Claybord Panels

Recently I was looking at the website of the artist/illustrator Kinuko Y Craft, who likes to work on a small scale with very fine detail (often using 00 size brushes). She mentioned that she uses Claybord pre-prepared panels as her support. Made by Ampersand, they have a very smooth surface, making them suitable for miniatures and fine work. The clay provides an absorbent surface that takes paint well.

If your aim is to produce a hyper-real image, you don't want a textured support that draws attention to to the surface and destroys the illusion of depth. But for plein air work, surface textures such as the brush marks of un-sanded priming, can add interest, energy, and a kind of honesty.

To get this level of smoothness with home-prepared supports would take a lot of sanding of multiple coats of primer or gesso, waiting for each coat to dry. Some might find the surface too smooth for their style of painting. I have yet to try them myself. Would welcome comments from those who have. 

The panels, which are supposedly more archival than masonite, are also made with a box-like cradle suitable for hanging unframed (you might have to clean up the edges for presentability if you are a messy painter). The sides are also paintable. They are not cheap, but if you don't want to spend time preparing panels, they might be a good option, and you can save on framing costs if you use the deep cradled panels and hang them unframed for a clean, modern look. 

The thin un-boxed panels would be the most convenient for plein air trips. Plein air painters often use slotted boxes to separate wet panels during transportation.

Painting on Silver

This square painting by the American artist Katherine B Young, is one of a series painted on silver leaf. I imagine this would give a wonderful reflective quality for waterscapes. The oil paint layer would have to be transparent enough to reveal the silver underneath, requiring the use of a glazing medium. This is a largish piece (36 x 36 inches).

Point Lobos Surf, 24 x 30 inches
Artist's website

Bird's Eye View

The Golden Rose, oil on paper on panel, 2007, 36 x 3ft 12 inches

Farseekers - Journey, oil on paper mounted on masonite, 27 x 32 inches

These illustrations by the New York based artist, Donato Giancola, are striking in their use of aerial perspectives. Though the works are quite large, Giancola has chosen paper mounted on panel for his support. 

When working in fine detail, paper is a good option as it provides a smooth surface unobtainable with canvas without lots of priming, sanded between coats. Paper, however, needs to be mounted on a panel or canvas support, with an archival glue, to prevent buckling and damage. 

Artist's website

Watercolour effects

Occasionally it's worth breaking the 'oils only' theme of this blog to look at some watercolours. These watercolours by the French illustrator Edmund Dulac are for Shakespeare's marine-themed play The Tempest. Watercolour is great for creating nebulous, marbled or bleeding effects to add texture and mystery, especially in backrounds. Similar effects can be achieved with oil paint highly diluted with a solvent such as turpentine or mineral spirit. But beware of the health hazards of breathing solvent fumes. Open windows and use a fan to disperse the fumes, or work outdoors in a breeze. Paint drips are fashionable in contemporary painting, but if you want to avoid them, keep the canvas horizontal when using diluted paint.

Cherry Hood, an Australian artist who won the country's most prestigious portrait prize a few years ago, paints with watercolour on large canvases. This avoids the health issues of using solvents but she has to seal the pigment with vanish because there's no glass to protect it. She uses damar varnish, which presumbly would have to be applied as a spray, brushing it on would smear the watercolour. I would guess there are health issues with spraying varnish too, but the process would be fairly quick and you could wear a mask.

Watercolour Sketches

Harold Irving Smith, American, 1892-1969

Painting a moving target, like the sea, is not easy. Some seascape artists like to work from photographs. Personally, I find that, while a camera may capture the detail of that elusive veil of spray, once I look at photos back at home, hours or days later, the inspirational feeling of the moment has been lost. I find it difficult to work from photos, but they are useful as a reference, combined with sketches. Rapid sketches done on location, can be a good way of preparing for an oil seascape. With subjects as transient as a waves and spray, you have to get used to drawing or painting from memory to quite an extent.

This watercolour sketch, looks as if it has been done very quickly yet it captures all the essential elements of the scene/event. With quick sketches, there's no time to get lost in photographic detail. The artist has started with a rapid pencil sketch, drawing as lightly as possible in order to free up the subsequent washes of transparent colour.

For on site seascape studies, pencils and watercolours and a small pad of watercolour paper are more convenient to carry around than canvases and tubes of oil paint. Oil sketch paper can be substituted for bulky canvases. Small tubes, designed to minimise the weight of a plein air paint box, are available in certain brands. Some plein air oil painters, who know in advance the kind of colours they are going to encounter, take a palette with oil colours already squeezed out onto it (presumably covered to stop it drying out) leaving the heavy tubes behind.  Some artists even premix the colours they expect to use, but the disadvantage of using premixed colours is that the colours in the environment are always changing. Still, something to consider.

Neil Taylor - Australian

The Other End of the Beach, Acrylic

The subtle blending required for the smooth tonal gradation in the sand is easier to achieve in oils than in fast-drying acrylics, but mediums are availble to extend the drying time.