Palms

5x7 inches
acrylic on panel
115.00 shipping included
unframed

Purchase at www.lindablondheim.com



Painters Tip


Toning Your Canvas


The painting above was done on a panel toned with red iron oxide. I often tone my canvas or panel with either red iron oxide or cadmium red light. This warm undercolor really works well with landscape painting as it makes the greens lovely and rich in color. Some painters go too far for my taste with screeching color, but that is a matter of preference only. To each his own.


I prefer to have hints of the undertoning show here and there and the harmony of color that toning gives, rather than the shouting that others enjoy.


For lovely fogs and misty paintings it is useful to use cool grays to pre-tone your supports.

For cool rich hues, it can be useful to tone your canvas with a cool blue.


It is handy to pre-tone several different colors to use later because you never know what you might want to paint.


Some painters use heavy paint application to tone their supports but I find that a thin wash of color works better for my purposes. I use just a bit of color in my solvent to do a thin wash in one direction and then a thin wash in another direction after the first has aired for a few minutes. I put the canvases out to dry for an hour or overnight and they are ready to paint on. As I said in yesterday's blog, I like to do it at the sessions end and use left over paints on my palette.