Autumn isn’t far away and soon anyone who loves to sit outside with a sketch pad will be able to take advantage of the better weather.
But, maybe you’ve been thinking of swapping sketches for taking up painting on canvas. Just imagine a collection of your art featured on the walls of your home.
If you want to start painting on canvas here are some of the things you’ll need to think about before you get started:
Decide On Your Paint
First of all choose whether you want to paint using acrylic, water-colours or oil. If you are beginner acrylics are a good choice. They are easier to use and clean up afterwards. They are also the most affordable choice while you are still getting a feel for painting.
When you are more experienced you might want to move on to oils or water-colours.
Stock-Up
To start with you will only need some basic equipment. Buy yourself:
An easel
A canvas
Some brushes
A palette
Paints
Paper towels
When you are looking at the type of canvas you’ll need to decide on the size you want your picture to be or choose two or three canvases of various sizes. Beginners will be better looking for a ready-made stretched canvas which has been primed for acrylics. If you want to frame your painting when it’s finished the canvas should be thin. If you are going to hang the canvas as it is, then a thicker one is best.
Colours
You don’t need a vast amount of colours, to begin with. You will need primary colours and then one or two other colours. A good palette will have:
Cardinal red
Crimson
Cardinal yellow
Ochre
Blue
Green
Black
White
Umber
You will obviously add to your palette as you do more painting and start to experiment with other colours.
Storage
Don’t let lack of storage space put you off starting a new hobby. You can always rent a self-storage unit from Store-Safe. It’s the perfect place to keep your art and much better than a bedroom or garage where there is a risk of your canvasses being damaged.
Store-Safe is open 7 days a week, apart from bank holidays, there’s easy access and 24 hour CCTV monitoring so you know your paints and canvases are well looked after.