large, the tape will bow in the middle, so you need to measure a center point to aim for as well. Gently press the edge line into the canvas with your fingernail so that there are no pockets of air that paint can seep into. If necessary, you can tuck paper under the far side of the edge line to protect the opposite side of the canvas that you are not working on. When removing the tape, peel one side down at a 45' angle to prevent spatter and drawing paint below the tape line. Be careful that you don't get wet paint on your hands from the tape and transfer it somewhere else. -Anne Marie
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Ms. Aletta de Wal, Director of Artist Career Training, inspires fine artists to make a better living making art through personal consultations, professionally designed educational programs and practical independent study. In this podcast, she interviews Pamela Rhodes, Director of ARTroads on financial planning basics for artists in this unpredictable economy. -November 2008.
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Colour theory can seem complex and daunting, but once the basics are understood, it begins to make sense. Four main terms are used to categorize colour: temperature, intensity, tone and hue. Temperature describes whether the color is warm or cool, with the reds, oranges and yellows being warm, and the blues, greens and purples being cold. Intensity indicates the brilliance or purity of the colour. Tone assesses the relative lightness or darkness of a colour. Hue is the general name given to a colour such as red or blue.
The primary colours - red, yellow and blue - cannot be mixed from other colours. When mixed together, they produce a range of secondary colours - orange, green and purple. Tertiary colours have elements of all three primaries and tend to echo those colours found in nature. Neutral colours are mixed using equal amounts of the three primaries. By varying the proportions, a range of browns and greys are produced. One colour can be changed significantly by adding white (or water) to lighten it producing tints or by adding black producing shades both ends of a tonal range.
Colours which fall opposite one another on a colour wheel are know as "complementary" (red and green) and have a unique relationship. Mixed together, they tend to neutralize one another but placed next to each other, they appear to increase in intensity.
The best way to learn about colour theory is to experiment with a limited palette and range of combinations.
Excerpted from "The Instant Artist"; Ian Sidaway, Collins & Brown, Ltd., 2001 TOP
