How to Become a Better Artist With Good Easels and Impasto©

This week’s questions are many so I will devote several paragraphs to answering just two.  Question number 1 asks, “I am just starting to get involved in painting and I wanted to buy an easel, but there are so many of them to choose from.  Can you recommend one?

First let me say that an artist performs better using the best tools he or she can afford.  As to the easels there are indeed many since an easel is used to support your canvas while painting and it can be a collapsible tripod, studio types and as a combination sketch box unit. Some are even sketch boxes with lids that serve as easels.  There are aluminum tripod easels as well as wooden and aluminum desk easels.

I do not like the wooden collapsible tripod as I tend to get physical with canvases and they are too wobbly for me.   I like the “French” easel which is a fold up deal that opens up to become a sturdy tripod easel with a combination box that holds all my oil paints, brushes, etc and this is a great unit for traveling and plein air work.   These run from $90 to $135.00 and are usually on sale.  This one I invested in about 12 years ago and I keep in one of my studios next to a desk where I use a simple large slanted board propped up about 2 inches in the rear.  This is my “easel” for drawings, water coloring, pastel painting and pen and inks simple because I do not do these well on the a vertical easel.  Forty one years ago I was given a large studio easel by a professional artist friend of mine as a gift and it takes up a lot of space so it is kept in another building where I do large canvases.  Studio easels run upwards of $1,500.00, but are really worth the money.

Basically, I find I cannot live without any of these 3 things to paint with so you will just have to decide what you can afford, which works well with whatever medium you are working with and you may well find that over the years you will change from one type to another.  However, if I had to invest in only one it would probably be the “French” easel.

Question number 2 asks, “What is Impasto?

Impasto is a manner of painting where the paint is laid on thickly so texture stands out in relief.  It is almost like a type of sculpture except on canvas because the paint is so thick and the brush strokes are almost more important than the subject.  Impasto has been around for a long time and in the early days artists used this style to add realism to their work by almost giving their objects a three dimensional appearance. However, when Van Gogh used this technique in his work such as in “Wheat Fields with Cypress” he used this technique to give weight to his brilliant colors, emotion to his landscape and movement to his sky.

This technique is not too hard to do as it just involves loading up your brush or palette knife with more paint than you normally use and instead of scrubbing or dying the canvas with color just squish the paint onto your canvas and let it sit there. Do not fiddle around with details.

 Here is the first step.



An interesting project to try and one to use to break out of your comfort zone is to take a blank canvas that you will paint with the subject being flowers and prior to adding color to your painting just paint your whole canvas with acrylic white and put all your subject flowers in white using the Impasto technique creating the outside edges and the centers of your flowers with the raised Impasto technique.  Don’t forget to add some raised texture to your background such as swirls or broad wide strokes.

Your canvas will usually dry within 2 hours and at this point you can add your color to your flowers.   You do not have to work fast, but you may want to emphasis your colors so they are vibrant.

Here is step 2.



  Once all is dry then make a glaze of watered down burnt-umber and using a wide brush cover your whole painting and quickly wipe it off with a damp paper towel.

Here is step 3.



Once it is dried you will be amazed at the results in your textured painting.  Since your first layer of white sticks out and once the color is added and finally the glaze, the raised parts of the flowers sticking out create and add a natural shadow on your painting.  This is often referred to as the X-Factor which can mean the difference between a mediocre painting and a good one or a good painting and a fantastic one.  Many buyers like this type of painting.

May the Creative Force be with you!



Arlene Wright-Correll