- I don't necessarily want to use lead-based paint.
Well do you wanna do oils?
maybe 90% of people who do oil painting since the 60s don't play with Lead White anymore. But there are usually cobalts, almost always cadmiums, and rarely arsenates. And well most everything is toxic, that's what Artists paints are all about. Proper respect for nasty chemicals, pigments and dyes.
This isnt jello powder you know.
..........
But if you wanna paint like the way people did from Leonardo to World War I, you'll deal with lead. unless you're in Europe where they virtually phased it out this decade, with about 99% of the art community bitching about it. America in the 70s made the distinction between house paints and speciality artistical applications with an exemption. Europe, not so smart. Considering how the whole tradition is over there. Some are hoping for sanity though.
..........
- I often get covered in paint and have no proper place to paint, so I often get completely covered in it.
Well now, maybe you need to think hard about actually using GOOD pigments. You'd going to have to fess up that yes there are messy painters out there and very neat ones, but Leonardo used to show off how disciplined he was that he could wear the finest velvet suit he had and paint and not get any shit on him.
...........
You'd gonna have to grow up to some degree and realize what the chemicals are, how safe and how risky they are, and like you can't just get a lot of stuff in your fingernails or in your mouth, or totally mess up a house either. You cant be a mechanic and smoke in the garage either lol
............
If you wanna get messy you might have to sacrifice a lot of colour purity for kiddy safe art materials....
............
You can properly paint in 2 square feet of floor if you put your mind to it. And you can train yourself to be as neat as possible, thinking every daub of paint is about as threatening as a bite from a Black Widow Spider.
............
First Time i painted, i did it in someone's fancy old house as a guest, and i didnt wanna make a MESS or do what my friend did, put on some old shirt or paint smock. So after a few months and 2-3 smears on good clothing later, i learned my lessons FAST...... lol
............
Oils are murder in that you often spend more time cleaning brushes than you do actually painting... and you learn not to waste paint or to save some of it for 'next day'
.............
You'll just need to go to the library and get out a book on Art Materials and read up on the safety stuff, if it's oil or acrylic or whatevers. or the web...
..............
And if you do a ton of surfaces, and t-shirts, maybe all you need is acrylic, or maybe you'll need different paints.
But it's pretty elementary that you need to know some safety about paint, and what's reasonable with messy and what's a possible health risk. Getting Ventilation etc. My friend who had her parents huge old house, she slept with like 14 drying paintings in her room and in the L shaped hallway and said, oh it doesnt bother her, but after a few weeks, she got really ill, and woosh, everytihng went in the hallway and another bedroom to dry for 2-14 days [depending on what pigments with the oils]
.......
And well with the stuff not blending right, colour theory.
Knowing what makes muddy colours and what makes clean colours.
How sometimes a tube is the colour you need with usually a slight tweak, or sometimes you need two tubes or more to make your greens. Sometimes one tube, and sometimes a mixture.
............
Is that Red, a violet-red, or an orangey-red?
..............
One will make TERRIBLE purples with blue
One will make GOOD purples with blue
One will make TERRIBLE oranges with yellow
one will make GOOD oranges with yellow
..............
it's all about how reds will lean one way from the primary to violet
and other reds will lean the other way to orange.
............
some blues will lean to
greenish blue
or some will bluish-purple
..............
..............
- The thing is with me is that I'm very, very perceptive when it comes to the blue spectrum and not that sensitive to the red spectrum.
I call it crap, you're just fond of that colour.
.............
- I probably can recognize 10x more versions of blue than your average person. But to me, most reds look the same to me and the only difference I can see is in the shade, not the base color.
I call it crap... you mix enough paint, you play with enough coloured pieces of paper, you study enough charts, you'll see what you see.
Some colours are just hard to compare, it could be the lighting in the room, how light or how dark the colours are etc.
Yet i do think that it's possible red is possibly harder and maybe slightly more tricky for all humans.... but i think a deep purpley red like alizarin crimson is pretty different than some scarlet vermillion which looks like orange paint with a touch of red.
..............
is the red really PURPLE?
or is the red really really really ORANGEY RED?
............
.............
I paint in a variety of styles and on a variety of surfaces. I love t-shirt painting, and I can do it really well, but the picture will often flake off or become very dull quite fast because of how hard the paint becomes
.......
Well surface preparation and the proper paints for the proper surfaces are needed, otherwise you're totally wasting your time. You wanna wear a shirt and then others wear it and they are wearing the colour? and what if it's a near toxic green? or stains their sofa? You cant use oil paint on cardboard you'll ROT it. You need to gesso it with rabbit skin glues or acrylics and prep the surface, or worry if the masonite or paper is acid free or doesnt gas, or if the paint and the lighting will not FADE.
and remember pigments can STAIN
and can be poisonous
..........
You got to bone up on the
a. Art Materials Safety
b. Colour Theory
c. Preparation of surfaces
library books are great for this stuff, or buying it at the Art Store.
Same goes with the paint, you wanna be a painter, you're gonna tell your parents
only GOOD paint is in the ART stores.
And you engage with the salesman on price, safety, etc
your parents engage, and realize what a beginners start up will realistically cost.
.....................
- el-cheapo paint again
flaking or colours going funny, might not just be the paint.
surfaces need to be compatible.
....................
- Now of course I don't want the uber-expensive paints, but I'm *way* more than good enough to have to settle for paint that won't blend right.
Well, i assume you're gonna go acrylic and well, i'd probably recommend you go with Golden. It's cheaper in the bigger containers, and you can get a lot of variety.
...........
Fabric paints you might need to be limited with your choices there. Do what the professionals do, the right paint for the right surface.
..............
- The red I have is more like dark red
well you can toss a brand and name, and with most any common brand
you can find out what the heck it is.....
or close to. Or get a colour chart from a paint store [art store that is, maybe lol] , next to every rack of paints and match it up!
.............
- and that's coming from someone that struggles to differentiate various red colors.
suuuuuuure lol
people do it with lipstick...
............
though i think some people have an easier time picking shades than others.
And to make life simple - go acrylic, go with the late sam GOLDEN, He carried on the whole world of the guy before him who made the stuff in the 50s and 60s....
.....
Sam Golden (May 20, 1915 – March 11, 1997) started his paintmaking career in 1936 at Bocour Artist Colors with his uncle Leonard Bocour.
.....
In 1947 he developed Magna paint, the world's first artist acrylic paint. He returned from retirement in 1980 to found Golden Artist Colors Inc. based in New Berlin, New York, with his son Mark Golden.
.....
Sam and Leonard began by producing hand ground oil colors for artists in Manhattan as the New York School of Painters was coming into its own and New York City was becoming the arts center of the world. Artists like Willem de Kooning, Barnett Newman and Morris Louis were regular visitors at the Bocour shop on 15th street. They would set up their drawing pads or easels and draw or paint in the tiny shop. It was Sam's work directly with artists and the products he developed in collaboration with these painters that became the inspiration for his entire paint-making career. Sam is credited with the development of the first artist acrylic, the first phthalocyanine artist paints, the first iridescent artist colors, the first stable alizarin color in acrylic, the first stable zinc white in acrylic and the development of water tension breaker. Sam Golden died in upstate New York March 11, 1997.
.......
......
