Tips and Tricks #3: How to Buy Paint! A Guide for the Perplexed

Are you one of those folks who stands in front of those huge racks full of different paint colors and has no idea how to go about choosing the right ones? Fear not, you are not alone! Many customers at BINDERS have come to us with an equally confused expression, so in this post we'll start to delve into the nature of paint and hopefully reach an understanding of how color is organized in the store.

One of the most frequent questions that comes up is: "Why are some paint colors more expensive than others?" To which the answer is: "It's all about the pigment!"

Pigment and Binders
The pigment is the particles of matter that actually carry the color itself and these pigments come from many different sources. The pigments are carried in a binder, which is the more or less fluid substance that adheres the pigment particles to the canvas/paper/etc., examples being linseed oil for oil paint, gum arabic for watercolors, or polymer emulsion for acrylic paint. The cost of a tube of paint has very little to do with the binder, which is to say that the gum arabic used in watercolors is pretty much the same from color to color and from brand to brand, the same goes for oil and acrylic paints as well. So what you are paying for is the pigment, or the color itself.

Grading Pigments With Series
The standard system in place for most paint manufacturers to grade their pigments is a Series number and you will typically see on the face of any tube of paint that there will be spot where it says Series 1, Series 2, Series 3, etc. The paint rack will usually have a price listing that tells you how much a tube of paint costs within a particular Series number and that price will apply to any color within the particular series. Usually there are many different colors in each series, for example Yellow Ochre, Burnt Umber and Titanium White are all typically Series 1 colors which would all cost the same amount. So, check the label on the paint tube to find out what series it is, then check the price chart to find out the cost of that series. Easy!

Series and Cost
The reason why some colors are Series 1 (affordable) and others may be Series 9 (expensive) is because of the nature of the pigment itself. Some pigments are very easy to come by, while others are more rare, or require a lot of processing before they can be used in paint. The least expensive pigments are the Natural Earth Colors - Yellow Ochre, Raw Umber, Burnt Sienna, etc. - which are essentially colored dirt, so the only processing required is to dig it up out of the ground and wash it off. Synthetic Earth Colors - Yellow Oxide, Red Oxide, etc. - have a similar appearance to their natural counterparts, but they are manufactured products created from rusted iron that is processed in various ways to get specific hues and so they can be slightly more expensive (although they are often still found in the Series 1 category). On the other end of the spectrum, pigments manufactured from rare heavy metals like cobalt and cadmium, which are slightly radioactive, require a complex process to make them safe to use for painting and then even more processing to obtain the luminous shades of blue, green, violet, red and yellow that these pigments are famous for. In between the two extremes is a wide range of intermediately priced colors, made up primarily of synthetic mineral colors - Alizarin Crimson, Viridian, etc. - and synthetic organic colors - Pthalocyanine Blue, Naphthol Red, etc. The synthetic organics are the most modern colors and are manufactured primarily from petroleum products.

Hue
Another thing to keep an eye out for is when a paint color is listed with the word "Hue" after its name, as in Cobalt Blue Hue or Cadmium Yellow Hue. These colors are actually imitations of the pigments they are named after, created by mixing less expensive pigments together to form a rough approximation of the original. So a Cobalt Blue Hue is most likely an Ultramarine Blue or a Pthalo Blue mixed with white to make it more opaque. In most cases these "Hues" will work fine for color mixing, however they will lack the richness and depth of color of the real thing. There is, after all, a reason why people are willing to pay such a high price for cobalts and cadmiums - they look really, really beautiful! That said, for beginners or for preparatory sketches, the "Hues" will be just fine and would provide a decent approximation of what a finished piece would look like with the true colors.

Grade
Finally, it is important to distinguish between "Professional" or "Artist" Grade paints and their much less costly counterparts, the "Student" Grade paints. The difference is, once again, all about the pigments, in this case about how much pigment the paint contains and whether or not there are any fillers. Student Grade paints - like Winton oil paints, Grumbacher Academy oils and watercolors, or Liquitex Basics acrylic paints - are intended to be an affordable way to learn painting techniques and they can be useful even for professional artists for doing sketches or underpaintings.

Anything designated as Student Grade will have considerably less pigment in it than a comparable Artist Grade, with an opaque filler material (like calcium carbonate) being added to maintain the opacity of the paint. Student Grade paints will also lean heavily on the "Hues" mentioned above, in order to keep the pigment costs down.

Artist Grade paints, on the other hand, will pride themselves on having as much pigment as the binder can reasonably hold to allow for the richest color possible. Each brand, such as Gamblin oil paints, Winsor and Newton Artist Watercolors, or Golden acrylic paints, will have their own particular variations on the manufacturing process, which means that a Cerulean Blue made by M. Graham & Co. might have a slightly different shade than the same color from Rembrandt, so the choices abound! Most artists don't stay loyal to a particular brand of Artist Grade paint, instead experimenting with different brands and picking out the variations on the standard hues that suit their individual tastes. One could say that the beginning of a great painting comes before the brush hits the canvas and it actually happens when the artist is in the store deciding which colors to buy.

You can find out more about this and get recommendations from the staff at BINDERS. Come on in or visit BINDERS website to see our wide selection of both Student and Artist Grade paints!

This Week @ BINDERS - March 8-14

ART CLASSES & WORKSHOPS | ART HAPPENINGS

BINDERS is a special kind of place that remains unique to Atlanta. Yes, we have a great selection of all kinds of different art and craft materials, plus newly-expanded stationery, young artists and presentation departments, but it is the commitment towards developing and supporting the artistic community in Atlanta that sets us apart.

Certainly The ART School at BINDERS is a great community-building and skill-developing resource, but take another look at The Limelight Gallery. This unique space allows our patrons and visitors to see what's going on in the Atlanta art scene, and perhaps see some amazing art that would not otherwise be on display.

Our current show features the work of the Blackberry Creek Artists, a group of like-minded visionaries from Dawsonville. The technical excellence displayed in several different media will surely be an inspiration to anyone who is learning to speak with their own artistic voice. The show runs through March 26.

ART CLASSES & WORKSHOPS

Monday, March 8:
Guided Open Studio with Kay Powell
10:30am-2pm • Every Monday | Beginner to Intermediate | Fee: $17/per session. Please pay the instructor. No registration necessary

Guided Open Studio with Kay Powell
6:30-8:30pm • see details above.

Tuesday, March 9:

Painting - Design and Technique with Charles Y. Walls
1-4pm • 6 sessions, Feb. 23-March 30 • Open to all levels.

Painting - Design and Technique with Charles Y. Walls
6-8:30pm • see details above

Bookmaking with Anne Elser
6-8:30pm, Tuesdays, 6 sessions, Feb. 23-March 30 • Fee: $140

Wednesday, March 10:
Copperplate Calligraphy with Anne Elser
6-8:30pm, Wednesdays, 6 sessions, Feb. 24-March 31 • Fee: $140

Thursday, March 11:

Italic Calligraphy with Anne Elser
6-8:30pm, Thursdays, 6 sessions, Feb. 25-April 1 • Fee: $140

Friday, March 12:

No special art events today.

Saturday, March 13:

No special art events today.

Sunday, March 14:
No special art events today.

Please note: Classes on this schedule are in our Atlanta store unless otherwise indicated. For more information please email or call Eli Pelizza at 404.237.6331 ext. 203.

---

Check out the full list of our upcoming art classes and art workshops! Sign up for 5 classes, workshops or demos and receive 25% OFF of your next sign up.

---

ART HAPPENINGS | THE LIMELIGHT GALLERY

Blackberry Creek Artists:
A Few of our Favorite Things

Showing March 2-26

---

Visit BINDERS website!

The Subject of Art #2: The Barbizon School and the Origins of the Artist Group

An Artist Group can be loosely defined as individual artists who band together to learn from each other and further a collective vision. Such organizations have become so accepted over the past two hundred years that it's difficult to imagine how the art world would look without them. Nevertheless, the idea of artists getting together on their own and acting cooperatively for their own reasons is a relatively new phenomenon and one which helped to nurture the revolutionary attitudes that led to Modern Art as we know it.

Up until the mid-nineteenth century, the competition between artists for the lucrative commissions that came from the aristocracies of Europe and the church was fierce, and artists were far more likely to jealously guard the secrets of their technique and ideas from their rivals. Even such giants of art history as Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci were at best terse with each other—if not downright hostile—and they both despised Raphael. Such was the nature of Renaissance Italy, where an important project at the Vatican could make an artist's career, and the battles to win those commissions were sometimes brutal.

The establishment of the French Academy in 1635 ushered in the age of academic art training that we still have today. However even then, while students may have cooperated with one another during their school years, their former classmates became their competitors once they graduated.

Around the same time in the Netherlands, artists found new patrons in the rising middle class of wealthy businessmen who had the money to afford luxuries like original artwork. But the competition then was as cutthroat as anything we see today in our commercially driven societies and it's interesting to note that of all the Flemish painters of that era, the two most loved and revered today, Rembrandt and Vermeer, were rather unsuccessful in the art scene of their time (it is thought that the reason Rembrandt created so many self-portraits was because he didn't have many paying commissions to paint other people!).

Given the environment of intense competition that was inherent in European art, it is all the more amazing that a group like the Barbizon School was ever formed! Perhaps the cooperative spirit that this first of the modern artist groups exhibited was a sign of the changes that would soon come to all of Western Civilization.

The Barbizon School was a group of as many as sixteen painters who gathered together in the town of Barbizon, which was located in the very picturesque Fountainbleu Forest in France. The group first formed in 1830, after a very influential exhibition of the works of British landscape painter John Constable at the Paris Salon, and they resolved to follow Constable's example of drawing inspiration from nature and focusing on the mundane, everyday aspects of contemporary life.

Among the artists of the Barbizon School who become renowned and beloved were Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot, Francois Daubigny, Jean-Francois Millet and Theodore Rousseau, but it was more the spirit of the school itself and the new and different work that all the artists were doing there that allowed these relatively obscure artists to become major figures in the evolution of Western art. The model that they set, of artists working together in harmony, sharing ideas and possibilities, has had a ripple effect throughout the art culture that is still strongly felt today.

The immediate successors to the Barbizon School, the Impressionists, followed almost exactly the same formula, working in cooperative groups who shared ideas and making nature and the everyday world their subject. To that formula the Impressionists added their rapid painting technique that allowed for the depiction of a momentary impression of a scene.

The Post-Impressionists, while being more individualistic and self-centered, also took much from the example of the Barbizon School. Vincent Van Gogh in particular was deeply moved by Millet's images of the lives of peasants and the nobility he saw in their daily work in the fields. It was Van Gogh's desire to create something like the Barbizon School in Arles where he worked, a "studio of the South," that led to his ill-fated attempt to work and live side-by-side with Paul Gauguin.

Throughout the first few decades of the 20th century, Artist Groups based on the Barbizon School concept became the norm and were at the center of most of the major developments in the art of that period. The partnership between Picasso and Georges Braques to create Cubism, the groups Die Brucke and Der Blau Reiter in Germany who developed and refined the Expressionist style and made some of the first systematic investigations into non-objective art, the DaDa group and the Surrealists who first developed much of the theory behind Installation and Performance Art that would later become important facets of the Post-Modern era are all great examples of the Barbizon School's legacy.

Even more importantly, we can see all around us today the beautiful results that are created when artists work together, and that spirit of cooperation has filtered out into all aspects of the art world.

Tell us what's meaningful or helpful to YOU when participating in a local or national art group.

Visit BINDERS website!

Tips & Tricks #2: What's the Deal with Kolinsky Sable Brushes?

Kolinsky Sable brushes are, without a doubt, the most expensive brushes we carry at BINDERS, but why have artists through the last few centuries considered the Kolinsky Sable to be the most valuable variety of hair to use for fine art brushes? Perhaps the more important question is: should you consider investing in one of these classic tools?

Let’s take a closer look at these brushes and the animal whose hair is so particularly special. The name, Kolinsky Sable, is actually a misconception as it’s not actually a member of the sable family. The real sable is a type of marten that lives primarily in Russia and typically has black fur, and you can find real sable hair brushes under the name Black Sable or Siberian Fitch. The real moniker for the Kolinsky is the Siberian Mountain Weasel. It’s a fair bet that some marketing genius figured out that “weasel” just isn't a term that people tend to associate with anything high-end (who's going to pay $200 for a weasel-hair brush?) and that “sable” sounds much more luxurious and inviting. Call it creative license in advertising if you will...

The Kolinsky is a variety of weasel with reddish brown hair—but beware—there are also brushes called “red sable” and while they may superficially resemble Kolinsky hairs, they aren't the same thing (though they are a fine-quality alternative for a more reasonable price). Presumably, red sable brushes come from a closely related variety of weasel that evolved a softer fur coat. The hairs that go into true Kolinsky brushes are specifically from the tail of the males, which grow extra thick during the winter and are why they make such great brushes.

The Kolinsky lives in Siberia, where it gets really cold in the winter and the snow that falls doesn't melt until Spring. So the winter hair of the Kolinsky has evolved to have exceptional properties of holding snow and water away from its skin, which can then be shaken out to get rid it before it re-forms into ice. The male Kolinsky, like most other guys, is constantly interested in attracting the attention of the ladies, and one of the displays that they have evolved is their big, bushy tails, composed of long, water-retaining hairs. You may be beginning to see how this relates to painting!

Those long tail hairs are at once both strong, able to stand upright even when wet, and flexible, so as not to get in the way when the Kolinsky is going about his daily business. Looking closely at the individual strand, one could see that it has a tremendously complex structure with many tiny spines that are used to hold the water in place. When the hairs are bound together into a brush, the artist has, in effect, the tail of a male Kolinsky in hand!

The qualities these brushes are most noted for are their combination of stiffness and springiness, and the special structure of the hair that allows the brush to pick up and hold large amounts of liquid. The stiffness helps the brushes to retain their shape, particularly the pointed tips on round brushes; the springiness is ideal for graceful, emotive brushstrokes and the hair structure allows for longer marks and less time wasted dipping the brush in the paint over and over again. These are the qualities that “synthetic sable” brushes are usually trying to emulate, with varying degrees of success. The more expensive the synthetic brush is, the more complex the structure of the nylon bristles and the closer it is to an actual sable brush.

Kolinsky Sables are best used with traditional painting media like watercolor or oil paint. NEVER use your Kolinsky brushes with acrylic paint! Even if you clean the acrylics thoroughly after every use, the nature of the polymer emulsion will eventually dry out the hairs and cause them to break, ruining a brush that you have paid a pretty penny for.

Long handled Kolinsky brushes like those from Escoda and Isabey (currently on sale) are designed for oil painting and are typically used for the finishing stages, where fine detail and exceptional control are required. It's worth noting that Kolinsky brushes may be too soft to effectively manipulate some of the heavier pigments, but that can be easily solved by dipping the brush first in solvent and then applying the paint. The solvent will “loosen up” the linseed oil and help the paint to brush on more smoothly.

The short handled watercolor brushes are where the Kolinsky hair truly shines! Those qualities of strength, flexibility and water retention make for a superb tool for watercolor painting and there have been many an artist who had a single Kolinsky brush that was so versatile that it could be used for just about any kind of mark. The famous Winsor and Newton Series 7 brushes were originally designed for Queen Victoria, whose favorite watercolor brush was a round #7 Kolinsky. The company went on to create an excellent line in a variety of sizes based on that commission, which you can still buy today.

As we roll on through the beginning of the 21st Century, Kolinsky brushes are becoming pricier and less available. The main reason for this is the scarcity of the animal itself. The Kolinsky's numbers have been in sharp decline, possibly due to habitat loss from changing climate and/or human interference, and the Kolinsky cannot be farmed like minks, so they must be trapped in the wild. Most brushes that we see today come from supplies that brush companies have in storage that may have been collected many years ago. Hopefully, in the future, we can find a way to nurture these animals and the environment they live in, so that we may continue to enjoy the great art that is created with their help!

Visit BINDERS website!

This Week @ BINDERS - February 22-28

ART CLASSES & WORKSHOPS • ART HAPPENINGS • SALES

Art classes at BINDERS generally run in six week series, and it just so happens that we've got several classes starting this week. Anne Elser kicks off with three classes: Bookmaking, Copperplate Calligraphy and Italic Calligraphy. Charles Walls also starts new sessions of his afternoon and evening oil painting classes. Learn more about Anne and Charles in our past blog posts! In addition, BINDERS is having a huge bulk canvas sale! Right now you can pre-order cases of Art Alternatives Studio and Gallery style pre-stretched canvases for phenomenally low prices. You've got to get on it though, because the sale ends on March 1! Whether it's great classes or great prices, you'll find it all at BINDERS.

ART CLASSES & WORKSHOPS

Monday, February 22:
Guided Open Studio with Kay Powell
10:30am-2pm • Every Monday
Fee: $15/session. No sign up needed. Please pay the instructor.

Guided Open Studio with Kay Powell
6:30-8:30pm • see details above.

Tuesday, February 23:

Painting - Design and Technique with Charles Y. Walls
1-4pm • 6 sessions, Feb. 23-March 30 • Open to all levels. • Fee: $140 • Sign up now!

Painting - Design and Technique with Charles Y. Walls
6-8:30pm • see details above • Sign up now!

Bookmaking with Anne Elser
6-8:30pm, Tuesdays, 6 sessions, Feb. 23-March 30 • Fee: $140 • Sign up now!

Wednesday, February 24:
Copperplate Calligraphy with Anne Elser
6-8:30pm, Wednesdays, 6 sessions, Feb. 24-March 31 • Fee: $140 • Sign up now!

Thursday, February 25:

Italic Calligraphy with Anne Elser
6-8:30pm, Thursdays, 6 sessions, Feb. 25-April 1 • Fee: $140 • Sign up now!

Friday, February 26:

No special art events today.

Saturday, February 27:

No special art events today.

Sunday, February 28:
No special art events today.

Please note: Classes on this schedule are in our Atlanta store unless otherwise indicated. For more information please email or call Eli Pelizza at 404.237.6331 ext. 203.

---

Check out the full list of our upcoming art classes and art workshops! Attend 5 classes, workshops or demos and receive 25% OFF of your next class.

---

ART HAPPENINGS | THE LIMELIGHT GALLERY

Drawn
a mixed media drawing exhibition
On display through February 26

Atlanta International School Proudly Presents
Middle Years Program Art Exhibition
(Grades 6-10)
Showing February 28 - March 1
Reception Sunday February 28, from 4-5pm

---

SALES

STOCK UP ON CANVAS | PRE-BOOK & SAVE BIG
70% to 80% OFF*
Cases of Art Alternatives Studio and Gallery Canvas
OUR LOWEST PRICES EVER!
Order and Pre-Pay by 3/1 • Pick up after 3/17
Download our price sheet and order form for details!

---

Visit the BINDERS website at www.bindersart.com!

The Subject of Art #1: Giacometti and the Value of Art in Today's World

Unless you were paying close attention, you may have missed the new record set for the highest price ever paid at auction for a single work of art. On February 3 an anonymous bidder paid $104.3 million through Sotheby's London for a bronze sculpture entitled "L'Homme Qui Marche 1 (Walking Man 1)" by Alberto Giacometti (1901-1966).

This sale surpasses Pablo Picasso's "Boy with a Pipe," sold for $104.17 million in 2004. Vincent Van Gogh's "Irises” sold for $102.3 million in 1990 and is additionally notable as the first work of art to surpass $100 million at an auction. How is it that a relatively obscure artist now holds a record previously held by two pioneers who radically shifted the direction and purpose of Western art in the Modern age?

Giacometti was born into a relatively well-to-do Swiss family and his father, Giovanni, was a respected painter in his day. After attending art school the younger Giacometti went to Paris and studied with another little-known sculptor. There he developed his signature style of cubist and surrealist sculpture and it was as a part of the Surrealism movement that he began to get some notice in the art world. His obsessive manner of carving his figures that led to their strange, vaguely disturbing appearances was the sort of enigmatic symbol that the Surrealists loved, clearly seeming to hold some deep truth within it and yet the nature of that truth remained elusive. Giacometti perhaps caught hold of the alienation and post-traumatic stress that must have been part of life in Europe as the devastation of World War II transitioned into the Cold War and the threat of nuclear annihilation. He was awarded the grand prize for sculpture at the Venice Biennale of 1962, which brought worldwide attention to his work shortly before his death.

It's possible, but unlikely, that the buyer was a really big fan of Giacometti's work. The more reasonable answer for this record-breaking sale is a combination of economics and lessons learned from the past.

In the 1980's when the economic situation was similarly bleak, many art speculators lost millions of dollars on the work of living artists, who had plenty of time to be written off by insensitive art critics and the capricious whims of fashion. Since then, art buyers have focused on more secure art investments—works by artists that have secured their place as influential, pioneering artists and have already been written into the history books.

“L'Homme Qui Marche 1" happened to go on the market at the right time. Twenty years ago, the last time a Giacometti sculpture of similar size went to sale at auction, the winning bid was less than $7 million. On February 3 it took only eight minutes for the Giacometti auction price to sky-rocket up above $100 million! It's likely that if Van Gogh's "Irises" went back on the block today it would smash Giacometti's record with ease because its value has appreciated significantly since its own record-breaking sale. This is our own take on this sale—let us know your thoughts and your prediction on the next record-breaker.

For a list and analysis of The World’s Top 10 Most Expensive Paintings (sold at an auction or not) check out our recent series on the subject.

For all the supplies and inspiration you need to start your next masterpiece, visit BINDERS online.

This Week @ BINDERS - February 15-21

ART CLASSES & WORKSHOPS • ART HAPPENINGS • SALES

It's cold outside and this is a perfect time to be indoors, doing something creative and learning something new. Lucky for you, BINDERS is warm AND we're having a special workshop this weekend for artists and aspiring artists that want to learn acrylics. Kay Powell will lead the class on a journey of exploration that will help you unlock new visions of creativity. We'll see you there! Plus, be sure to take advantage of our lowest prices ever during our pre-book canvas sale. Details below!

ART CLASSES & WORKSHOPS

Beginning Acrylics with Kay Powell
Sat. Feb. 20 and Sun. Feb. 21
Sat. 11am-5pm and Sun. 12pm-5pm • Fee: $110
Sign up now!

Kay Powell also leads a guided open studio session every Monday from 10:30am-2pm. No sign up is needed and the cost is $15 to Ms. Powell upon arrival.

New sessions kick off next week for popular favorites: Charles Y. Wall's Painting - Design and Techinique and Anne Elser's Bookmaking, Copperplate Calligraphy and Italic Calligraphy.

Please note: Classes on this schedule are in our Atlanta store unless otherwise indicated. For more information please email or call Eli Pelizza at 404.237.6331 ext. 203.

---

Check out the full list of our upcoming art classes and art workshops! Attend 5 classes, workshops or demos and receive 25% OFF of your next class.

---

ART HAPPENINGS | THE LIMELIGHT GALLERY

Drawn
a mixed media drawing exhibition
On display through February 26

---

SALES

STOCK UP ON CANVAS | PRE-BOOK & SAVE BIG
70% to 80% OFF*
Cases of Art Alternatives Studio and Gallery Canvas
OUR LOWEST PRICES EVER!
Order and Pre-Pay by 3/1 • Pick up after 3/17
Download our price sheet and order form for details!

---

Visit the BINDERS website at www.bindersart.com!