Make a Paintbrush

I have made my own paint brushes on occasion, and was happy to see this in wikiHow! Try it, you'll like it.

How to Make a Paintbrush

Steps

1. Use any material that will hold paint for a brush tip: horse hair from a horse's mane or tail, grass, pieces of foam, cardboard, various plant fibers, cotton clumps, shredded strips of cloth...
   
   • Horse hair brush: gather together lengths of horse hair in the thickness and length you want. Most barns and horse boarding places might be willing to let you use old discarded horse hair. Wash it first.
     
   
   
2. Cut and shape the hair. Keep about 1-2 inches in length and about 1 inch in width.
   
3. Find a handle for your brush: try sticks from the yard, bamboo, tongue depressors or a yardstick.
   
4. Place the glue about 1/4 to 1/2 an inch around the bottom of the stick where the hair will go.
   
5. cover the glue with about 1/4 to 1/2 inch of the hair from one end.
   
6. Tie the string around the hair and handle. add more glue on top of the hair if you want.
   
7. Let the brush dry for however long the glue recommends, at least 2 hours.
   

Tips

• Gather all your materials together and experiment with different combinations before using any glue or twine
  
• Keep an eye out for materials in nature or other things you would normally throw out you can use for brushes
  
• Experiment! Leaves make good brushes too....
  

Warnings

• Do not use a glue gun, scissors, or any harmful materials without an adult's help if you are a child.
  

Things You'll Need

• Material for handles such as sticks, Popsicle sticks, yard sticks. Any 6 inch to 6 foot object that is thin and rigid.
  
• Material for the brush part: horse hair (mane or tail), pine needles, dryer lint, foam, etc.
  
• A binder such as Elmer's glue or wood glue, or even a hot glue gun.
  
• A length of string or twine to tie the brush material to your "stick"
  
• An adult's help if you are a child
  

Article provided by wikiHow, a wiki how-to manual. All content on wikiHow can be shared under a Creative Commons license.

Spark Box Studio Residency Award!

Spark Box Studio in beautiful Prince Edward County is offering free residencies to fine art students and emerging artists. This residency opportunity is a unique way for young and emerging artists to cultivate new ideas, access a rich library of arts resources, learn about career-building opportunities, and develop an understanding of the art world from a business perspective.

Four emerging artists will receive a one-week residency, 10 will receive a two day residency and 30 will receive one day at their Open Studio. Any emerging artist living in Ontario, between the ages of 19-29, is invited to apply for the Spark Box Studio Residency Award. Applicants are asked to fill out the online Residency Application at www.sparkboxstudio.com/award. Deadline: November 16, 2009

Scenes of Sandbanks and Beyond opening @ Black Prince Winery

My visiting Uncle and I had a great time at the opening reception for Scenes of Sandbanks and Beyond. Yours truly above with Heirloom Hollyhocks I and III, watercolour originals I made for this exhibition. (photo: Ken Friesen)

From Black Prince Winery:
Join us in the art cellar as over 40 local artists explore all that is Prince Edward County particularly the burgeoning wine industry and the Provincial Parks of this glorious area. A variety of disciplines including; pottery, sculpture, photography, oil, watercolour, encaustic and acrylic paintings will be on display at this years show. A specially selected wine will also be available for sale for a limited time featuring the work of participating artist Richard Brzozowski on the label. Proceeds from the art and the wine will be directed to Friends of Sandbanks.

Show continues weekends until November 8th.

Map

7th Annual Worldwide Paint Out starts today!

7 th Annual WORLDWIDE Artist Paint Out
International Plein Air Painters Organization

September 11-12-13, 2009

Grab your paints and get outside this weekend! Join plain air painters around the globe, and post your pix on Facebook's WWPO Page after the event here. I'll be painting in and around Quinte's Isle, Prince Edward County, Canada.

Cheers and happy painting!

Lake Champlain as artists’ muse

The Art of Lake Champlain was profiled on North Country Public Radio! Click on the link below or simply visit the NCPR website to hear an eight minute conversation about the book which features two of my paintings made on location in the Lake Champlain area. The Art of Lake Champlain was published this year as part of the quadricentennial of the lake’s discovery. The book includes oils, watercolors, pastels, photos and poetry.

http://www.northcountrypublicradio.org/news/story/14167/lake-champlain-as-artists-muse

Barnes & Noble Celebrates The Art of Lake Champlain

Celebration launch for a gorgeous book that features two of my paintings of the Lake Champlain area. In the neighbourhood? Pop on by!


(Lake Champlain Islands/Rocky Shoreline (2005) by Brandy Gale --watercolour, copper leaf and pure pigment 9"x12" Arches CP. Collection of Barbara Lacombe )

Barnes & Noble Celebrates The Art of Lake Champlain

Join us in celebrating many talented artists who contributed their work to The Art of Lake Champlain. Several artists who are included will be in attendance and will speak about their work, and their source of creative inspiration. Poet Daniel Lusk will read several of his Lake Champlain poems, and designer Deborah Kehoe will speak about the book.

Date: August 22nd, 2009, 1pm - 3pm

Location: Barnes and Noble Booksellers

Address:
102 Dorset Street
South Burlington, Vermont
05403

Heart & Music: Raise the Curtain on Ovarian Cancer Awareness

To my great delight, I am an artist participant in the inaugural Heart & Music charity event in Toronto next month. Come enjoy an entertaining evening in support of a very worthy cause!

HEART & MUSIC
September 28th, 2009
at the Betty Oliphant Theatre
National Ballet School of Canada
400 Jarvis Street, Toronto, Ontario
Doors open at 7 pm.
http://www.heartandmusic.com

Marsh Painting in a Bikini

The day after Bon Echo, Mia and I stayed an extra day at her family's hunting camp to paint the fabulous marsh expanses at the back of the lodge. It was muggy. It was buggy!

Mia painting from the deck.

The will to paint, the obsession, takes many forms. For me that day, it meant donning something that allowed breeze and no bees:

Strike the pose! (pic by Mia Lane)




Enal Aim painting outside the rules with random abandon. Yippee!


Must have coffee. (Beagle mug by Mia Lane)


See? You need a bug suit in Canada. * nods *

The Bon Echo Experience, Part 2

Next day. I was getting stinky. But folks still looked.

Todd Tremeer and his setup across the way from me. Super talented artist and great to chat with.


I showered at the camp site that night before heading back to the hunt camp. Forgot my blowdryer so made do. Kids were coming in and laughing at us. Mia took pictures. Wheeeeeeee!

Bon Echo was a positive experience for me; I especially enjoyed the camaraderie of being outdoors with fellow artists and chatting with the visitors to the show. Hope to see you out there next year! (Pic by Robert Fowler)

The Bon Echo Experience

(^photo: Robert Fowler)

I participated in the Friends of Bon Echo 2009 juried Art Exhibition and Sale of Canadian Original Art last week. It was the first time I had ever done an outdoor show of this sort. I could not believe how long it took to get set up! Many thanks to my Uncle Kif for the gift of a canopy. Fortunately my friend Mia Lane was in the tent beside me and showed me the ropes. Other artists there were very forthcoming with their advice as well!



My set up: flying by the seat of my pants



To my great delight, I enjoyed several sales of originals, including the Algonquin piece pictured here at the centre.


Note the IPAP brochures! I am the Blog Admin and the Executive Ambassador for this organization of plein air painters worldwide.

Mia and I stayed at her family's hunting camp about 80kms away.

We arrived and it was getting dark...

This is the bathroom

Peeeeeewwwwww! ;-)
More next post...

Shelburne Vineyard Celebrates The Art of Lake Champlain

What an honour! Two of my original paintings completed on location in the Lake Champlain Islands are to be published in this lovely tome, The Art of Lake Champlain: Inspiring Landscape, Verve Editions, 2009. The book launch invite is below if you are in the Vermont area and can attend!



Shelburne Vineyard Celebrates The Art of Lake Champlain

Bon Echo Art Exhibition and Sale

Friends of Bon Echo Park is a non-profit organization dedicated to preserving the natural and cultural heritage of Bon Echo Provincial Park in Ontario, Canada. I have been accepted into their 2009 juried Art Exhibition and Sale of Canadian Landscape original art. The show takes place July 24-26, 2009. I will be there painting on location, and a couple dozen of my works will be on show and for sale. Hope you can join us!

From the web site:

Mazinaw Lake and Bon Echo Provincial Park have drawn artists to its shores for hundreds of years. To maintain the example of the aboriginal peoples, the Group of Seven and the many artists who still come to appreciate and create, the Friends of Bon Echo Park are sponsoring the 14th annual Art Exhibition and Sale of Original Canadian Art on July 24, 25, 26, 2009.

Over 180,000 people visit Bon Echo Provincial Park annually to enjoy its beautiful beaches, the many hiking trails and picnic areas, Mazinaw Lake boat excursions, the several lakes within the Park and Greystones Gift and Book Shop. The Park is located north of Napanee on Highway 41, just 80 km north of Hwy 401.

A few photos from the opening of Sense and Sensibility

Sense and Sensibility: The paintings of Patricia Woodley and Brandy Gale
January 8, 2009 - exhibition opening - Campus Gallery - Helen and Arch Brown Center for the Visual Arts, Barrie, Ontario, Canada. (click pic to enlarge)



Gallery entrance, with a visual pun to start the show: Woodley's stark red canvas beside Gale's pair of pochades painted on Cadmium Red grounds.


There were two tables of fabulous food catered by Simply Yummee

visitors at the bar in the foyer...

I cannot contain my delight at the surprise showing up of dear, supportive friends Lylie and John Punter!

Curator Fullerton talks about the exhibition's intent before introducing the artists.

I thanked those in attendance (approx 150 souls) for making it out on a freezing January night, because Art matters, dammit!

Fantastic Jazz guitarists set the mood beside "Tunnel Through the Rockies" by Brandy Gale

Patricia Woodley may be camera shy, but her works are not! Above, one of Woodley's "internal landscapes."

Brandy Gale's pochades

Two works by Patricia Woodley

"Coming in for the Night" by Brandy Gale

"Kinetic Nature" by Brandy Gale

I spoke with a student who had done his homework and had many interesting questions for me to ponder!

Speaking to students in attendance.

The sole framed canvas in the exhibition: Gale's "Thermals over Mt St Perrin", was positioned beside Woodley's "finished, yet unfinished" landscape below. Part of the curator's intent for the exhibition was to show and compare/contrast process... each artist has a very different approach to working with landscape. Woodley works in her studio and I work on location, outside, in the field, yet we both share some similarities in the outcome. The works danced together so interestingly in the gallery space. I was delighted!

L-R: Prince Edward County artists! Brandy Gale, Joan MacKay, and Mia Lane

Post show HAPPIES! Those who know me will get this one. ;-) Show is on until February 1, 2009 - pop in if you can. Thanks to Bobby for taking some of these. Cheers, BKG

Sense and Sensibility: The paintings of Patricia Woodley and Brandy Gale

Hi everyone, hope you can make it to this exhibition:

Sense and Sensibility: The paintings of Patricia Woodley and Brandy Gale

Both artists explore the landscape from two different perspectives, Brandy Gale from a Plein Air (in the field) perspective and Patricia Woodley from a perspective of, "the internal landscape". Patricia Woodley is an emerging regional artist and Brandy Gale is an emerging artist who resides in Prince Edward County (Quinte's Isle.) (Neither one of them are aware of each others artistic practice.) Curated by Ted Fullerton.

Dates: January 8 - February 1, 2009
Opening: Thursday, January 8, 2009 at 7:00 p.m.

Helen & Arch Brown Centre for the Visual Arts One Georgian Drive, Barrie, Ontario, Canada L4M 3X9