JO REIMER: pen and ink

Showing posts with label pen and ink. Show all posts

Wednesday, September 29, 2010

The Sketchbook Project - Mountains

Mt. Hood

Pencil, pen and ink, watercolor crayons.

Mt. Hood is only 50 miles east of Portland and lures many Oregonians to its beautiful slopes for skiing, hiking, fishing and many other sports, both summer and winter. Part of the Cascade Range of volcanic mountains, it often appears to float above the city due to atmospheric conditions. At 11,230' its distinctive volcanic shape is hard to miss.

Art Tip: brush cleaning

As I work with acrylic medium for glue or with acrylic paints I stand my brushes in a bucket of water on my work table and give them a soap and water cleanup every day or so. But eventually my brushes get gunky and sometimes I forget to clean them. That's when I clean them with Murphy's Oil Soap. I keep an inch of MOS mixed 1:1 with water in a tall plastic tub (Feta from Costco) and put caked brushes in that solution overnight. By the next day the soap has softened the brush and with a bit of elbow grease I can get the brushes back to useable. This also works for brushes used with oil paint. I gave up using oils but wanted to save those good brushes and Murphy's Oil Soap came to the rescue. Get it at the grocery store.