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Painting
and Finishing
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If you are using computer printed “art”, wallpaper,
or any other mini printed on an ink-jet printer or colour copier, you will
eventually have a problem with fading. Liquitex Gel Medium solves the problem.
Just paint a thin layer on the printed picture. It comes in gloss or matte
finishes, or you can mix a dab of each to create your own semi-gloss. It
goes on white, but dries clear. The colors will stay true even in direct
sunlight. You can paint it thick on any picture cut out of a magazine,
with brush strokes to match the picture to make it look like a painting.
No glass is needed to cover the picture. It also cleans up with water.
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Observe full-size items, first noting color.
As much as size, colour has to be in scale too. Tone everything down. Even
if an apple is bright red in real life, tone it down for miniatures. Use
a great many shades of color to create dimension, even if it is a piece
of furniture. If everything is one color, it is hard-looking. You want
your pieces to be soft and have dimension. On lacquered pieces, use an
oil-based glaze to bring down the tone. Mute even antique petit point using
anything – coffee, tea, commercial dyes – that will give the desired look.
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How to steady your hand and brush while painting
– Relax! That starts with your face and neck muscles. First loosen your
lower jaw. No, you don't have to sit there with your mouth hanging open,
just unclamp your teeth. Next, pry your tongue away from the roof of your
mouth. Any time you concentrate, it is clamped up there behind your teeth
and it does feel very odd if you just let it hang there in the middle of
your mouth. But loosening your tongue muscles also loosens them in your
neck, shoulder, arm and fingers and helps you paint that perfect delicate
line. I have no idea why this works. (Denise Pritchett/D'leprechaun, Bowie,
MD)
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To achieve a swirl effect on walls or ceilings,
spread spackle, then use a toothbrush to make swirls or other patterns.
The brush cleans up rapidly, so you should scrape it clean frequently for
the best results.
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Leaving paint brushes in cleaning fluid and
resting on their bristles causes them to bend and spread, making them useless
for accurate painting. Preserve the shape of the brush by suspending it
in the fluid. Cut a narrow V-shaped slot in a card disk larger than the
mouth of the bottle of cleaning fluid. Press the handle of the brush in
the V notch to suspend the bristles in the cleaner between painting jobs.
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When you wash out sable or other expensive
brushes after using them for watercolour or acrylic, place a drop or two
of Woolite on the brushes to get them really clean and leave them in excellent
condition, then rinse them in clear water. When you clean brushes that
have been used for oil-based paints and have been cleaned in solvent, rinse
them in a little water that’s had some cream rinse added to it, then rinse
them in clear water. This will help recondition the brushes that the solvent
would dry out too quickly. If these hints are followed, brushes will last
a lot longer and keep their shape.
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