Ron Gribble Artist Tips

Ron Gribbles Past Months Artist Tips
New Zealand Professional Artist

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Care of brushes
Ron Gribble

Last tip we discussed brush-cleaning devise that I use, This month I want to stay with brushes.

Generally speaking, good oil painting brushes are not expensive, but it takes only a minute to prolong their useful life.

I try to remember after each painting session (not so easy when I am on location) to clean my brushes with clean soapy warm water, as follows.

Wipe the brush across a wet piece of soap until a good quantity of the soap is worked into the bristles.
Grip the ends of the bristles with one hand and with the other hand move the brush so that the bristles are splayed out and the soap can work right up to the ferrule.
Now Place the brush into a sink, and squeeze the soap back out by pressing the ferrule end of the bristle against the hard surface until you squeeze out the dirty soapy water. Rinse with warm water
Repeat this until the soapy water that you squeeze out is no longer dirty.
Lastly repeat step one only, then gently mould the bristles nice and straight leaving a good amount of soap in the bristles. The flat can have a chisel edge moulded by squeezing gently between thumb and first finger.
Leave to dry, with the soap "training" and protecting the bristles. You will be able to transport these now without them bending over if they press against anything. The soap, when dry, can be broken out again, when you want to use the brush.

In Conclusion, think of your brushes as the instruments of your trade. Would a surgeon use a dirty scalpel? You must be confident of the brush mark that will get from a particular brush. If it has dry paint up the ferrule, You will not get what you expect, ant the result is loss of control, on the canvas.

I hope this helps

Regards

Ron Gribble

Brush Cleaning
Ron Gribble

There are a lot of commercial brush cleaners available, but I will tell you about a cleaner you can make at home, out of two empty tins.

Before I give the details, I need to explain why a specific cleaner is needed. Why not just a jar of turpentine?

You need to be aware that turpentine only suspends the paint, which then settles down into the bottom on your container. All you are doing after the first clean or two, is stirring up sediment and forcing it up into the brush ferules.

So take a standard food preserving tin; make sure that the lid has been removed without sharp edges. Now take a smaller size tin, Like a baby food tin and place it bottom up onto a desk. Now, take screwdriver, with a medium width end, and with a hammer, gently force slots into the base of the tin. Don’t hit too hard, we only want slots and not holes. Not too close together or you will lose structural strength, but enough to cover as much of the bottom of the tin as you can. The shape edges should be inside the tin, and the smooth slots on the out side.

Now place the small tin bottom up inside the bigger tin the smaller tin should fill about a half of the height of the larger tin.

Fill the larger tin with turpentine, until the smaller is only just covered. You will now be able to clean your brushes on the bottom of the small tin, and paint will drop through the slots and gather in the bottom of the larger tin. If you let it settle, you can pour off the turps and clean out the big tin every now and again.

Next month we will look at caring for you brushes. I trust this is a help to you

Ron

Get Set up Properly
Ron Gribble

If you cannot keep your work place clean and tidy, you will never paint a clean and correct painting.

In the next four months, I want to give you tips on how I keep from painting " Mud" coloured paintings. The secret is in getting organised and disciplined. So often in my workshop, I see people who get paint literally everywhere. So we will cover:

Pallets

Brush Cleaners

Care of Brushes

Colour Mixing – More colours, means mud.

Pallets

In the studio I use a piece of glass. It cleans very easily, as the paint does not soak into it. If I am tinting my board a darker colour, I can slide a sheet of paper, tinted the same colour under the glass. This allows me to mix against the colour on my canvas.

The piles of raw colours around the edges (use the edges further away from you) will dry much slower on the glass. Use a large piece mine is about 1500mm x 400mm. Make sure there are no sharp edges, and use a painting trowel, with a bent neck, to mix your colours. Never mix with a brush this forces the raw colour up into the ferrule of the brush and you lose control of the colour very quickly.

Stop and clean up regularly, brushes and pallet.

Next month: We will learn about brush cleaners.

Happy Painting

Ron

Tint An Alternative Colour.
Ron Gribble

Last month I suggested that you try tinting your boards. A warm mid tone colour. This eliminates the need to cover the stark white when painting in oils. I use a mixture of titanium white and burnt sienna.

This month I want to suggest an alternative colour. Try a darker blue/purple. If you have a close look at the picture of Lake Wanaka, you can see that the background was painted in a pink colour and the other with a mixture of ultramarine blue and burnt sienna and crimson. Lots of this colour appears all over the painting very deliberately. Not only does this technique eliminate the problem of covering the white board, but it also helps to bind the whole paint together into a common "Atmosphere".

Lake Wanaka, NZ

If you try to mix the back ground colour in acrylic and let it thoroughly dry, then re-mix it in oil colour. Use this colour as your atmospheric colour. Tint every colour that you mix for that painting. The whole painting will have a distinct tint towards that original colour.

Now try a different colour! A hot colour or a cold colour! I have had the best results when I have chosen my subjects well. (i.e.: A hot colour for a sunset, a cold colour for a cold scene). Also keep colour on the dark side. A strong colour is fun. If you look closely at the Wanaka painting, you will see what I mean.

Good Painting

Ron Gribble

Try tinting your canvas before you start to paint.
Ron Gribble

Using an artist quality acrylic. You can try several options. The most versatile option is to choose a warm mid tone colour.

EG: Try White: 80%
Burnt Sienna 20%

We will try other options later. Let it dry thoroughly before you paint your oil colour over the top.

Why tint your boards?
Because the stark white will need to be covered in the finished painting. It is stark, lifeless and demands attention if left showing.

Why a warm mid tone?
Every subject that we paint is affected by light. Light is warm. The mid-tone does not leap off the canvas as white does. So if you allow some of the original underpainting to show through thin layers of paint or just simply leave area’s unpainted, it doesn’t matter. It looks like warm light. In creating the illusion of the painting I want to eliminate as many problems as I can as early as I can. This allows me to render the subject in the loose "painterly" style that I desire.

Try it for yourself.

Regards,

Ron Gribble

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