Countless times over the years I found people contacting me asking me if the painting they bough is mine since the signature reads MValenti. 100% of those times the painting is not and there is no way for the owner of the painting to find out who’s from as the only thing that identifies the painting is the signature on the front of the painting. Many don’t even know if their so beloved artist is real or is just a copycat trying to imitate someone else and signing as someone else just to cash some money as they can never find them after the purchase. An even if the artist is real they miss many possible sales as they can’t be identified.

Over the years that was one of my biggest concerns and I solved it years ago and I’m sure many other artists are doing the same or similar but unfortunately not all.

A signature on the front of the painting was ok centuries ago, when being an artist was well, not so popular, and the names of the artists were somewhat unique. Today that’s not enough and the artist needs to make sure whoever buys his/her paintings can have a way to come back for more or identify them as the original creators.

There is enough room on the back of any painting for you to write or glue – in case you use like me a sticker with the information printed on it – the information on the back. Make sure though whatever you use to place your information on the back is acid free to maintain the archivability (is this even a word? =]) of your work.

This is what I include in my stickers on the back of the painting
Title of painting,
Registration number of your studio (in case you have it)
Media
Series of work (in case it forms part of a series, this is very important for serious collectors)
Artist’s signature (yes, again)
Date of completion
and in todays art era your website, if you have a PERMANENT one.

Let me explain a little each one….
Title of the painting= this is certainly extremely important. A piece can go from hand to hand and you as an artist wouldn’t know it. There is nothing more annoying to know 10 years from now, your painting was finally recognized and was titled the wrong way ’cause you forgot to add the title on the back. This is a perfect way to identify the painting itself, and very useful in the future.

Studio Registration Number= this is not necessary if you don’t already have it, for me is a way to not only register my works but a way to know which ones sold to whom, which are on galleries, how many I produced in a year, etc. I’ve used a simple system which I transfered a few years ago to a spread sheet to make it easy for me to record and access the information.

Series of Work= Many collectors like a particular series from the artist and not necessarily the whole body of works. Making it easy to identify the particular painting belongs to a specific series of works, increases the chances for a specific body of works to be collected.

Artist’s Signature= Yes, again, it is always good to have your signature again on the back along with the information to make sure no one else but you the artist was the one that wrote that information and that is accurate instead of made up.

Date of completion= Some write the date on the front of the painting, more like the month and year, but if you are a daily painting, you would want to identify the specific date the painting was made, so it would be really helpful to add that more specific information on the back as well. I always place it below my signature, as a standard if you will.

Website= Take advantage of the technological era! write your PERMANENT website on the back of you paintings. This is a great way to not only make it easier for the people who likes your work to identify you but also for people to come back for more, especially if they didn’t buy the paintings straight from your studio. But when I say a PERMANENT website, make sure is that, a domain that you know you are going to stick with for the rest of your life not a place on a website for artists where you happen to have a page or two. For example I belong to quite a few art sites, and many of them offer me a space of my own, but they all start with either http://the-name-of-the-art-site/manuelavalenti or http://manuelavalenti.the-name-of-the-art-site.com and this is not useful as is not your own personal domain. Eventually down the road you might quit the service and you would loose your space on the site, so whoever looks for you might not find you. A permanent website would be your name, like for example mine is www.manuelavalenti.com which is paid in advance for a certain number of years, to make sure is going to be there for a long time, and that’s the domain of the website I write on the back of the painting, and I’m happy to say people has found me that way.

Remember there are thousands if not millions of people named like you. My name which is rare or so I thought is more popular than I ever could have dreamed of, so make sure when people finds your work and they like it enough to collect it, they have a way to find YOU instead of the other person also artist who happens to share your same name.

Have fun painting today!

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Welcome to my second part of Tips and Techniques. I hope you enjoyed the first part! I had many emailing me for more private tips. I thank you all your emails and your comments, they are really appreciated.

Lets continue where we left….

==Solvents and Mediums==
As a person with asthma that also has three kids with asthma, strong solvents are not an option in my house, aside from the fact that I don’t like them.

My technique, alla prima, doesn’t involve the use of solvents not even to clean my brushes. The only thing I use to clean my brushes is warm water and a good soap.

As for the mediums, the only medium I do use is liquin in case I really need it, otherwise not even that.

==Brushes==
Ever since I tried the synthetic brushes I fell in love with them. I recognize that I abuse my brushes and natural hair brushes sometimes don’t do it for me. But I think the main reason I love my white synthetic brushes so much, is because the hairs don’t spread apart so easily as brushes made with natural hair. They perform the same and in many cases even better, and they keep their shape for longer.

I prefer the brushes with acrylic handle rather than the wood handle though. I’ve noticed the wood handle is more prone to separate from ferrule as the wood decays, while the acrylic handle holds in place much longer.

I have a huge variety of brushes and ideally I would take out the ones I consider I would be using for my painting session. The reality is I finish my painting with the same one I started with, leaving the rest untouched on my tray. Fair enough, many brushes have never being used, while others look like they need to rest in peace for eternity!

==Other Equipment==
There are many other things I use in my studio aside from my paintings, canvases and brushes. In fact to me entering my studio is a ritual per se. The first thing I do is to turn on the lights, put up some music in my computer (I like to listen to 89x in Michigan, they play really cool music!) and clean whatever mess I had left the day before. But my basic equipment if you will are my apron and my disposable gloves, the same used by the nurse at the doctor’s office.

The reason I use an apron is because I just hate having dots of paint in my clothe, especially since I keep going in an out of the studio to get my kids from school, take care of business (when someone requests a visit to the studio) or plain a friend or neighbor coming over, and since I clean my brush quite a lot on my leg and chest while changing paint (I have the tendency to start with one brush and finish with the same brush regardless of how many brushes I arranged for my painting session) I decided after ruining a lot of cloth to use an apron.

The other thing I’m never with are my disposable gloves. Many of the paintings we use contain chemicals so powerful that are known to cause cancer. Since I don’t want to take any more chances than I already have by genetic, I decided years ago to paint with gloves to minimize the risks.

==Oil Paint==
Ah! My favorite subject! I have to stress that if you are planning to make art seriously, I mean to earn a living from it as I do, you must use professional grade paints, no matter what medium you decide to paint with, always use professional grade paints. The reason for this is more pigment per tube or jar compared to the studio line of paints. The performance of the paint is much better and the resulting painting is high quality, so well worth it!

In my case I have tubes of every imaginable color from different manufacturers and this is simply because the same green might be different from company to company. My favorite brand of oil paints here in the US is Gamblin. The consistency and the vibrancy of the colors is really impressive. I do have some tubes of Windsor and Newton professional artist grade, and I particularly like the sap green from them. Mixed with radiant yellow from Gamblin, you will have a nice light green perfect for foliage. But I admit the paint I have fell in love with is one that I found while living in Spain and that I can’t find anywhere else. The paint is highly pigment and with an exquisite buttery consistency, the brand is Titan, and if you ever come across it let me know if you like it as much as I do. I also have some tubes of Grumbacher, also a very nice oil paint to work with and I really prefer the raw umber from them.

==Light==
I know that on the first part I said we would talk about brushes, solvents and mediums, oil paint and other equipment but I wanted to touch at least a little this important subject, light.

Light is important in a studio, whether is natural light or artificial light, too much or too little will affect your finished piece. For an artist is important to have enough light to clearly see the variations of tone. If you can’t see clearly the variations in tone, then you either have too much light in which case everything seem too light, or you have too little in which case you see everything too dark. To better know what light works for you, test different light bulbs before starting with you painting session. In case you have enough natural light in your studio, position your easel or table near the light source enough to receive light without you casting a shadow on your easel nor the light creating too much shine on your canvas.

I use a clip-on inexpensive light found at any home improvement store that I attach to my easel when natural light in my studio is not available – and living in Michigan, we don’t count too often with bright blue skies like in Atlanta, so in a week the light is on at least 4 days of the week… I know pretty gray!

My bulb gives me a similar light that the one that comes from my window, and this is very important! You don’t want to use different lights to paint in your studio, all your light sources should be very similar one another to being able to complete a painting without too many differences in contrast, tone and color.

I hope you enjoyed this short guide and that would inspire your creativity.

Paint away!

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I have being getting lots of questions from other artists wanting to jump into the daily painting and artists asking for tips, so I decided to start a series of posts just for my artists friends out there.

I’m starting with a list of the materials or tools I use, ’cause I think they are as important as the paintings itself.

==Support==
First of, the masonite or hardboards I use, and I do use a variety of them in many sizes, from 4″ x 4″ all the way to 24″ x 24″. I don’t make any of them, don’t want to as I figured I’ll be waisting time preparing boards instead of painting (which is the thing I love!) and since my supplier carries everything, and I truly mean EVERYTHING I don’t need to shop anywhere else. For a link to my supplier go to the bottom of my menu.

Ok, the boards. I use Ampersand Gessobords and Hardbords along with Blick Studio Artist Boards in different thickness from 1/8″ deep all the way up to 2″ deep. I generally use the thin 1/8″ – 3/8″ deep boards for my daily paintings, while the thick ones I use them for commissions and exhibitions at galleries.

==Foundation==
Over the years I’ve used, gosh! so many different kinds of gesso and grounds, from a variety of oil and acrylic primers, to gesso and whatnot. Remember that I not only paint on sturdy boards, I also paint on canvases as well. But one thing that was common in almost all of them was the color, white. In early 2004 before moving to Spain, I experimented with some plain acrylic paint (’cause I ran out of gesso!). The main colors I used were white and raw sienna, among others, but the thing I didn’t like about this foundation was that it was slippery, no tooth to hold the oil paint, so after a couple of trials I stopped using acrylic paints as the foundation, so I went back to use white acrylic gesso as my main primer.

While in Spain the same year, I encounter a shortage of white acrylic gesso, and my supplier only had black at the time, so when you are in need, you go for it, I bought the black acrylic gesso. Scared that I would regret my decision, immediately I found my vibrant palette to look more vibrant than with the white background. The reason why? the white background absorbs more light therefore the need to apply more color to the surface to compensate the loss of color. In other words the white background would “eat” the color, while the black background rejects light and the light is only reflected on the actual layer of colors therefore producing a more vibrant painting. If you are like me using a lot of color for your compositions (nature is full of color! don’t be afraid to use it!) you will see the difference.

Today, now back in the US, I use what I consider the best black acrylic gesso there is, the Tri-Art Finest Acrylic Black Gesso. When dry the surface has enough tooth to hold your oil paint, and if you ask me to recommend you a black acrylic gesso, this would be the one I strongly recommend for oil painters.

Needless to say, I still use white gesso, for some of my other works, mainly abstract works.

==Drawing==
A good painting always starts with a good drawing, and this is important. Over the years ( a whole lot of years, since I started painting in oils when I was still a kid, man! I’m getting old! =] ) I’ve used everything to lay my drawing, lead pencils, coloring pens, chalk, diluted oil or acrylic paint (don’t like it one bit!) and even charcoal sticks, but they all more or less arise a problem, at least for me.

Charcoal and lead pencils would smudge and leave an undesirable coat of black dust in my paint, and I truly didn’t like that. Coloring pens and pencils, well the lines would disappear quite fast and I needed the lines so many times I would get frustrated because of this. Diluted oil or acrylic paint would require more paint to cover it, and I’m not quite a friend of thick layers of paint.

A few years ago the revolution of watercolor pencils came out and frustrated with all the above, I decided to buy some to try for both, painting with them (they are so much fun!) and see if they would work for drawing. They did, perfectly! Today I use white watercolor pencil to draw on black gessoed boards. the lines don’t disappear while I’m laying my colors, I don’t have that horrible black residue as with charcoal and they don’t show, not even with extra thin layers of paint. Plus one important advantage for me, since I fall into the detail of the scene, I can sharpen the pencil which gives me even more control during the drawing process, oh! and no more black fingers either.

This is the first part of this short but important workshop.

In the second part I’ll be talking about Solvents and Mediums, Brushes, Other Equipment and Oil Paint.

Until next time!

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Oil on Gessoed Hardboard (Masonite)
10″ high x 8″ wide
Work in progress

This is the second painting I’m working on for my next juried exhibit at the Lawrence Street Gallery.

I still have a long way to go, before this one is finished, but since I’ve being working on it (and taking care of my entire family who has the flu!) for the past day and a half and I have nothing to post for tonight for my daily painting, I thought to show you all a picture of the progress of this painting.

I have the third one drawn and ready to go! as soon as I finish this one, which will be in a few hours if I ever get my little one in bed, I’ll start working on the third one.

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Oil on Gessoed Masonite
10″ high x 8″ wide

Having the kids and husband at home doesn’t help at all if I need peaceful time to paint! lol!! but as much as I love having them aroung, I sure needed some time ALONE to at least try and finish one of the paintings I started for the juried exhibition at the Lawrence St. Gallery.

Anyways, between “mom!” and “honney, could you help me out?” I was able to finish painting the woman, the guy and part of their baggage that’s sitting under the umbrella.

Just looking at them so perfectly tanned her, and in his way to perfect tan him, I feel the warm of the sun.

And for those of you who wonder, like my oldest son, if the girl is topless, yes she is, perfectly normal at any public beach in Spain, and other parts of Europe.

Hopefully between laundry tomorrow I’ll be able to finish this one and start the other one.

Have a great rest of the Saturday!

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Oil on Gessoed Masonite
10″ high x 8″ wide

I got the news today for an exhibition I completely forgot about, the small works at the Lawrence Street Gallery in Ferndale Michigan. This would be my second years participating in this juried exhibition. So I came down to my studio and started looking for the perfect images and I started painting this one. A young couple heavily tanned at the Laida Beach in Spain. Since I just started this one a couple of hours ago, I wanted to post a work in progress on this one.

Hope you like it!

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A few days ago, I received and email from a customer asking me what would be the appropriate way to hang or display these small daily paintings? As I replied the email I thought it would be of interest to others on how I consider the perfect way to display these little ones without retracting from the beauty of the painting itself.

I use a more modern, contemporary approach in my decor, and you would think this might not fit your particular decor, but maybe changing the frame to suit your style would help you to display them in a similar manner. I like to use dark frames for them, especially because they are a small format painting and the black frame helps to bring the colors up and focus the viewer on the painting.

I like also to display the paintings in 1 or 2 rows, three at the most, which I think looks very contemporary regardless of the painting itself as the pictures show below. Notice that for this approach all the paintings should be of the same format in this case 6″ x 6″ although with different formats also looks good, but takes more time playing around on the wall.

The frame on a painting is an important part of the overall look with the decor, and always should match both, the painting and the decor. In this particular case, when hanging paintings in this manner, remember always to use the same exact frame, otherwise the viewer will get distracted by the different frames not paying too much attention to the painting itself.

I use this same style to display the paintings on galleries or when on shows. If you ever display them in this way, drop me an email and don’t forget to show me a picture =]

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As an artist I’m always looking for tips from other artists, I consider it to be the best way to learn things related to the business of art. But as I like to learn from others I also like to share what I know.

So here, I wanted to share with all of you what kind of palette I use. Many artists use the traditional wood oval palette or even the square one that will hold all the colors they need for their painting session. But although is the “traditional way” we have seeing for centuries, I’m not comfortable with it at all, and my palettes, the ones I was given as gifts (three in total) are, well brand new as I’ve never used them in my entire life. Instead over the years I’ve used plastic plates, glass sheets and even ceramic plates, but just recently my oldest son discharged this wonderful metal box that was holding some colored pencils. It is very thing and best of all it has a lid. That’s what I use as my palette, simple and most of important inexpensive!

But that’s not all, being a mother of three, one of them with special needs, a wife, a housekeeper and on top an artist full time, I had the need to simplify my labor. It wasn’t until a few years ago that I discovered the wonders of the Glad Press and Seal Wrap, the one that sticks to any surface, and today I’m using it on top of my free metal palette to protect it from the paint and most important to spare me the cleaning process saving quite a lot of time which I use instead to be with my kids.

If you have followed my career for the past 8 years since I got to the US, you know by now that my work is colorful, and below you will see a picture with my palette neatly charged with some of the colors I normally use. On this picture you could see I don’t have all the colors in my palette as depending on what I’m painting my palette would change. Sometimes I don’t have the need for greens so I won’t incorporate them for the day.

This palette is loaded with all the colors I used for the “Labor Day Sale” painting, and of course as I love to experiment and mix colors many times on my palette and many times on the canvas or board, this is how my color pencil holder transformed into palette ends up after one painting session.

The two really important reasons why I use this metal box as my palette are 1) because it has a lid, which if the case arises, I can close maintaining the freshness of my oil paints, and trust me many times I have to walk away while I’m in the middle of my painting session to take care of phone calls, prepare lunch or snacks for my 4 year old son as he spends most of the day with me, answer the door or simply rest a little and enjoy a cup of coffee, and 2) because… well, because I just get tired of holding the traditional palette with my left hand and look ridiculous =]

I have tons of more tips, but time is short today, so I’ll post more at another time.

Thank you for stopping by.

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Throughout my career (30 years) I’ve tried many different materials in three different continents, giving me the possibility to use only the best ones I’ve come in contact with or the ones I prefer.

Surface:
For my abstract works I always use heavy weight canvas stretched in kiln dried stretcher bars of 3/4″, 1 1/4″, 1 1/2″ and 2″ deep depending on what I want on the painting.

Ground:
I use acrylic white gesso for my ground. Although the canvases I buy are already pre-primed, I like to add a fresh coat of primer before laying down the colors. If the painting needs texture then I use a combination of acrylic gesso and molding paste specially formulated for fine arts. My favorite brand for both gesso and molding paste is Golden.

Paints:
I use professional artist grade acrylic and oil paintings. The oil paintings are the same one I use for my daily paintings and large more elaborate landscapes. I use a variety of brands, some found in the US some I buy in Europe. The ones I use the most are Golden. I also have some Windsor and Newton (made in UK) Titan (made in Spain), I also have some tubes of Atelier which I think is a fascinating painting and some Lascaux Artist Acrylics tubes.

Mediums:
I use a large variety of mediums depending on the work I want to do and the effect I’m looking for. All the mediums I use for my abstract works are from Golden.

Varnish:
Every painting that leaves my studio, leaves with 2-3 coats of UV resistant museum quality varnish that will protect the painting surface while adding an elegant uniform gloss to the painting.

On my post below “6 Olives” I said I used a “shadow box” to help me to create the painting. Since that post I received quite a few questions from artists all over the world “what is a shadow box?” “where can I purchase one?” “how much it costs?”…. so I decided today to post here what I call a shadow box, what is it for and how you can make your own for practically FREE.

A shadow box is no more than a clean cardboard box and a lamp as you can see on the picture. The idea of the shadow box is to eliminate the excess of cast shadows that an object generates when too many sources of light hit it. The perfect studio is sometimes impossible and in my case I have a small window and 4 ceiling lamps. When I try to paint a still life set up in my studio, the object(s) generate 3 different shadows making my life a little difficult, so the shadow box comes in handy for this task.

By placing the objects I want to paint inside the box and having an angular light hitting the object I’m producing just one shadow in my object making my still life composition easy to follow and of course to paint, not mentioning I get a play of shadows and light that otherwise I wouldn’t be able to get.

The cost? well aside from the lamp and different bulbs depending on what you want to acchieve, the box is completely free, and you can have different sizes of boxes depending on what you want to put in side for painting. I use different bulbs, and the reason why is because I’m playing with not only the shadows the objects generates, but also the reflections of light hitting the object. The lamp I use costs maybe $10 at your home improvement store? I don’t know how much I paid for it as I’ve had it for years, but it wasn’t expensive at all. But if you have a table lamp or a clip-on lamp around your house, then just buy different bulbs depending on your needs.

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This is one of the most boring things an artist has to do, cleaning their brushes after each session, but nonetheless one of the most important tasks in an artist’s studio.

Many of my colleages ask me how do I clean my brushes after knowing I don’t use any solvent whatsoever due to my asthma condition and it is really simple, I just use soap and warm water, yep, that’s it.

My process for cleaning brushes begins of course, like everyone else, after my day of painting. I fill my container with hot, really hot water and I add a spoon or two of simple laundry detergent and let the brushes soak for a minute or two.

I have to add that because of my allergies but my love for oils I don’t expose any of my body parts to any paint. From the time I enter my studio the first thing I grab after my apron are my rubber gloves. I use the same kind doctors use on their offices, and re-use them until they fall apart. I add a small amount of baby powder on my hands before putting on the gloves (whether I just got them out of the box or reusing the ones from last week) and that keep the rubber from sticking to my skin as inevitably my hands are prompt to sweat. I keep a small bottle of baby powder in my table at all times for this purpose only.

After a while the brushes that have being sitting on the hot water and soap are ready to clean. Because of the temperature of the water and the degreasing capabilities of the laundry soap, most of the oil is gone, but still a lot of residue remains along with the pigments, so now is time to clean those brushes. On the same container I’ll add this time only pure dishwasher detergent. One at a time I dip the brush on the soap and with circular motion on the palm of my hand (with a rubber glove always) I clean the remaining paint and rinse with warm water. I repeat this process as many times as it takes with each one of the brushes until they are perfectly clean.

To dry I let the brushes dry flat on top of an absorbent paper towel.

I don’t use anything else for my brushes, no conditioner no nothing, and I still have many of the brushes that I was using for my miniature paintings back 1980’s when I was still living in Venezuela.

If you have any questions or would like to comment, please feel free to do so.