How to Block out Areas of a Painting

Sometimes when doing a painting you will need to block out an area. Here is a very simple method I learned from artist Darrel Crow.

Items you will need:

Contact paper-sticky type of shelf liner

Cutting surface

Exacto knife

Scissors

Tape

Tracing Paper or a projector

Steps:

1. Project or trace  your image onto the contact paper. Remember to do this in reverse of the way you want your image to appear on your painting surface.

2. Trace your image onto the surface

3. On a cutting mat/board or surface that won't be damaged, Cut away around your image to tape to the cutting surface. Cut your shape out with an Exacto knife. 

4. Peel the backing off

5. Place it firmly onto your painting surface making sure paint does not seep into the sides.

6. Paint the rest of the background of your painting.

7.  Peel off your image asap and make sure there are no demarcation lines. I just use a soft scrubber brush or small paint brush to flatten this area.

8. Now block in your image. Make sure to fill it in entirely. Here is an example where I used this technique while creating my recent painting, Beach Dreams: 

  

Here is the final outcome: This is an 11x14 commissioned original painting. Due to the small size of this portrait, prints are available in limited sizes to preserve quality. Check my Fine Art America page also known as Pixels.com for more information: http://fineartamerica.com/profiles/tina-adamsstoffel.html

written by Tina A Stoffel

Caring Angel for Cancer Benefit

It's been crazy busy around here. I'm still mentoring a High School Senior, doing some commissions and the big news this week is I just released my special Caring Angel Painting inspired by a dear friend that is absolutely beautiful inside and out and battling stage 3 cancer. I've decided to donate 50% of my profits from any Caring Angel product sales to Cancer Charity. After doing careful research on the best rated foundations, donations will go to one of the following and likely in an alternate manner: National Foundation for Cancer Research, Cancer Research Institute, adn the Circle of Care for Family Members with Cancer.

This is an abstract type of impasto painting. You can see the up close details of the impasto on my Fine Art America Page: Caring Angel Fine Art America Prints.

Also, I did get some backlash of those who were expecting paintings only, but due to the nature of this painting, I wanted to offer it in other forms therefore, I have offered it on not only prints but tons of other merchandise ranging from Pendants, necklaces, Coasters, Pillows, Clocks, Shower Curtains, Duvet Covers, Baby products, Auto Products, Pet Tags, Device cases and more.

Amazing Clocks and throw pillows are available on Society 6 http://society6.com/TinaAStoffelArts,

and tons of other items available on Cafe Press:

http://www.cafepress.com/tinaastoffelarts

Please help me spread the word and consider the next time you need a special gift for someone, please consider purchasing from this page. I think we can all agree we known someone affected by cancer. Who knows, maybe I will offer some other things this way in the future or do the angel in some other colors.

For those of you looking for my other works. They are coming, I promise. Two are coming really soon, keep watching and thanks so much for reading and following my G+, Twitter and Facebook pages.

Tina A Stoffel

Lending a Hand

Recently I was asked to mentor a High School Student in Oil Painting for her Senior project. Although I have so much work to do and this caught me completely off guard, I didn't hesitate one bit. It's an honor to be helping someone with such an important project. I love being able to share my knowledge. I've already been asked to teach a few times which is another honor in itself, but for now, I plan to paint for many years to come, and maybe, just maybe, one day, I will do some teaching.  One of the many important things I've learned in my life, you never know what tomorrow brings.

Here are some pictures from our first session yesterday. I thought we would just be doing one painting, but I think we are actually going to be able to complete two. We will share our final works with you.

I'm really enjoying my time with this sweet student and having fun teaching her the basics. We are using a reference photo from a Wet Canvas member James Baldwin. Tune in for our finished paintings and we will see how I did teaching.

Drying Phases and Autumn's Golden Glow

Did you know it takes approximately 6 months to 1 year for an oil painting to dry? Some professionals claim it may take several years. Most oil paintings will take a week or two to dry to the touch, but caution must be taken because the layers below the surface layer will still be drying. Oil paints dry due to the oxidation that occurs when pigments bind to air.

Factors that effect the drying time are:

1. Humidity

2. Pigments

3. Technique

4. Medium

Techniques such as impasto, heavy bodied paint will take longer as well as the type of medium used. For artists, there are different types of mediums such as alkyd mediums and cobalt driers available to accelerate the drying time. Some I ran across a tip from, if my memory serves me correct, William F. Martin had made a suggestion on the topic to simply place some books next to your painting on a flat surface then simply stack a piece of foam core on top which will trap most of the dust while still letting the air circulate. For me, I just used another canvas on top as you can see in the photo. 

This happens to be my most recent painting, titled Autumn's Golden Glow, just finished a few days ago. You can watch this painting coming to life by clicking on the link below. 

Autumn's Golden Glow coming to life

Here is the final painting which will be oiled out as needed and varnished when dry, as it is very important to wait until an oil painting dry before varnishing to avoid cracking and peeling. 

This painting was inspired by the gorgeous glowing Fall colors which never seem to last long enough. This beauty has now been captured on canvas to enjoy all year. When this 24x30 painting is dry, it will be available for purchase. Meanwhile, prints are available on my Fine Art America page:

 tina-adamsstoffel.fineartamerica.com

or at Pixels.com

 Pixels.com

By Tina A Stoffel Arts

Happy New Year

In with the new, I'll be finishing this gorgeous painting soon. The beautiful glowing colors of the fall gets my wheels spinning as an artist. The colors are so beautiful and bold that I want to capture them on canvas. Fall is such a beautiful season, but the bold glowing colors seem to fade away all to soon. Now, this beautiful yellow glowing tree is almost completely finished and captured forever.

Unfortunately with a couple of bouts of rough colds set me back on top of holiday festivities with my two young children. I managed to get one painting session in over their two week break. One more session should do the trick. You will be amazed at how far this has come along and how much it's come to life just since this picture was taken.