Blog
Purchasing supplies
4/28/2024 10:16:38 AM | By Dawn Sutherland | Comment on this
Keeping a studio well stocked is very much like keeping a kitchen pantry and refrigerator well supplied. You don't want to get in the middle of a recipe and find you're out of eggs. It's much the same with studio supplies. If I have an inspiration that would fit nicely onto an 11x14 canvas I want to be able to go to my shelves and find that very size waiting for me. I order almost everything from one online company, Jerry's Artarama. Dick Blick is another company that will occasionally have something that I cannot find at Jerry's. Prices are almost always equal varying a couple of cents or two. Some years ago, I found a woodworker here in Flagstaff who did a fantastic job of fashioning a cabinet for me.

The shelves roll out. I have every size from little 6x8s to 24x36 on the bottom.

And here's the vertical storage. I can easily see when I'm getting low on a particular size.

Good quality brushes are expensive. Brushes for oils and acrylics come in either synthetic bristles, hog hair, or a combination. They come in four types of bristle shapes. "Flats"are long bristled with squared off ends. "Brights" are nearly the same, but shorter bristles. "Filberts" are rounded--like a filbert nut. "Rounds" are, well, round. I use almost exclusively flats but turn to brights for some landscape detail that calls for sharp shadows or light. Here's a screenshot of a page from Jerry's:

This is a fraction of all the brushes and brands that are available.

When I first started painting, I bought only the smaller 37 ml tubes of paint. I soon found I was going through it pretty quickly, so I started looking at 150 ml tubes, and that's almost all I use. I counted 15 companies producing oil paint on the Jerry's site. Let's take a look at what a tube of cobalt blue costs with a few companies:
Charvin's cobalt blue 'genuine' is $105.00 for 150 ml Their cobalt blue 'hue' or synthetic is $45.99
Old Holland offers cobalt blue only in 225 ml, so a little more paint in a tube, however, their price is $294.00
Williamsburg offers cobalt blue in 150 ml for only $103.00
Gamblin sells it for $66.75.
Van Gogh comes in 225ml tubes. In my opinion, these are excellent quality paints, yet the least expensive. Cobalt Blue is listed at $35.43!
Since I get excellent results from Van Gogh, you can guess which one I'm going to purchase.
And then there is the non-painting stuff like wire, screws, off0set clips, D-rings, and did I mention purchasing boxes? I usually order packs of 20 from the Uline company. They come flat and each one has four flaps that are scored so boxes can be adjusted to hold a variety of painting sizes. Recently, I needed to have some sturdier boxes to transport paintings to a show and ordered five pretty fancy ones from Airfloat:

The ones I ordered were $51.00/box, so I definitely want to be sure to get these back when the show is over!
Framing
4/1/2024 7:21:42 AM | By Dawn Sutherland | Comment on this
Sometimes, the painting muse takes a sick day and I'm left with time to paint but nothing is happening on the easel. That's when I usually decide to make the time productive and catch up on framing. If I have everything gathered and organized, I can wire a standard frame in less than five minutes. Yes, I've timed myself.
Here are the tools I use:

I measure about 1/3 down from the top of a frame and determine where I'll drill the holes for the screws and D-rings. If it's an oak frame, I'll rub a little bar of soap over the holes so screws go in easier. My screwdriver has a forward and reverse feature. I purchase D-rings and screws in bulk along with that big spool of wire. The needlenose pliers both cuts the wire, and assists working the wire through the D-rings. Finally, that yellow thing is a point driver. Similar to a stapler, I load a cartridge of little metal points in the thing, position it over the back of a canvas panel, pull the trigger and it drives a point right into the frame. It's an expensive tool, but well worth it!
When I paint in an event where I'll need to do some framing, I bring along a whole toolkit:

The wire, screwdriver, and needle nose pliers are in the bottom compartment.
Finally, I usually place a sticker on the back of paintings.

This has the painting's title, the type of paint (which is always oil) my signature, and the year I painted it.
I also write a bit about the location from which the inspiration came.

