Q: I use an acetate film to protect my watercolors when I
present them to clients and when I store them. Often, I use Windex to
clean off fingerprints on the acetate. Do the chemicals in the Windex
pose any problems to the pigments on the paper?
Q: I currently keep all of my finished oil and pastel paintings
in my Manhattan studio. In the winter, the studio gets very hot because
I can't control the heat. Can the extreme temperature hurt my paintings?
Q: When I paint on paper with oil paints, it is all right to prime it with acrylic medium?
Q: I've heard that placing staples at an angle rather than
parallel to the weave gives greater strength to a stretched canvas. Is
this true?
Q: I like the color of raw linen and the effect I get when
painting directly on it with oil colors, but I have been told that this
practice is problematic. Do I have to use primer and give up my
favorite way to paint?
Q: I recently painted a watercolor that contained a larger,
dark-brownish area where I combined Van Dyke brown, burnt umber, and
green earth. In that spot, the paint took nearly two weeks to dry. What
do you think occurred?
Q: I work primarily in watermedia and occasionally complete
paintings done entirely with acrylic washes on paper or illustration
board. How should I frame these works, and how does this method compare
to handling oil paintings over paper?
Take advantage of the opportunity to have your artwork reproduced on the cover of American Artist or Watercolor magazine in 2009 and included on our website, www.myAmericanArtist.com.
