Set Up: Brushes, Pencil, Jars

Hello, my name is Stewart Lockridge for painting, go on cardboard. I'm gonna go over the set up here and there's some important bits I want to stress and this is keeping in line with the whole idea that this is a low stress creative process. I mean, first you're working on cardboard, which is a non archival material, um, perhaps, you know, rummaging around the trash can and found some cardboard you wanna work on and it may even have some dings in it. That's ok. I like the dings in there if there's a hole or something. Don't, don't worry about that. So, just trying to stress that low stress creative process. So, here on the table, um, first we need a pallet. Well, what do we use for a pallet? What do I like to use for a pallet? Well, you can go to the thrift store and buy that $2 piece of art that's, uh, has a, has glass in it. You need a large piece of piece of glass, a large piece of glass, preferably 12 by 16 inches or larger the wash spreads out, it puddles kind of makes a mess and you want enough glass to really spread out. So I brought two small sheets here to the studio and I have them taped together and I haven't even cleaned these with soap and water. I just took them right out of the thrift store piece that I bought and put them right here on the table. Um, if you can get like an 18 by 24 inch sheet of glass, that's great, then you can really spread out and make a mess. I have lots of paper towels out. Um The process of painting for me is, is messy. It's wet. And so I'm always trying to clean, keep my brushes somewhat clean. And a lot of paper towels, I have them folded so that they're ready to go. Could see these have been ran over. I found these on the road. They have tire marks on them and I just fold them into a quarter size and they're just stacked up and ready to go. So I can just keep moving through those and not be slowed down by that. Try to do all that ahead of time. And then I'd prefer two bowls of water here have two bowls of water. These are just Pyrex bowls, but any bowls will do cheap mixing bowls, big jars, whatever it is. But I prefer two bowls of water so that I have a clean bowl to pull from and then a bowl for cleaning the brushes, four brushes, I have two jars here brushes and it really, uh, it's important to have essentially three brushes, a big scrubber, a medium brush for some tighter application and then a smaller brush for more exacting application. But what I like about is that you can use whatever you have sitting around and perhaps you have some brushes sitting around that you haven't used for quite some time. It's common to have a lot of art supplies sitting around that just haven't been used for a while. Well, this is a great way to use up some of those brushes and even the, even the ones that you might be afraid to throw away that you think. Oh, this is just so frazzled and, uh, the bristle, you know, the bristles are spread out, that's a fun brush to use in this process. Um, it, it, it invites some, perhaps some exploration of the paint handling that you might not do otherwise in acrylic or oil painting a more fine tuned painting. Um, so I have a variety of brushes again, it's not really important, but this is the scrubber. I can see it's been used quite a bit, it's stained. Um, this is a good starting brush. Then we have uh some medium brushes here. Uh This is a, these are sizes. Well, it doesn't quite say, but you could see it's, they're not very big but they're not small either. But again, I don't want to stress specific materials. I just want to stress a relaxed way of working. These are, these are great brushes to use. Here, there are more scrubbers and then a big flat applicator. I like these, even the, even the dollar brushes from the hardware store, those are great brushes to use. And then we have varieties of smaller brushes here. Again, all these brushes, uh these are, these are somewhat nicer brushes, but I stress you can go to the hardware store and buy that $3 packet of brushes or if you're at a garage sale or at an artist studio and they're having a sale and you can just buy some junky old brushes. That's great. If you do want to have a fine tuned point, then it's good to have a good brush like this one that fine, fine point that isn't frayed. Then you can get some really sharp crisp lines when you, when it comes down to that to that level of working for preparing your drawing onto the cardboard. Well, what I like to have are basically three levels of graphite pencil. Here. I have an HB, graphite as a mechanical pencil and the mechanical pencils are easy to refill, easy to sharpen with the right sharpener and they can just go in and out. I have a five B, any old five B will do uh the darker graphite just stands out better on the cardboard. The HB is for starting the sketch, starting light um And then I work up to the five B and it's stumped. I don't really worry about sharpening too much. And then when I'm really ready for the accent lines, I go to a charcoal pencil and this is an HB charcoal pencil. You can go to a two B charcoal pencil or whatever, darker is fine. But these, this is the dark lines that you really need to see and you need to have visible as you begin laying in the paint. Well, this charcoal pencil will hold onto the cardboard for the most part, it'll hold as it's as the paint is being applied on it. It also is important that there's no wax or oil in these pencils or charcoals because that will repel the water. So keep that in mind when you're out there searching for pencils and finding stuff that works. It's just simple graphite pencils or a simple charcoal will do but no wax and no oils in those pencils again, that will repel the water. And then I always like the trusted needed eraser for uh removing the graphite lines. And I like to always have a spray bottle on hand. Keeps the paint wet. I can keep spraying and misting the paint rather than it drying out on me and having to squirt more out. I can just keep wetting and wetting and wetting. It's another good reason for a large pane of glass. Um, you know, again, 18 by 24 inches is a great size to be working on for a pallet because you can really let the water go and then, you know, again, have more paper towels on hand, whatever rolls you find, I like the really absorbent paper towels. I spend the money on the shop towels such as this or the viva rolls because they are so, so absorbent, I can reuse them and reuse them, let them dry, reuse them again. Uh, the more, uh, lower cost paper towels you use them once and they're pretty much used up. So, yeah, you save a little money on the front end, but you end up having to use more paper towels throughout the process. The vivas you can let dry overnight and come back to the painting the next day and there you can reuse them, especially with the shop towels as well. Um, t shirts work as well old, you know, old linens sitting around, but they don't absorb as quick. The water sometimes will pull up and sit on to those old fabrics, especially if they have oils in them or anything. Um, they just don't pull the water out of the brush so it's good to have those on hand too. That's fine. When you set up your glass pallet. It might be helpful to have some paper underneath to absorb some of the water that will spill out here on my glass palette. I have a seam down the middle. Of course, water is going to leak right through that and on to this table, I'm not terribly concerned about the table. It's a waterproof surface. But if this were a wood table or a kitchen table that has a nicer finish, you probably want something absorbent. So, what I like to do is throw down a towel that you don't mind getting messed up and wet or even a floor mat. You know, go pick one up at the thrift store for two bucks and shake it out, lay that floor mat down and put your glass down on that and then that'll catch all the water that you need. So that's, and it, it, it just is a great surface too from keeping the brushes from rolling away because that floor mat will catch them. And then for a, for AAA and then for an easel or a table top, I just have my large easel here. You can also set the cardboard down on the table. You can work it on a floor or another option is a ladder and just lean that ladder against the wall and attach that cardboard with some duct tape to the, to the ladder and you're good to go. So that's the set up. And I've tried to consider all the, all the particulars of how I'll work and, uh, and try to let myself be messy and let the water flow around and without having to worry about getting on things that shouldn't be wet. So, I hope that gets you started.