PayPal Now on ArtDiscount

Thats right ArtDiscount now has the ability for its customers to pay via PayPal.
PayPal helps protect your credit card information with industry-leading security and fraud prevention systems. When you use PayPal, your financial information is never shared with the merchant.
To help safeguard you against identity theft, every PayPal payment is followed by an email confirming [...]

The Importance of Sizing the Canvas

Sizing the canvas is an absolute necessity when working in oils. Oil paint should never come in contact with the fibres or the canvas will rot, eventually becoming weak, brittle and crumbly.
Hide Glue: The purpose of hide glue is to protect the fibres of the canvas from coming in direct contact with the succeeding applications [...]

Popular Pigment Colours

Lamp black
Traditionally lamp black was made from soot collected from oil lamps. This is chemically known as amorphous carbon, because it is not bonded to form the naturally occurring carbon allotropes, graphite and diamond. Amorphous carbon reflects very little light, so lamp black and ivory black are darker that mars black.
Ivory black
Historically ivory black was [...]

Oil Paints

Oil paints are composed of ground pigments suspended in a drying oil, such as linseed or safflower oil. Oils do not dry by evaporation as with acrylic and watercolour, but oxidise into a solid state. The drying time of an oil painting can extend into weeks or month, limiting its commercial applications. However, the long [...]

Gouache Paints

Gouache is a paint based on watercolour, but with an added mineral compound which increases opacity. Gouache generally contains a higher proportion of pigment, the particles of which being generally larger than in watercolour. Consequently, when dry, more solid remains on the surface, increasing the paint’s reflective qualities.

Gouache’s relatively high opacity means that artists tend [...]

Acrylic Paints

Acrylics are paints composed of particles of pigment suspended in an acrylic emulsion. Acrylics are also available as inks and aerosols. Acrylic paints have extensive applications: they can be reduced with water to be used as watercolours, and can be used thicker to simulate oils. They have their own characteristics as well, which means that [...]

How to Stretch Your Own Canvas

If a pre made canvas gets damaged beyond repair but the frame is still ok, what do you do? One option is to strip the damage canvas and stretch your own.
People often stretch their own canvas because it can prove cheaper than buying pre made ones and you can make it to [...]

How to Restore a Bumped Canvas

Most people these days buy canvas packs of six or more. They use a few and store the rest. Unfortunately bumps and knocks do happen from time to time, and canvas’ aren’t as sturdy in the middle as they are round the sides.
So what do you do when the canvas in question gets bumped and [...]

Custom Spray Painting a Bicycle

Before you start airbrushing accustomise yourself with how your Airbrush handles. Start on a piece of card to practice, until you are confident with how your airbrush works.
Airbrushes use compressed air to spray the pigment from the gun. You can use an electric air compressor or canned propellant. For the first timers out there the [...]