Williamsburg Alkyd Resin and Extender Medium

Mediums are important additions to the oil painter’s toolbox. They modify the feel of paint, change the surface sheen, build or reduce viscosity, and in some cases, can be the driving factor behind the aesthetic of a work. Williamsburg Handmade Oil Colors Alkyd Resin can be mixed with oil paints

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image of watercolor travel palettes

Filling Half Pans with QoR Watercolor

Whether your QoR mini needs a refill, or you wish to use QoR colors in your tried-and-true travel palette, QoR tube paints work beautifully in pans and half pans. Due to QoR’s modern formula, the dry tube paint will re-wet easily and provide the intense saturation or quiet subtlety expected

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Medium Density Overlay

  People often ask us what we would recommend as a wood panel option for use as a painting substrate and one that often comes up is MDO (Medium Density Overlay) plywood. While used by many muralists, as well as some panel painters, it is probably the least known of

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Tips and Tricks for Varnishing

EDITOR’S NOTE (4/26/23): Please note that Polymer Varnish has been discontinued and replaced with Gloss Waterborne Varnish. You can read more about it here. Mirjam Hintz completed her MA and Professional Doctorate studies in Conservation with a focus on painting from the University of Amsterdam. She is the newest member of

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Rolling Acrylic Paintings for Shipping or Storage

Rolling acrylic paintings for storage and shipping is a fairly common practice, and many painters have likely rolled, un-rolled, and re-rolled their own paintings with some success. However, while we know it can be done, it is still not our best recommendation. There are definite risks to be aware of,

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Using QoR Masking Fluid with Watercolor

QoR Masking Fluid is a ready-to-use, removable liquid made with natural latex which may be applied to watercolor paper or watercolor ground before painting. Once dry, the Masking Fluid will resist paint, allowing watercolor artists to preserve fine details and lines of white paper that might be difficult to paint

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The Process of Alkali Refining Linseed Oil

  Linseed oil comes from flax seeds which are harvested from the same flax plant that produces the fibers used to make linen. Artists have been using linseed oil for centuries to make paints, mediums and varnishes. It is widely used today, not only in artist materials, but also for a

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Collection of earth colors

Sorry, Wrong Umber…..Part I

You reach for a tube of Cadmium Red or Ultramarine Blue and you intuitively trust that they contain the very pigments they are named after. It’s a trust formed over years and decades of personal use, along with an assumption, an almost blind belief, that paints must surely be labeled

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Blocking Support Induced Discoloration

Support Induced Discoloration or SID describes a phenomenon that can occur when the acrylic appears to change in color upon drying. It usually takes on a yellow, orange or brown tint, due to impurities in the substrate being drawn up into the acrylic film. The discoloration occurs while the paint

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