ACRYLIC PAINTS
Five landscapes in this book are painted with acrylic, and five are painted with oil. You may paint the projects in their designated mediums or use the acrylic/oil conversion chart to paint the project in your preferred medium. The next few pages are an overview of materials you will need to complete the projects in the book, organized by medium.
PAINTS
The acrylic projects in this book are painted with DecoArt Americana paints. I find these paints are readily available in most places and on the Internet. The colors are consistent and come in a wide variety of hues. It is easier to paint on the canvas if you use more paint in the brush. Since I do not use water in my brushes, I need the extra paint to be able to work wet-into-wet.
WET PALETTE
I prefer to use a wet palette with acrylics. Masterson’s makes a nice wet palette, StaWet Painter’s Palette, which has a yellow lid. Remove the sponge that is included and replace it with four layers of Blue Shop Towels that are wet. Lay a piece of deli wrap paper or Maureen McNaughton wet palette paper on top. The wet palette keeps your acrylic paint workable for a long time. When painting on canvas, I do not like my acrylic paint to become too wet. You may want to try painting on a regular palette without the wet palette. Depending on the humidity at your location, the need for a wet palette will vary.
EASY FLOAT MIX
Easy Float is a medium from DecoArt that you add to your floating water to help make nice, graduated floats. For this book, I use the medium not only to float, but as a glazing medium, a medium to thin the paint when loading a liner brush and also to dress the brush when floating. You will find the term Easy Float Mix throughout the book.
Easy Float Mix: Fill a clean, 2 ounce (57g) bottle halfway with Easy Float. Fill the remaining half of the bottle with water. In some drier areas of the country, you might try 2/3 water and 1/3 Easy Float. If you find the paint drying too quickly on your palette, you need to add more Easy Float to the mix. This allows the paint a little bit more open time to make blending easier. Use a small mop brush and stipple up and down where the float ends to help blend into the background. Easy Float does not thin the color enough to make line work transparent.
DecoArt Americana Acrylic Paints
Easy Float
ADDITIONAL MATERIALS
Brush Basin: Used to hold water. Look for a basin that has three wells for water and is deep enough to hold lots of water. This keeps you from having to replenish the basin too often. One well can always be kept clean and ready to use for floating.
Canvas Gel: When working with DecoArt Americana paint on canvas, I like to use a thin layer of DecoArt Canvas Gel on the surface so the paints will blend easily.