Thanks, I’ve been looking for something much like this, because I’ve been super curious about how John Lurie does these vibrant backgrounds & then paints watercolor & gouache over them without the background tone reactivating & making a mess (but also not interfering with subsequent layers of water-based media absorbing into the paper, the way an acrylic-based paint would gum up the works so to speak- create an impermeable film on top of the paper). I am unclear though… How does this method not allow the toning to reactivate & bleed if you are just using watercolor paint (even if you’re adding a bit of ink to it)? I guess you’re just careful to not add excessive water that would reactivate it? I wonder if I could do this with ink alone or perhaps acryl gouache or something… I haven’t been a huge fan of either watercolor blocks or just taping my paper down… It can work alright if it’s an extremely thick, heavy paper, but once I started stretching my paper, I was sooo blown away by the difference it makes that I really wouldn’t want to attempt a serious painting without doing so, except on the top tier heaviest & most rigid cotton paper (& at that point it’s like… It’s only going to potentially improve your experience if you bother to do it, so why risk inferior results on such expensive paper if you can just stretch it & know that the good stuff is not going to buckle basically AT ALL if you stretch it properly?)… I also started out trying to stretch my paper with normal household tapes; obviously didn’t work well. Watched some tutorials, gave the gummed tape a try… Better, but I still wasn’t really happy with it. It’s a pain to remove (you basically have to accept just cutting it off & leaving a border of ugly tape from what I could surmise)… BY FAR the easiest & most effective technique I have found is to simply get a staple gun with staples of an adequate weight/thickness & arm length for whatever surface you’re stapling them to (I use cheap wooden panels)- you do want something rigid & durable, but obviously even with a weaker surface you need staples sufficiently strong to hold the stretched paper in place. Then you just soak the paper (briefly enough to avoid damaging the sizing, the way any number of tutorials will explain), staple it down along the perimeter when it’s swollen to around its maximum size, & lay it flat somewhere to dry. I will say, it’s still a bit of a pain in the butt to remove staple gun staples (there are probably tricks one can employ to make it easier on yourself- I find that some of them staple so solidly against the wood panel that it’s extremely hard to get a staple remover under there without tearing up the paper, so either using bigger paper than you need so you can cut the edges off in the end, or for example, using a surface that’s thin enough that the arms of the staples will protrude from the back so you can press them in from the underside to give yourself a gap to pull them from [just be careful if you do that, because when you’re stapling the staple arms will shoot all the way through the board, which means you don’t want to have it flat against a surface you don’t want damaged, but also be VERY careful not to have it against your own body, where you could get punctured])… And yes, it does mean having staple holes around the perimeter in the end, which you can plan to trim off. However, I’d rather trim like 3mm off around the edges to cleanly remove staple holes than either have to trim off or be left with like an INCH of tape around each edge (because with the gummed tape you have to allow the very wide tape to overlap a LOT with the paper in order for it to hold it down evenly & firmly (& even then you sometimes get gaps where water can flow under the tape). So imperfect as it is, I definitely prefer it over any tape method I’ve tried- you know the staples aren’t going to give you any trouble once they’re in there. In any case, stretching the paper that way makes for such a great painting experience, where you can wet & rewet to your heart’s content without ever having to work around warping that can suddenly screw up a whole painting after an hour of work. There’s nothing worse than paint reactivating during a wash & then a warp in the paper causing it all to bleed & flow into a crease, & suddenly a beautiful floral or portrait or landscape or whatever looks like a bunch of wishy-washy mud. Anyway, thanks again for great info. ✌️
Im so glad i get a explanation om how to take of 1 paper sheet of a glued aquarell pad☺️ now i dont need to cut em off anymore with my light saber!! And no, i wont borrow my light saber! even if i have no use for it amymore!😲 Well that aside, guys you dont need to use half a kilo masking tape! Even more so if you only have expensiv ones... if your paper buckles, you make it wett on the back side too, or on the surfave youre puting the paper on. Of course only if its a water proof surface. But the backside should do too. And only with water, not paint😏 you have no white outlines on the papper like that but you can make it nicely wett for a wash without wasting masking tape. And your paper wont buckle like here you see at the end whennuts dry🤨 even though he pinned it down like crazy😅 best to try with cheaper w.color paper and see if it works and hownit works. Well... thats the masters for you on this channel🤔😏
A good board that takes tacks and staples is Homosote, if you can find it. Look in 4x8 sheets. It's a pressed paper that is used for insulation. Its great. And you can coat it with latex paint but you don't have to.. 2. You should have tweezers handy for the brush hair.😊😊😊😊
🧐 Not a student? Enroll for as little as $25/month. nma.art
I MUST try this.
Thanks for the info and effectively showing your process.
I have some where to go but this is all I want to do 🤣🤣
Very good video. Going to try this for sure.😊
Gracias por tus enseñanzas ❤
Thanks, I’ve been looking for something much like this, because I’ve been super curious about how John Lurie does these vibrant backgrounds & then paints watercolor & gouache over them without the background tone reactivating & making a mess (but also not interfering with subsequent layers of water-based media absorbing into the paper, the way an acrylic-based paint would gum up the works so to speak- create an impermeable film on top of the paper). I am unclear though… How does this method not allow the toning to reactivate & bleed if you are just using watercolor paint (even if you’re adding a bit of ink to it)? I guess you’re just careful to not add excessive water that would reactivate it? I wonder if I could do this with ink alone or perhaps acryl gouache or something…
I haven’t been a huge fan of either watercolor blocks or just taping my paper down… It can work alright if it’s an extremely thick, heavy paper, but once I started stretching my paper, I was sooo blown away by the difference it makes that I really wouldn’t want to attempt a serious painting without doing so, except on the top tier heaviest & most rigid cotton paper (& at that point it’s like… It’s only going to potentially improve your experience if you bother to do it, so why risk inferior results on such expensive paper if you can just stretch it & know that the good stuff is not going to buckle basically AT ALL if you stretch it properly?)…
I also started out trying to stretch my paper with normal household tapes; obviously didn’t work well. Watched some tutorials, gave the gummed tape a try… Better, but I still wasn’t really happy with it. It’s a pain to remove (you basically have to accept just cutting it off & leaving a border of ugly tape from what I could surmise)… BY FAR the easiest & most effective technique I have found is to simply get a staple gun with staples of an adequate weight/thickness & arm length for whatever surface you’re stapling them to (I use cheap wooden panels)- you do want something rigid & durable, but obviously even with a weaker surface you need staples sufficiently strong to hold the stretched paper in place. Then you just soak the paper (briefly enough to avoid damaging the sizing, the way any number of tutorials will explain), staple it down along the perimeter when it’s swollen to around its maximum size, & lay it flat somewhere to dry.
I will say, it’s still a bit of a pain in the butt to remove staple gun staples (there are probably tricks one can employ to make it easier on yourself- I find that some of them staple so solidly against the wood panel that it’s extremely hard to get a staple remover under there without tearing up the paper, so either using bigger paper than you need so you can cut the edges off in the end, or for example, using a surface that’s thin enough that the arms of the staples will protrude from the back so you can press them in from the underside to give yourself a gap to pull them from [just be careful if you do that, because when you’re stapling the staple arms will shoot all the way through the board, which means you don’t want to have it flat against a surface you don’t want damaged, but also be VERY careful not to have it against your own body, where you could get punctured])… And yes, it does mean having staple holes around the perimeter in the end, which you can plan to trim off. However, I’d rather trim like 3mm off around the edges to cleanly remove staple holes than either have to trim off or be left with like an INCH of tape around each edge (because with the gummed tape you have to allow the very wide tape to overlap a LOT with the paper in order for it to hold it down evenly & firmly (& even then you sometimes get gaps where water can flow under the tape). So imperfect as it is, I definitely prefer it over any tape method I’ve tried- you know the staples aren’t going to give you any trouble once they’re in there.
In any case, stretching the paper that way makes for such a great painting experience, where you can wet & rewet to your heart’s content without ever having to work around warping that can suddenly screw up a whole painting after an hour of work. There’s nothing worse than paint reactivating during a wash & then a warp in the paper causing it all to bleed & flow into a crease, & suddenly a beautiful floral or portrait or landscape or whatever looks like a bunch of wishy-washy mud.
Anyway, thanks again for great info. ✌️
❤
Im so glad i get a explanation om how to take of 1 paper sheet of a glued aquarell pad☺️ now i dont need to cut em off anymore with my light saber!! And no, i wont borrow my light saber! even if i have no use for it amymore!😲
Well that aside, guys you dont need to use half a kilo masking tape! Even more so if you only have expensiv ones... if your paper buckles, you make it wett on the back side too, or on the surfave youre puting the paper on. Of course only if its a water proof surface. But the backside should do too. And only with water, not paint😏 you have no white outlines on the papper like that but you can make it nicely wett for a wash without wasting masking tape. And your paper wont buckle like here you see at the end whennuts dry🤨 even though he pinned it down like crazy😅 best to try with cheaper w.color paper and see if it works and hownit works. Well... thats the masters for you on this channel🤔😏
A good board that takes tacks and staples is Homosote, if you can find it. Look in 4x8 sheets. It's a pressed paper that is used for insulation. Its great. And you can coat it with latex paint but you don't have to.. 2. You should have tweezers handy for the brush hair.😊😊😊😊
Firstlity..art.shop.At.painting.are.chaing.to..good.will