A large array of dark colours that can be had using a range of pigments that can incorporate many different hues. Two of the darkest colours in the artists palette are phthalo blue and phthalo green. Alizarin crimson, burnt sienna and ultramarine are a degree lighter with viridian and alizarin being mid-tones. All of these pigments can be used to create a range of darks that vary in tone.

Even so, it’s essential limit the amount of colours you use or you’ll still end up with a disjointed muddy mess. Using too many layers of colour indiscriminately will mean you’ll loose that felling of freshness in your painting. The fewer colours you use, to get the tone you need, the better. You can only avoid this problem by knowing in advance the colour you want to achieve and always test it for strength before committing it to your painting. When your ready to begin, work quickly and with conviction, otherwise it may look tentative and overworked.

It will also help if you have your dark areas against the lightest ones, this brings a high level of contrast into a picture which adds to it’s drama and graphic appeal. Keep in mind, it’s the dark areas that make the light areas seem bright! Also, try and use the dark areas to create ‘lead-ins’ that direct the eye through the picture.

When approaching a three dimensional object, the colours in the lighter areas are generally warmer, whilst the colours in the shadow areas are cooler. An orange, for example, will have shadows that lean towards blue and a red ball will have shadows that have a hint of green. This is because the shadows contain a certain amount of their complimentary colour within them. The highlight too can be different as a result of their source, a light source from a bright blue sky will produce a blueish tint to the highlight with an artificial light normally yellow in tone.

A product of it’s environment
Objects will, to some extent, reflect colours close to them. Smooth surfaces will obviously reflect a lot more than something that is textured or made from an absorbent material. Think of a white ball on a white table cloth, light will hit the top of the ball creating a lighter patch and a corresponding dark shadow on the cloth on the opposite side of the ball. All the same, the cloth itself will reflect back some of the light up and against the ball so that the side of the ball that faces the cloth will also have a lighter area where it’s nearest to the cloth. The shadow area on the ball is, in fact, seen between the main highlight and the reflected light of the cloth. Producing a still life with fruit can be one of the best ways to practice these theories.

It is tempting to resort to spattering opaque white over the painting to represent falling snow. But this can have a heavy, fake appearnce. A better way to represent falling snow in a scene is a technique that uses salt. Common table salt can be used for this effect but better results can be had by using ground rock salt. Using salt can have a much more delicate effect than white paint and, when added, will create small stars around each salt crystal.

It is essential to get the timing correct when applying the salt so it’s a good idea to trial this first before to adding it to your painting. Applying the salt when the paint is too wet will cause too much of the salt to melt creating overly large snowflakes, which can also run into each other. If you delay it for too long and the paint becomes too dry the effect just won’t work.

When the salt is applied you can either leave the paper flat to stop the flakes merging or by tilting the paper and allowing some of the flakes to run, you can create some interesting blizzard effects. The little star formations can take a few minutes to form so avoid disturbing the paper until they’re ready. When the paint is entirely dry, the salt can be brushed off.

Here are some useful points to bear in mind:

1. Don’t be carried away and use too much salt, it can quickly become overworked.

2. Avoid “aiming” the granules but let them to sprinkle every which way.

3. The technique will not work on paint that has dried and been re-wetted. Always apply to fresh paint.

And finally, try experiment with the technique, some interesting effects can be had by mixing a little salt into the pigment and applying it with the wash.

But before you endeavour to paint your competition winning portrait, you’ll need to be able to paint the individual features of the face without thinking about it. A helpful way to begin practising these elements is to concentrate on the features and repeatedly paint them using black and white washes. This will mean you can concentrate on the their form without having to get bogged down with the nuances of colour.

You can start practising with a basic head form, try using just a round no. 8 brush with tubes of either ivory black or paynes grey. Mix up two washes, one light one for the skin tones and a dark one for the shadows. First of all, determine the shape of the head with a light oval wash and use the dark wash for the shadow on one side of the face and neck, use more of the dark wash to suggest the eye socket and the shadow under the nose. Next, distinguish the shape of the upper lip and shadow under the lower lip. Connect the shadow areas with the light areas. Do this by rinsing your brush, shake off excess water, place it on the shadow above the eye and pull the brush across into the lighter wash, soften the edges with a tissue. Use this method to soften the other areas, like the top of the lip and chin. Keeping it simple like this will help you get used to the shapes and the proportions, try different angles and lighting effects until you’re totally comfortable with the way the paint flows and the shapes can be rendered.

Whilst it is essential, cleaning is in itself is detrimental to the brushes so, if an artist has to interrupt the painting process, say an hour or two, it’s better to just load the brush with fresh paint and either wrap it with cling film. But, if you’re going to leave the brush for a few hours or at most overnight, plunge it in a jar of water to omit air. Still, it’s best to make sure the delicate tips don’t press against the sides of the jar as it will change the shape of the hairs. This is achieved by inserting holes in the lid (making them slightly smaller than the widest part of the handle to stop it dropping down), then fill the jar to the top so that it submerses the head when the brushes are in position. There are brushes (like fans) that have a head that’s actually wider than the handle, this makes it tricky to pass through the hole without pushing the bristles out of shape. For brushes like this, use a length of stiff wire (use gardening wire or an wire coat hanger), to bend around the handle, holding the brush firmly and supporting it in the centre from either edge of the lip. It’s important to make sure that the brushes aren’t left in water for too long, as it can cause the ferrules to rust and the bristles to swell.

When the painting is complete, remove excess paint using kitchen paper or newspaper, and soak the brush in general purpose white spirit (don’t bother with artists quality white spirit for this job) or brush cleaner. Once the remaining paint has been dissolved, wash the brush using washing-up liquid and then rinse thoroughly. Re-shape the brush head before allowing it to dry out.

Whether you like to go rummaging around antique centres or simply have found a long forgotten pet portrait that was left in the attic, you may find that the picture frames have become damaged or the joints may be a bit loose. Assuming the frame is’nt a a rare antique, you can do the repairs yourself relatively easily.

Re-Gluing.
Frames made of wood will expand and contract in conditions that fluctuate from hot to cold, this can result in the joints coming apart. However, if the corner nails havn’t been bent, they are easily re-glued. Start by simply brushing away any dust or dirt and scrape away the old glue. After applying the new glue, support the corners with a clamp until dry. If you don’t happen to have a clamp, you can make do with wooden blocks and some chord; position the two blocks at the middle of each side of the frame, tie the chord tightly around the blocks, then move them towards the corners to tighten the chord.

Re-Enforcing Corners
To strengthen any corners and protect them from further movement, use metal corner plates or pieces of plywood screwed to the reverse of the frame. Be certain that the frame can accommodate the screws without splitting the wood or their tips appearing at the front!

Moulded Frames
Tiny chips in moulded frames can be put right using a normal wood filler. For large areas of damage, take an impression (using model-casting or dental compound) from a similar undamaged area of the frame. Use this to make a mould by pinning the casting material to a flat piece of wood strip, this then can be filled with fibre-glass paste to create a new piece. The new piece can then be sanded to remove any rough edges, then painted or gilded to match the original. Lastly, cut-out the damaged part and trim the new piece to exactly the right size to fill the gap, this is then glued in place.

Types of paper

Hot pressed paper (sometimes referred to as HP) has a smooth hard surface. This type of paper is suitable for drawing, pen and ink or line and wash. It is usually considered too smooth for water colour painting, though some may prefer this side effect.

Cold pressed paper, this is often labelled as ‘NOT’, as in not hot pressed. This is a courser paper with a semi-rough surface. It provides a useful support for water colourists who want smooth washes or fine detail in their work. This sort of paper holds the centre ground as far as texture goes and is more often than not suitable for the novice painter as it is suitable for most water colour effects.

Rough paper is most textured of the water colour papers and has a very pronounced “tooth”. When the artist applies a thin wash to this paper the finish can be speckled, as the pigment can catch in the cavities of the surface. It will also leave the higher areas white giving a brighter effect. These effects are often ultilised by the artist to produce the look and feel they wish to achieve, all the same, they are unpredictable, so can be hard for the inexperienced artist to control.

The particular moment of a movement you choose to show is an important factor in getting it right. As an illustration, the evidently tiny modification to the position of an arm can add to the way an action is perceived. It is more often than not better to avoid showing the moment of impact of, lets say, a hammer hitting an anvil. A better option, is to select the moment just before the anvil is hit, capturing the pent-up tension in the body and arm is a more effective way to express the anticipation of the movement. It is the anticipation of what will happen next that makes the viewer imagine the movement being portrayed, you in effect fire the spectators imagination to create the movement in their head for you, the painting is only the catalyst.

Whether you are studying people or animals, understanding how the body moves and how muscles tense is an important factor of getting it right, here, observation is the key. Practising rapid drawing is a good way to strengthen your knowledge on how your subject works and develop your speed and accuracy in drawing. Practice this often, and don’t be put off with early failures, proficiency can only come with. The ability to observe quickly and accurately is critical for the artist and it’s a skill that should be encouraged.

The most versatile is the sketching easel. This has been designed to close-up for ease of carrying, ideal for field work. Sketching easels are tripods, with the length of every leg being fully adjustable to enable the easel to be placed on uneven ground. It has moveable brackets that allow for quite a broad range of canvas sizes, all of which can be moved to any angle, including fully horizontal. It’s lightweight nature is a bonus when in transit, though can result in it being unstable in breezy conditions, especially with large canvases. This though can be helped by suspending a heavy object from the centre pivot.

For the amateur painter, a sketching easel makes a practical studio easel, as it can be easily put away when the painting is done. There are a range of materials to choose from; aluminium is the most lightweight, steal is the strongest, but also the heaviest. Traditional wooden easels will need to be oiled before using outside and being exposed to the elements.

For those artists lucky enough to have a large studio in which to work, studio easels offer the capability to handle much larger paintings. These easels are made of wood, the simplest form an ‘A’ shape, the larger ones ‘H’ shapes. There are quite a few variations, some with casters, paint trays & devices to raise and lower paintings as required. More expensive models are fitted with motors that lift and lower the canvas for you. Nevertheless, the underlying reason for using an easel, is to enable the artist to carry his or her canvas securely, so your final selection should depend on where you will work and the size of the canvases you want to work on.

Whatever you go for, happy painting!

Natural Wood
Oil paint can, over time, get quite brittle and any movement in the support due to changes in temperature or moisture levels can cause the paint surface to crack. Natural wood is especially vulnerable to this, so some precautions should be taken before using it as a support.

First off, whatever the wood, it must be very well seasoned, as any sap or moisture left in the wood will cause the panel to shrink as it dries out. The grain should be straight and without knots or signs of decay. To prevent warping, small panels need to be of a decent thickness, larger panels will need to be cradled. Cradling involves attaching a couple of batons to the back, across the grain, which should run along the longest length of the panel. Ideally, these fixings should allow for a small amount of movement, as wood will expand and contract with changes in temperature and a panel that is too rigidly cradled may split across it’s width.

The best natural woods to use are hardwoods, well seasoned mahogany being best of all. Walnut is an effective option, but can be attacked by woodworm. Oak, ash, beech, elm and chestnut are all satisfactory supports if well prepared. Maple has a problem with warping.

Plywood
This has great strength and stability, but may warp badly. Better quality plywood with a least five layers should be alright on smaller panels and with cradling on the larger ones. The better ones will be made using veneers from the mahogany family.

Blockboard
Block board is similar to plywood though it has a more solid centre made from batons. This produces a panel less likely to warp than plywood but not as strong. It’s also inclined to be made from poorer quality glues and veneers. It also can be quite heavy in relation to it’s size.

Chipboard
This can also be known as particle board. This type of panel is pretty strong with good stability. Exposed edges might be easily damaged and it also can be quite heavy, especially with large panels.

Hardboard
This is made from compressed wood pulp, has one smooth surface and a rough textured reverse side. It is a light, flexible and a stable support, but it’s flexibility will mean that smaller pieces will need to be properly prepared and larger pieces would, ideally, need to be mounted onto a frame. Bonding two sheets together back to back would also improve the panel. If you use the smooth side to paint on, it’ll need to be sanded to create a tooth for the ground.

MDF
Medium density fibreboard (MDF) is constructed in a similar way to hardboard, but is made of thicker sheets, making this a stronger board that is less likely to warp. The surface isn’t as smooth as hardboard, so can accept grounds easily. On balance, this is perhaps the best type of rigid support available for the pet portrait artist.