Updated Class & Workshop Schedule
The next 3 months of the Art Store schedule has been released:
- Painting class and Sculpture Class will be repeating. Drawing Class is being offered again in April.
- Introduction to Watercolors with Caroline Linscott is being offered at the end of March.
- Another workshop will be announced in March to be held at the end of May.
To visit our scheduler online, you can do so by going here or at https://prescottartstore.com/events/
Due to being in the know of the current and future events, the store is being stocked for the upcoming classes and workshops. There was a shortage on Arches Watercolor Paper but this has been remedied.
Ampersand Art Products launches new website
Famous Artist Spotlight
Winslow Homer (February 24, 1836 – September 29, 1910) was an American landscape painter and printmaker, best known for his marine subjects.
He is considered one of the foremost painters in 19th-century America and a preeminent figure in American art.
Largely self-taught, Homer began his career working as a commercial illustrator.[1] He subsequently took up oil painting and produced major studio works characterized by the weight and density he exploited from the medium. He also worked extensively in watercolor, creating a fluid and prolific oeuvre, primarily chronicling his working vacations.
Born in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1836, Homer was the second of three sons of Charles Savage Homer and Henrietta Benson Homer, both from long lines of New Englanders. His mother was a gifted amateur watercolorist and Homer’s first teacher. She and her son had a close relationship throughout their lives. Homer took on many of her traits, including her quiet, strong-willed, terse, sociable nature; her dry sense of humor; and her artistic talent.[4] Homer had a happy childhood, growing up mostly in then-rural Cambridge, Massachusetts. He was an average student, but his art talent was evident in his early years.
Homer’s father was a volatile, restless businessman who was always looking to “make a killing”. When Homer was thirteen, Charles gave up the hardware store business to seek a fortune in the California gold rush. When that failed, Charles left his family and went to Europe to raise capital for other get-rich-quick schemes that did not pay off.[5]
After Homer’s high school graduation, his father saw a newspaper advertisement and arranged for an apprenticeship. Homer’s apprenticeship at the
age of 19 to J. H. Bufford, a Boston commercial lithographer, was a formative but “treadmill experience”.[6] He worked repetitively on sheet music covers and other commercial work for two years. By 1857, his freelance career was underway after he turned down an offer to join the staff of Harper’s Weekly. “From the time I took my nose off that lithographic stone,” Homer later stated, “I have had no master, and never shall have any
.”[7]
Homer’s career as an illustrator lasted nearly twenty years. He contributed illustrations of Boston life and rural New England life to magazines such as Ballou’s Pictorial and Harper’s Weekly[8] at a time when the market for illustrations was growing rapidly and fads and fashions were changing quickly. His early works, mostly commercial wood engravings of urban and country social scenes, are characterized by clean outlines, simplified forms, dramatic contrast of light and dark, and lively figure groupings—qualities that remained important throughout his career.[9] His quick success was mostly due to this strong understanding of graphic design and also to the adaptability of his designs to wood engraving.
Before moving to New York in 1859, Homer lived in Belmont, Massachusetts with his family. His uncle’s Belmont mansion, the 1853 Homer House, was the inspiration for a number of his early illustrations and paintings, including several of his 1860s croquet pictures. The Homer House, owned by the Belmont Woman’s Club, is open for public tours.
More of February’s spotlighted artist can be read about at Winslow Homer – Wikipedia.
Daniel Smith Watercolors and watercolor sticks are 25% off their MSRP!
M. Graham Watercolor, Gouache, Acrylic, Oil are 25% off their MSRP !
Fredrix Prestretched Canvas is 40% off!
Richeson Deluxe Lobo Easel is 25% off!
There is an overwhelming collection of little bottles filled with additives and fixatives available to change the behavior of your paints. Each will allow you to vary your paint in the most subtle or dramatic ways based on the substance. While you may be tempted to buy everything available, start with some basics and build your stock from there carefully. Learn to read and understand labels, and find out what your favorite artists use and duplicate their efforts.
Mediums
Mediums are mixed with oil and acrylic paints to enhance the pigments’ behavior usually through manipulating flow. Separate mediums are used for oil-based paints and water-based paints.
For Oil Paint
Mediums for oil paints are made from mixtures of separate products with which an artist plays (often in capped bottles as shown below) to develop his/her own recipe. For example, a traditional medium mixture is one part Damar varnish, one part stand oil, five parts turpentine and a few drops cobalt or Japan drier. Mediums may also be bought in pre-made mixtures. Commercially made mediums can vary as much as home-spun recipes. Whether homemade or store-bought, mediums can be placed in a lidded glass jar and reused for many painting sessions.
For Acrylics
Although acrylics can be thinned with water, they lose quality in the process. Mediums can aid in the flow of acrylics without changing the hue or intensity of the color. In fact, acrylics can be heavily manipulated with the bevy of new mediums now on the market. Gels will thicken acrylics for an impasto effect, retarders slow drying time, and tinting mediums alter hue and/or color intensity.
For Watercolors
Generally, watercolors are mixed with water for creating transparencies, but mediums such as Gum of Arabic or even acrylic mediums can increase the brilliance of colors. There are also several different mediums available to increase the fluidity and texture of watercolors.
helpful hints:
Mediums
As you experiment with mediums, keep in mind these guidelines:
1) Use the minimum amount of medium to serve a particular purpose. Conservators seem to be in agreement that oil paintings done with straight paint (no mediums except a little thinner) form the strongest, most permanent films.
2) When using gobs of oil-containing gel mediums to build up texture, there is significant danger of yellowing.
3) Yellowing is sometimes rapid and pronounced when a painting is left in darkness; the yellowing will gradually lighten as the painting is exposed to normal daylight.
4) Mediums containing copal varnish are likely to darken significantly.
Freedom Convoy Update
The US Convoy is imminent. This will affect all shipping delivery times. Please remember to get your essentials: Food, water, medications and of course most importantly art supplies.
There will be plenty of inspiration coming up for creating Americana arts.
PB60 Pigment is Back!
As you may know, in 2021 there was an extended period where Golden Acrylics were unable to secure PB60 in the grade required to manufacture artist colors, and as a result, items containing this pigment were made unavailable. Late in 2021, supplies of PB60 became available once again and we have since begun manufacturing items containing this pigment.
Today, we are happy to announce that many of these items will be available again beginning February 1st, 2022. See the enclosed list of included items from the GOLDEN Heavy Body, Fluids, and Open lines of acrylic colors:
The following sizes from these product lines remain UNAVAILABLE:
- Heavy Body Acrylics – 32oz and Gallons
- Fluid Acrylics – 32oz
- OPEN Acrylics – 8oz
New on the Sales Floor!
ChoCoLate Clay
very dark, cone 5-6
A Dark Hershey brown smooth clay, almost black, glazes look cool and fit!
Best results fire medium speed to cone 5 and hold for 10 min.
| dry | fired | cone 6 |
| shrinkage | shrinkage | absorption |
| 10% | 15% | 0.30% |
BEST Studio Taboret 5 Drawer
- Taboret dimensions: 19-1/2″(w) × 19-1/2″(d) × 30-1/4″(h)
- Top 3 drawer dimensions (inside): 14-3/4″(w) × 16-1/2(d) × 1-3/4″(h)
- 4th drawer dimensions (inside): 14-3/4″(w) × 16-1/2(d) × 6-1/4″(h)
- 5th drawer dimensions (inside): 14-3/4″(w) × 16-1/2(d) × 9″(h)
- Made of solid oak and oak plywood
- Includes plastic casters
- Shipping weight: 66 lbs.
- Box dimensions: 23″ × 23″ × 35″
