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Art Supplies

There are many art supplies that can be purchased for painting that make going to an art store an overwhelming task sometimes. The first thing to choose is a good medium to paint on. Many boards and canvases are primed with a smooth white acrylic coating that is an excellent surface to start with. A canvas should be stretched flat onto wooden stretcher bars. As a canvas ages it will slowly stretch and lose it tautness, wooden pegs can be driven into the corners of the stretcher bars to slightly expand the frame making the canvas tight again.

The second item among art supplies that must be chosen is paint. There are two main types of artistic paint to choose from, oil paint and acrylic paint. Acrylic is soluble with water, so it is easier to clean and can be mixed with water, or extended, to provide semi-transparent glazes of color. It also dries much faster than oil paint, usually within a few minutes depending on the thickness of the paint. Oil paint is mixed with oil, usually linseed oil, to extend it for glazes and better paint flow. It must be cleaned with turpentine, or other caustic chemicals making it slightly more harmful, and unsuitable for children. Oil paint is regarded as higher quality, having more pigment and lasting longer than acrylic paint. Each one has its own advantages and disadvantages and both have been used by fine artists. Remember when doing specialized forms of painting, like airbrush, you need a very specific kind of paint. Otherwise, you may ruin your tools.

The most important art supply after choosing a surface and paint, are a few good brushes. Brushes come in all shapes and sizes, and vary in price widely. Natural fiber brushes are generally preferred by artists, but synthetic fibers are becoming a longer lasting alternative. A synthetic fibered brush will break down slower when mixed with cleaning solutions, but a natural fibered brush will keep a fine point for longer. Its good to get a variety of types of brushes at first and then experiment and play around with them slowly finding out which brush works best for different effects.

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