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Goodbye Velasco, hello Millet
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Posted
Another visit to my lovely National Gallery on Wednesday.
It was members preview day for the Jean Francois Millet exhibition. A very small room which was packed with so many members. So I will have to return when the Gallery is quieter and I can take a photo or two.
I decided to give the Velasco exhibition another visit before it closes in a few days. I'm a fan of his work despite his being more or less a single subject artist.
I checked the surfaces he used. Very very smooth. I wondered how he could prepare canvas like that. Even his smaller pictures have some remarkable details. I popped into the Imps gallery, checking out a couple of paintings from different periods on the way. They also were smooth and the weave wasn't visible.
So I headed home rather depressed thinking I'm not going to have that kind of patience in preparation. Then the penny dropped that I am starting with the cheapest of materials. Doh!
At home I ordered from Jacksons a variety of canvases and boards ranging from their own standard to W&N professional and a Belle Artis. They've just arrived (so quick!) and my mojo has returned. Everyone of them is better than the stuff I've been using even after I'd gessoed it.
Sometimes you *can* blame the tools.
Posted
You make an important point.
My advice to people starting out is pretty well invariable - buy the quality that experienced artists recommend, don't buy too many colours or brushes at the outset, if you're a watercolourist, get the best paper you can find for the stage you're at: e.g. The Langton, Bockingford: and you might well find you stick with it forever, because it works for you. Few of us are millionaires, so budget at the outset, based on the best advice you can get - you don't need every brush, every colour, highly priced surfaces. Build your collection of materials gradually, on the basis of the best quality you can afford at the time, but DO take advice from those whose work you admire, if you can: most professional artists will be happy to advise; more should have the courage to ask them. Bad or just inadequate materials may not mean bad or inadequate work, but they're not giving you a chance - we all know, I suppose, of artists who started out with nothing but a stick of chalk and an old school exercise-book, but we also all know that they had to move on from that. Discriminate of course - and you'll need advice for that when starting on the journey - but if you really care about what you're doing, get the best materials you can to achieve the purpose you seek. The magazine on which this site is based has plenty of advice on materials, if anything this Forum has more - sup it all up! It doesn't have to be a mysterious journey, fraught with error at every turn; you don't have to learn from scratch.