Easels should help make the life of the pet portrait artist much easier, by offering a secure support for their canvas, at just the right height and angle. However, there are a number of varieties to choose from, each one designed to meet the particular needs of the artist whether they are in a studio or outdoors.
The most versatile is the sketching easel.
Since the early Renaissance, artists working on portraits in oil (or any other subject for that matter) have always started with a layer of size to seal the raw canvas or board prior to the gesso ground. It’s role is to protect the canvas from the chemicals in the paint that may cause it to decay. Today, if you use an acrylic primer, size is not always necessary, but it’s remains a good way of protecting the canvas and if you make your own gesso is a crucial part of the preparation.
A significant part of any painting, whether a pet portrait or abstract picture, is the relationship in colour and tone. Tone is the degree of light and shade in the picture, it exists independently of colour and can be measured on a scale which progresses from white to black. The perception of colour is created by the eye’s response to light in different wavelengths; pure colour exists only as light, and as far as painters are concerned, all colours are also modified by tonal value.
