Here in Boise artists, teachers and crafters are fortunate to have a large independent art supply warehouse. I much prefer to buy art supplies in person rather then on line. Plus there is no waiting or shipping costs. An often overlooked source for many items that artists use can be found at your local building supply business. For instance costly gesso a white primer used on canvases and panels can be replaced with indoor/outdoor flat or semi gloss acrylic latex at a fraction the cost. If you work in oil low odor turpentine found at the paint department is so similar to so called high priced odorless turpentine I can’t imagine why any one wouldn’t switch. Wile your browsing around the paint department I would advise checking out the faux supplies especially those of you who like to work outside the lines and experiment. Faux paints are acrylic based and mix well with artist acrylic and water paints. The pearls and metallics are especially cool and produce amazing results. One last product I would like to share is called water putty. It’s a dry powder when mixed with water hardens to an incredibly hard paintable surface. I like it for building up a paint surface and to create thick and thin areas prior to priming and painting my panels.
The example is oil on panel 41 x 25 which is still underway. The entire mountain was first rendered as a relief using water putty then primed with 4 coats of flat white acrylic latex indoor out door paint.
Oh I forgot 100% of the panel is made from materials bought at the building supply store and no brush was used to apply paint for the mountains just q-tips.
Happy painting,
Len sodenkamp
www.sodenkampart.com
