Why I think every artist or aspiring artist should have an easel.

An easel allows you to work vertically which makes your painting more accurate because that is how your artwork will be displayed or hung when it is complete. Generally, people are vertical and view things vertically, using an easel then can help you to have a better and more exact perspective in your art. Easels also protect your art work from spillage of paints and whatever else could be easily knocked over on a flat desk or surface by a stray elbow or running child. Dust also settles less on the artwork if it is standing up rather than horizontal.

For me the two best things about having an easel is that I can step back and look at it from a distance and see what needs to be done to improve my art and I can swivel it to the lighting that I want.

What types of easels are there and which one should I get?

1. Canvas Easels sets

Cheap and cheerful canvas (table) easel sets in 4 different sizes, great for kids, kids parties, art parties, party favours and team building art activities. You could also create your own art gift for a friend or family member with these. Click to go to Canvas Easel Sets and choose the size you want.

2. Table Easels

Table easels are great for working on smaller art work and allow you to sit at the table with your art but you still get the benefit of working vertically. I have  wooden table easel and the more popular aluminium table easel which can fold away neatly when not in use. The Aluminium Table Easel is lightweight and portable, designed for table top use with a sturdy hinged shelf and non-slip rubber feet. They have a foldable design for easy set up and carry. Click to see full easel range.

3. Portable Aluminium Easels

Black and silver aluminium easels are available on my store. I own one of these easels for my own use and its really great! They can't handle massive works, I would say A1 would be max but A2 more comfortable. This easel can be used as a table easel and as a standing easel as it has 3 adjustable sizes. It's also so light weight and comes with a bag, so you can take it anywhere which is a massive bonus if you want to paint or sketch on holiday or if you travel to paint landscapes. Click here to buy a Black Aluminium Easel or a Silver Aluminium Easel Now.

4. Display Easels

Rustic Pine Wooden Display Easels

I have a kiddies easels and a Larger Adult one. First off, the kids will love to paint their artwork on these and secondly, they adjust to match your childs height as they grow. You can put a chalk board on it or canvas for painting

The Larger adult one is more of an extra-large easel as far as I am concerned and its very sturdy too, so it is perfect for large and small art works.

These easels are given a coat of varnish but can come raw but I personally dont like to touch raw wood. They are attached to the back leg with a stron string and not a chain.

ETH Wooden Display Easel

Is a large easel for display or painting and has a chain connecting with the leg at the back, holes for the pegs also go lower to handle an even bigger Canvas.

If you want to support local then all 3 of these easels are ideal because they were hand crafted right here in South Africa which also makes them very affordable. Click here to see the full range of easels available on Addicted To Art. Read more

5.Wooden Lyre Easel

This Lyre easel has a higher quality finish but does come in a flat pack so there will be some minor asembly needed for set up. Lyre easels are also known as A frame easels, are adjustable to suit a sitting or standing artist. They have two legs in the front, and a rear swinging leg at their back.

A Lyre easels shape allows for it to be placed in a corner or other small spaces. The rear leg can also sit completely flat against the body of the easel to allow for easy storage.

This Wooden Studio A Frame easel is fully adjustable and can support canvases up to 127cm in size and can be used in the studio or to display art works.

Whichever easel you choose, have fun creating! Please leave a comment on which is your favourite easel and why.

https://www.addictedtoart.co.za/EASELS
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Crafty With The Cadence Art And Hobby Range

A fun morning out crafting with a group of mostly ladies, trying out different techniques using Cadence products which are imported from Turkey and are available online.

This is what we created and what I learned from the experience;

Project 1 - Stencilled Mirrored Wooden Tray

*** Step 1 ***

Asuming you start out with a primed tray, which we did. Take your stencil brush and stipple the tray with the Rusty Patina, dont brush it on because you will loose texture and get brush strokes. Cover the tray. I didnt paint the bottom as this wont be seen. Leave to dry.

*** Step 2 ***

Take glass that fits into tray, spray back of the stencil with the Cadence Stencil Adhesive and place on the glass. Sponge on the Cadence Multi-Surface Acrylic Paint, remove carefully after a few minutes and allow to dry.

*** Step 3 ***

Spray the glass on the painted side with the Cadence Mirror Effect Spray, used almost all the bottle for the size we used. Allow to dry. You can use a varnish over the mirror to protect from scratching if you like but we did not.

*** Step 4 ***

Place glass in tray and Done!

Products used:

1. Primed wooden tray

2. Cadence Mirror Effect Spray

3. Cadence Stencil Brush

4. Cadence Butterfly Stencil

5. Cadence Rusty Patina

6. Cadence Multi-Surface Acrylic Paint

7. Cadence Stencil Spray Adhesive

8. Cadence Sponge Set

Project 2 - stencilled Stretched Canvas

*** Step 1 ***

Spray canvas with the different Cadence Mixed Media Sprays. Spray from far to get an even mist and try to keep spray bottle as vertical as possible to avoid big blotches. You can also dab with a cloth to give it a more even finish. Allow to Dry.

*** Step 2 ***

Spray stencil with the Cadence Stencil Adhesive spray and place stencil on canvas. Smear the Cadence Rusty Patina, quite thickly and smoothly. Allow to dry a bit so that you can remove stencil without smudging it.

*** Step 3 ***

Spray some Cadence Shake and Gilt to give it a glittery finnish and done!

Products used:

1. Square Stretched Canvas

2. Cadence Mixed Media Spray Ink

3. Cadence Butterfly Stencil

4. Cadence Rusty Patina

5. Cadence Lettering Stencil

6. Cadence Shake and Gilt

7. Cadence Stencil Spray Adhesive

Thats how I learned to get crafty with Cadence Art And Hobby Range for the Morning.

SHOP CADENCE RANGE NOW

Here are some other crafts that can be done with the Cadence Range;

Hosting a themed DIY art party

I have a passion for art and was recently offered a chance to host an arty party for a customer based on some of the artwork she had seen of mine online. I accepted the challenge but it very quickly dawned on me that I would have to actually stand in front of quite a few people and teach them how to paint. Being quite a shy person, this definitely frightened me so I decided since my birthday was coming up why not test this out on a small group of friends first.

This is what I did.

1. I chose a theme: Frida Kahlo

Frida is one of the most famous women artists ever and definitely one of my favourites. I also loved the Mexican colours and being the month of Halloween October I liked the idea of incorporating the Mexican Day Of The Dead theme as well.

2. I chose what we were going to paint: A Delicious Monster Leaf

Quite on trend at the moment and I wanted something people would actually like to put up in their houses and not at the back of the garage.

3. I started to buy Mexican decorations and to search Pinterest for ideas on decorations I could make myself.

I visited China Mall for table cloths, cups, plates and hanging decor.

I then found some of my favourite images of Frida which I colour printed and mounted on black mounting board using Bison Spray Glue, foam board which has a sticky side and cut all this using an art knife and my special Cutting Mat.

I created a Photo Booth with the black mount board and decorated that with some plastic flower clips that I found at China Mall.

I made some photo booth accessories using paper plates and my Molotow Acrylic Markers, which my 6 year olds help, I left some blank for my guests to decorate themselves when they were done with their painting project.

4. Art Supplies For The Paint Party and what you will need for approximately 10 guests

I bought 10 x wooden Easel and Canvas sets which are available from my online store which are cheap but get the job done.

I bought 11 different colours of Primo 300ml Acrylic Bottles but you could just get the primary colours or if you would like to do the Delicious monster, you could get the greens, white and black but I do own an art supply company and wanted a big range of colours to try out. I still have left overs so it does go a long way.

I had tones of brush from my years of doing art but if you need my Hog Brushes would be fine. I would suggest a minimum of 3 each, Large #10, Medium #5 and small #1 for detail.

For mixing palettes you could get the small plastic one which look great or just use a paper plate which is what I did.

I bought a bulk pack of plastic aprons from Makro for about R70 which gave me a couple hundred for future use.

We also used paper cups for washing brushes.

5. Food and the amazing pinata

I was lucky enough to meet and make friends with a lovely and creative lady with many talents, who made the most beautiful Frida Pinata, Frida biscuit cookies and who decorated my cake with fondant, So I have decided to sell her themed cookies and themed pinatas on my store too. Obviously, we would need advanced warning of about 2 weeks for her to make the orders and I’m looking at selling her party boxes too.

Gluten doesn’t really sit well with me so I ordered and bought a banting cake from Yolande at www.cravecakes.co.za It wasn’t cheap bet well worth it and very delicious. I chose a naked red velvet cake with cream cheese topping and my friend Margaretha whom I mentioned earlier put on the Frida Fondant.

On the day of the art party

Thanks to my mom and friends we set up, unfortunately it rained so we had to set up inside and not outside under a tree as I planned but it worked out.

I borrowed a few trestle tables from family members and did it in my dining room.

I also got a lovely easel for my birthday which is available to buy from my store WOODEN ADJUSTABLE EASEL which I set up in front of every one.

I was quite nervous so when I started the class my voice cracked a bit and I felt a bit shy but I told everyone to have fun and try not to criticize their work and that they can use any colour they like.

Each person got a colour and a black and white print of the delicious monster and either traced it onto their canvas from their window, used carbon paper or free hand drew the pic on. It went quite well but there were a few things that I learned

• Paint your pic before and do one on the day. Its really quite hard to do your best work and have everyone scrutinise it when you are pouring paint, helping someone and finding a brush. so have your amazing example done prior.

• Don’t judge yourself too harshly, I told everyone not to be critical of their work and then I wasn’t happy with the one colour I used for the background and I used a bigger canvas for them to see but it was out of proportion, so this was also lack of planning on my part which made me doubt myself a bit.

In the end it came off very well, everyone was chatting and a in a good mood and loved doing something different for the day. We took some funny pics in the booth, ate some nice cake but never got to decorating the scull masks.

Please comment below if you need help with hosting your own art party or your successful actions for hosting a successful one yourself.

I went to visit the manufacturers of Artiste Oils, shot a short video clip and interviewed one of the owners and this is what he had to say.

What makes artiste so special and how does it compare or how is it different to other oils on the market?

We think what makes Artiste Oils so special is that they’re proudly South African. Although a lot of the ingredients have to be sourced from overseas we are proud of the fact that such a great quality oil paint is being made locally in South Africa. The recipes also cater for the South African landscape colour palette with some unique colours like Grey of Grey that was introduced in collaboration with feedback from South African artists.

How long does it take to make a tube of paint, what goes into manufacturing these awesome paints?

From mixing the recipe to milling and tubing a batch of paint, the whole process takes a full day for one colour.  Remember all our paint is triple milled which takes up a large amount of the manufacturing time in the manufacturing process.

Where do you source the ingredients?

We source as much as possible locally but when it comes to pigments and oils we need to source product from all over the world. For instance, we have to import safflower oil from India, which we use in our Titanium White, as they are one of the biggest Safflower Oil producers. We can’t use traditional Linseed Oil with Titanium White as it has a yellowing affect which stands out on the white so we have to use Safflower Oil. Also certain pigments are more prevalent to certain geographic areas which makes it difficult to get here in South Africa.

How did you get the recipes perfected and the quality to such a high standard?

Artiste was originally started by Dawn Connell over 30 years ago. Her son Garth got involved in the business and just happens to be an organic chemist. He worked in the background fine tuning and perfecting the recipes used today. Our recipes remain our closest guarded secret and are without a doubt one of the most important keys to Artiste Oils success.

See Professional South African Artist Matt Z's review on Artiste Oils

Being a parent of two boys and always wanting to get the best gift for their age and development, spending hard earned cash and then your child forgets it in two minutes, finds and empty box and has endless hours of fun playing with it. Ever happened to you?

Well I found this to be one of the best gifts I have come across for my children that I just had to stock them so that other parents could give them to their children or have a go to gift for other children. I bought the Bi-Pane Crafty Cardboard and thePirate Ship Crafty Cardboard for my two sons and I bought the Oven Crafty Cardboard for my neice. They absolutely loved working with with these, colouring in and painting their toys. Thats also whats really cool about these gifts is that once they are done decorating they can play all kinds of pretend games with them afterwards.

There are other crafty kits in the range like the Bakery, Beauty Salon, Car Workshop, Happy House and Washing Machine and they currently cost R85.00 which is great value for the amount of time your children will spend enjoying these crafty colour-in cardboard gift sets. Each set includes a paint set except the Bi-plane and Pirate Ship which come with crayons.