Diana K. Gibson

Stretching your own canvas has its benefits. You are able to create unusual sizes that you would not find elsewhere as most pre-stretched canvases are standard sizes. You also have the luxury of stripping your canvas from the stretchers and recycling the stretcher bars for another painting. Stretching canvas takes a little time, some patience a wee bit of hand strength.  To stretch your own canvas you will need some supplies such as a roll of canvas, stretcher bars, canvas pliers, staple gun, staples, sharp pair of scissors and a small awl.  Start by putting together your wooden stretcher bars being sure that they are aligned perfectly.  A T-square can be used to check this. Once the stretcher bars are assembled, lay out your roll of canvas on a flat clean surface.  It is rather important that you do not crease or wrinkle the canvas.  With a sharp pair of scissors cut around the stretcher bars giving yourself at least two inch border from the bars to the edge of the canvas.        

When I first started painting my teacher introduced me to tubing colors.  Being a new student I did not quite understand the benefits of tubing my own colors and thought the mixing and tubing process to be fun while being labor intensive.  Later on when I put those tubed colors to use did I realized just how beneficial it was to have an abundant supply of color on hand readily available.  There was no longer the need to be constantly mixing up color hither and thither. All I had to do was reach into my paint box, open a tube of color, squeeze out some paint onto my palette and start painting.  Now I am introducing the concept of tubing colors to my students.  It is a great kick to watch them take out their supply of empty paint tubes, pigments, palette knives and see the amazement on their faces as the pigments get swirled together into large toffee colored mounds of paint that morph into flesh tones that rival makeup foundation products. When I proposed the idea of mixing an

Over the years many of my students have asked me how to tone a canvas. Often I would verbally explain how to prepare the canvas but found it was simply better to actually physically take a canvas, prepare the tone and demonstrate the process. Today my student Kay was at the studio and had some canvas she wanted to tone. I took the opportunity to show her the process and thankfully I had my camera on hand to document the simple steps of toning a canvas.                                         Start with clean stretched canvas. Lay it on a flat steady surface be it a floor or a large table. Using your palette or taboret, mix up a batch of neutral color. The amount of paint mixed will depend on the size of your canvas or the quantity of canvas you are planning to prepare.                                                                  Taking your palette knife, scoop up some of the mixed paint and gently smear it across the canvas. Then taking a clean rag, pour some odorless turpenoi

Many of my students ask me, "what is this palette that you are teaching me?" To which I reply "a palette that my teacher's teacher's teacher developed some time ago long before you and I were born." Of course this explanation fetches some curious looks, but in truth, the palette has been handed down through the generations from teacher to student. Fortunately it was handed down to me and happily I am handing it down to a future generation of aspiring artists. At first glance, the prismatic palette appears to be of a complex nature with many colors. As shown above it proffers an array of a multitude of manufactured and premixed colors laid out in strings according to values. The top string of colors are manufactured pigments ranging from white, yellow, orange, red, blue, and black. The rest of the palette is comprised of pre-mixed colors in eight equal steps of light gray to dark gray, eight equal steps of light blue to dark blue and eight equal steps of li

AMERICAN ARTIST  magazine showcased one of my works to announce their on-line plein air painting contest  Showcase Your State .  The painting "Springtime in the NJ Highlands" can be found in the February 2009 edition of AMERICAN ARTIST  magazine.

Sometimes I find that setting up a still life is the most complicated part of painting. Trying to find the right combination of textures, colors, surfaces etc. can drive me bats. Then there is the composition. For whatever reason I have a tendency to keep my compositions simple. Perhaps there is beauty in simplicity, who knows. Well once all of the still life objects are set up and a pleasing composition is arrived upon, I work to set up the easel. A toned linen canvas is placed upon the easel and the palette is prepared. Time is taken to prepare the palette and as you can see in the pictures, lots of paint is mixed. After the palette is prepped, a rough sketch is made upon the canvas and once the drawing is place then the painting process begins.

Alla prima is a painting technique that means "at first." An artist completes a painting in one sitting. This grouping of photos shows how I start an alla prima painting. I first prepare my palette by laying out the colors according to their value (degree of lightness or darkness.) Once the colors are laid out I start to mix piles of colors. These piles of color help me to cover the canvas quickly. I always make it a point to take the ten minutes to prepare my palette ensuring that I always have enough prepared mixed pigment available. Time is of the essence and I find more time is lost trying to remix or reclaim a particular mixture of colors. Ergo, the desire for a prepared palette. The painting is started with a rudimentary drawing. Thereafter with a loaded brush, the shadows are massed followed by the addition of the light masses. I am extremely careful to keep my shadow brushes separate from my light brushes. That is a few brushes are strictly designated for paintin