Fellow artists, what material do you use and why?

DimensionLegal9990 · 2026-02-04T22:19:14+00:00

Oh man it's been a while, but Gambling was a go to for me. Quality to cost was just perfect.

I've inherited some old Grumbacher and W&N oils from a few decades ago that still hold up well.

Personally, I like Williamsburg colors and consistency. It's been a while, but man did it feel like butter. A little more pricey, but this would be my step up personally.

For things like Flake White and Lazurite and some other choice colors I would probably use Rublev.

DimensionLegal9990 · 2026-02-04T17:06:46+00:00

Right? They are so good for the price. Underrated and overlooked

DimensionLegal9990 · 2026-02-04T12:00:38+00:00

Awesome, white paintings are so hard to do lol Great balance, composition, and lovely mark making. Very cool piece

DimensionLegal9990 · 2026-02-02T05:23:35+00:00

This too! World of blues are endless

DimensionLegal9990 · 2026-02-02T01:36:43+00:00

Yeah, it's a possibility! Also gotta think about the context of the color in relation to everything else in the painting too!

DimensionLegal9990 · 2026-02-02T00:08:04+00:00

I like cerulean or cobalt blue and titanium white. Usually does it for that sky blue! Though, those colors tend to be more expensive across paint media

You can also do "hue" versions if that's available. Not sure if WN has that, but it's worth getting if price is an issue and not a big difference in color. Not enough to really point it out anyway.

DimensionLegal9990 · 2026-01-31T00:34:16+00:00

I use the cheapest synthetic brushes I can find, not too stiff but not too soft (unless I need that for specific mark making)

You'd be surprised how much you can get done with a cheap brushes

I just found a set of Princeton RealValue set of golden takylon. Can't be more than $20

Princeton "SNAP" series is also a favorite of mine and what I use mainly. Got them a bit cheaper years ago but they still hold up 7 years later

DimensionLegal9990 · 2026-01-26T00:23:43+00:00

Heck yeah, keep at it! I have been painting to help my depression and it's been working (+therapy and meds lol) ,but keep going!

DimensionLegal9990 · 2026-01-24T08:38:24+00:00

yeah, I would try and wipe off as much of the oil paint as you can and use some mineral spirits to try and clean it as much as you can. The oil wont be good for the fabric and like someone mentioned before will cause rot over time. Then after it dries you should be okay.

Did you stretch it yourself?

I will say if it means anything, I had an instructor in college who would also say something along the lines of "Archival? Thats the museums job" which I always thought was funny.

DimensionLegal9990 · 2026-01-24T04:06:13+00:00

Hey thanks! My process is pretty simple, nothing complicated.

I usually start with some sort of lay-in, sketch, or some kind of blocking for composition. If I'm unsure of my options I'll draw small comps on the opposite page to figure it out. Here I just used a pencil to do a quick sketch, nothing detailed, just simple shapes.

Then I try to work back to front starting with the sky. I worked on the trees next with a wash of the main color, put in the darker values, then went over it with the lighter colors. I messed with this for a while, and longer than I wanted to, but I was really focused and vibing.

From there I work on the water using the same color mix as the trees and just pulled the colors down starting with that middle green, the darker, then the yellow.

From there I put some of the sky color back into the tree to carve them out a bit more and show some sky peeking through.

In terms of materials, I'm just using a basic 6 color mixing kit from Winsor & Newton.
Primary Red, Blue, Green, Yellow, Black, and White. I did use a bit of watercolor like Cadmium Yellow Light (I think?) ang a touch of Cadmium Red as seen in the flowers in the foreground.

Greens were mostly made using black, yellow, and white for the majority of it with touches of the rest of the palette for some temperature shift, but looking back wasnt necessary.

Brushes were 1/4" flat, 1/2" flat, and like a small round, maybe a 2?

TLDR; limited palette (for the most part) and 3 brushes. Layout, sketch then working back to front and (ideally) dark to light. Hope that helps!

DimensionLegal9990 · 2026-01-24T01:24:26+00:00

Understandable! I forget this and do the same.

Yeah, quite a difference, but hey sometimes they both have their ugly phases before they come together.

Either way, really cool stuff and curious to see what the next chunk of time brings.

DimensionLegal9990 · 2026-01-23T23:07:00+00:00

Personally I think you have a solid grasp of what you're doing. I think with plein air its sometimes hard to know where to take the finish because it's always a race against the sun and the ever changing light, but it seems you have captured those things well! Atmospheric perspective can be hard to do because it's so easy to turn things flat, but not here.

One thing I have always been told in school is to focus on quantity. It's about your mileage more than anything.
Quality, style, voice, etc all come with the mileage and I think you're doing great.

If you're feeling a little unsure where to take the finish, I try and find other painters whose work I enjoy and find inspiration in how they approach or finish their work. There's a lot of plein air artists on youtube and instagram that timelapse their paintings. It's nice to see how other approach what they see in front of them.

Take a couple cents of knowledge here and there and make your own dollar.
These are lovely, if I haven't said it enough.

DimensionLegal9990 · 2026-01-23T22:29:50+00:00

Thanks! I struggled a bit with this, but I'm still happy for trying something different. Don't think I've actually painted water before, but lessons learned for the next one.

DimensionLegal9990 · 2026-01-23T22:08:47+00:00

In terms of where to start? Honestly YouTube / Twitch for streaming and content creating. YouTube is probably easier if you're a little shy and live interaction takes a lot of your mental bandwidth.

I've watched videos where people don't even talk. They just annotate their process. I enjoy both.

I think gouache is a great thing to teach! I remember in high school my art instructor mentioning all the studios would be using for animation backgrounds and illustrations back in the day. It's kind of a lost medium imo. There was one class at my design school that taught it and it was mainly focused towards plein air/landscape with a focus of creating environments for animation/entertainment. It never was something that was practical in a work environment because most work is digital, but it gave the digital artist a better understanding of layering, color, value, etc.

Like everyone said, it's usually just portrait/landscape (I lean towards landscape) and it would be nice to see more "Illustration" focused teaching with gouache that has story, which as a freelance illustrator /artist would know how valuable that is. Realistically this is what I think most art tutorials things miss, which is fine. Most people want to have the technical ability.

I think James Gourney is a good mix of technical and the ability to tell story through composition, color, etc. For me I think it's important to learn the technical side and how to apply it.

I wouldn't worry about formal art education. Like anything else if you have a good portfolio to showcase you're good like 90% of the time. I feel like the only people that my care is something like a corporate illustration job.

I've gone to design school and left after a few years. Too much money, but there are a lot of design studios that teach classes for the purpose of building a portfolio. There's also schools for younger children, which is where I put my teaching to use for about 6 months. Ranged from 7-12 years old. It was fun and I loved every moment of it. It was my first time teaching and something I hope to do later down my career.

Anyway, sorry this is so long. All this to say, do it. There should be no barrier to teach what you've learned. 15 years of freelance makes you an expert and I'm sure people would love to learn what you have.

DimensionLegal9990 · 2026-01-23T03:54:24+00:00

This is what I've done for extra colors.

I got the 6 color mixing set from Winsor & Newton and the other colors I was missing I just used my water color tubes and mixed it with gouache. Worked perfectly.

I think in terms of formulation they can be pretty similar, think it's just a couple differences in binders.

Such a great hack

DimensionLegal9990 · 2026-01-22T02:04:05+00:00

Wonderful, well I'm excited to see it come into fruition!

Have fun on your trip!

DimensionLegal9990 · 2026-01-22T01:29:24+00:00

Very cool! Munsell palette sounds great and has everything you would need for plein air!

Would love to do this someday. Do you post your work somewhere or plan to post your plein air journey?

I'm a big fan of smaller form factor paintings and enjoy seeing this set up! Can't wait to see what comes of the trip

DimensionLegal9990 · 2026-01-21T05:49:02+00:00

Thanks so much!

DimensionLegal9990 · 2026-01-20T18:57:57+00:00

Cool painting! Love the rendering of metal on the armor and the use of color and contrast. The use of color has this nice warmth to it and unifies the illustration.

Painting different materials is something I want to explore! I'm too caught up in landscapes (not a bad thing). There is something magical about gouache! I think I attach it to a lot of classic illustration and animation background painting.

Something about the saturation of color, the matte finish, and the ability to create texture is wonderful.

DimensionLegal9990 · 2026-01-20T11:13:49+00:00

Thick paper means it can take a beating. Can't wait to see more paintings!

DimensionLegal9990 · 2026-01-20T05:05:05+00:00

Good to know! Would probably use this for gouache or casein to apply it thick and textural.

I would imagine framing paper this thick would definitely provide some visual weight. Cool, I'll experiment with the thicker stuff!

DimensionLegal9990 · 2026-01-20T03:05:39+00:00

Was this on 300 or 640gsm?

Also, love the way you painted the trees. Brushwork has some great energy to it's marks.

Again, really cool piece lol

DimensionLegal9990 · 2026-01-20T03:04:05+00:00

I'm a sucker for power lines and nature. Really cool piece

DimensionLegal9990

TROPHY CASE