A tube of paint is opened, pressure is applied, material comes out and it just works. It is this consistent function of a product that allows artists to focus on larger issues such as what to paint and how to achieve it. As both an artist and a Formulator, I am still amazed every time … Read more
Dow® Chemical first patented our new watercolor binder for QoR, (Poly(2-ethyl-w-oxazoline) in 1977. It is now more commonly known as Aquazol® when it was licensed to another manufacturer. Among its several unique properties was its solubility in a wide range of solvents including water. Its properties for use as an adhesive were first investigated by … Read more
In 1986, amidst the bustle of West Harlem, a rich, jewel-tone mural could be seen rising 30 feet above the lush oasis of Hope Stevens Garden. Homage to Seurat: La Grande Jatte in Harlem, the last remaining work in New York City by the artist Eva Cockcroft, repurposed Seurat’s pointillist style to depict the … Read more
Each time we discuss the planning of our next Just Paint, the entire Technical group waits in anticipation of having their projects accepted for inclusion. We try to plan at least a year in advance because a good deal of watching paint dry often accompanies the work. In writing about cotton fabric supports I began … Read more
Edited by Joyce Hill Stoner and Rebecca Rushfield After seven years of work and including essays by seventy-nine international author-experts, Conservation of Easel Paintings is now available from Taylor and Francis, amazon.com and barnesandnoble.com, etc. David Bomford, formerly Acting Director at the Getty Museum and currently Director of Conservation at the Museum of Fine Arts, … Read more
It is hard to believe that when Golden Artist Colors made its debut in 1980 no brand of acrylic had more than one gel medium, one polymer medium, one matte medium and a molding (or modeling) paste. It was from the needs of artists that GOLDEN Acrylics’ list of mediums expanded to over 46 products … Read more
The acrylic medium for artists has now passed its 60th year since the first artists experimented and created with Bocour’s Magna®. I have been imagining and conjecturing with others for some time now what these materials might look like one hundred, five hundred or a thousand years from now. A significant body of evidence is … Read more
With the dramatic decline in materials and technique education amongst numerous significant institutions, most artists learn even the most basic concepts of canvas preparation from the same people they learn about the birds and the bees … their buds … The situation is not much better on the information superhighway. We’ve attempted in this issue … Read more
I am going to present a stretching procedure that may sound heretical and very much at odds with what artists are taught about canvas preparation from their earliest studio days. I ask that readers please suspend disbelief and give a try to some of the special techniques that follow. If these procedures are embraced, artists … Read more
Artists now have access to a centralized repository of information to assist them in making intelligent choices about the materials they use. This newly created resource is The Art Materials Information and Education Network (AMIEN). Its mission is to provide comprehensive, up-to-date, accurate and impartial information about artists’ materials to artists, art historians, conservators, educators, … Read more
