Linen versus Cotton Canvas

The word canvas does not refer to any specific material in the field of textile fabrics but is applied to a number of closely woven materials of relatively coarse fiber that are used for sails, tents, awnings etc. In painting, the term canvas generally refers to the material upon which artists paint, stretched across a wooden frame. It can be pre-primed or unprimed.

Unprimed linen and cotton canvas

Linen is by far, the better-quality support material because of its strength and resistance to decay. Woven from flax, the weave can show throughout many layers of paint. Most paintings created before the 1850s were made from linen which includes almost all of our most celebrated paintings in museums today. Since that time, Cotton has replaced linen’s popularity due to low manufacturing costs.

Primed with an oil primer this is the classical standard for oil paintings made using linen. An acrylic primer which is less expensive than oil primer, can be used with either acrylic or oil paints. Linen is difficult to prime and stretch properly, but it offers the smoothest and stiffest painting surface, one with proven longevity. Typically, an artist would not use a low cost primer on linen because it is so expensive. It would be similar to setting a rather large, high-grade diamond in a brass ring. If you’re going to invest

Some of the qualities linen has that makes it so attractive to painters are:

• Linen is the most durable fabric to put paint on. Linen’s warp and weft threads are equal in weight so less susceptible
• to the expanding/contracting problems created by moisture
• Linen is very receptive to sizing and priming applications
• Linen retains its natural oils which preserve the fiber’s flexibility and keeps the canvas from becoming brittle
• Linen has a more “natural” weaved finish than cotton and is available in a variety of textures, weights and smooth or
• rough finish

Cotton is desirable because of its affordable price and its ease of stretching.

Much less expensive than linen, it has become the most popular support for oil and acrylic painting. A properly prepared cotton canvas has longevity similar to linen, and is more flexible and easier to stretch properly. However, cotton is considered too flexible for very large paintings and is prone to sagging.

It is possible to stretch cotton tighter than linen, without straining the wooden support, because cotton fibers stretch more easily than linen fibers. Although not as strong as linen, a heavy grade cotton can make up for it’s lack of strength with its weight.

• For both oil and acrylic painting, an acrylic gesso primer is generally used

Cotton duck. There are 10 grades of cotton duck which distinguish from one, the most heavy, to ten, the most lightweight. The grades refer to the weight and thickness of the cotton duck, and are standardized across most of the textile industry. Grades are assigned on the basis of how much a piece of fabric of a specific size weighs. Individual traditional names for each grade are still
used by some people, but they do not have specific grades attached.

Typical cotton duck for artists are:

• #8 Extra-heavy: difficult to stretch)
• #10 Heavy: stretchable but requires strength)
• #12 Medium: typical weight for paintings)
• #14 Light: easiest to stretch, prone to ripping under tension)

Students should never use linen unless the quality of their work and skill is comprable to that of a top selling artist. Even some of the most established artists don’t use linen as a support due to its price. This material also demands you use the highest grade primer and oil colour, which adds still more to the cost of linen.

There is also a PDF version of this post. Download it here.

Now you know.

All about artist’s paper

PAPER is one of the oldest supports used by artists. It was first developed in the 2nd century CE in China, it has become a mainstay of communication from writing to visuals and is an integral part of our life. The following are points every artist and designer should be aware of in regards to to its maintenance and proper care and handling. At the end of this post are some useful terminologies that explain the meanings and purpose of specific paper terms.

Deterioration of Paper: Causes and Prevention
The assumption is often made that if a paper is 100% rag, it is also acid-free and permanent But this is not necessarily so, and the reasons require some explanation. It is also assumed that an acid-free paper will not deteriorate, but acidity is only one of several factors which act on the destruction of paper.

Internal Factors
The internal factors which affect paper deterioration are established during the manufacturing process. They are: type and quality of the fibers, sizing material and the presence of acidic compounds. A paper described as 100% rag is made of cotton fibers, cooked and beaten into a consistency papermakers call rags. The beating process causes cotton fibers to interlock, thus creating the paper’s strength. Cotton fibers are nearly pure cellulose.
In order to assure fiber bondage in the presence of moisture, most papers undergo internal sizing. The sizing determines the paper’s resistance to water penetration and abrasion, creasability, finish, porosity, printability and surface bonding strength. This is accomplished with a number of different agents, such as rosin, animal glue and gelatin, starch, modified celluloses, synthetic resins, etc.
At one time, sizing was done primarily with rosin, held to the fibers by an astringent crystalline substance called alum (aluminum sulfate). Alum introduced acid to the previously neutral fibers. For a 100% rag paper to be acid-free, it must be sized synthetically, or with a process which requires no alum.

The potential permanence of paper is the responsibility of the manufacturer. In order to ensure this, the following ingredients should be excluded from the papermaking process:

• Ground wood fibers
• Concentrations of iron
• Copper minerals
• Alum/rosin sizing
• Residual bleaching chemicals
• Acidic compound

The symbol pH is a measure of the hydrogen ion concentration of a water solution and substance, and denotes if it is acid or alkaline. A substance with a pH value of 7 is neutral. Acids have pH values below 7 (1-6).  Alkalis have pH values above 7 (8-14.) So-called permanent papers are weakly alkaline, with a common pH from 8-10.
Most permanency specifications call for a paper with a pH of 6.5 or higher. An acid-free matboard, for example, has an actual pH of 6-7. If there are no residual alkaline salts in the board, it may become increasingly acidic with time. To increase longevity, the board can be buffered, a process which adds in an alkaline earth carbonate (e.g. calcium carbonate) at the pulp stage. Buffered boards have a pH of about 8.5 and an alkaline reserve of approximately 1-3%, and thus have
more potential permanence.
While pH is the most crucial internal factor responsible for a paper’s permanence, it should not be considered alone. Pulp type and quality, initial sheet strength, sizing agent and alkalinity must also be checked to ensure paper permanence.
External Factors
Besides the internal factors inherent in the papermaking process, there are also external factors which contribute to the deterioration of artists’ papers, such as light, temperature and humidity, air pollution and insects. Paper, like all organic material, is subject to the conditions under which it is used and stored. Therefore, the longevity of works of art on paper, given that the quality of the paper is good, is ultimately the responsibility of the artist and the collector. Due to the expense of handmade, acid-free and buffered paper products, it is certainly worth taking note of the paper enemies which reside within our homes, studios and galleries. tight. With all other factors being equal, works of art on paper will last longer if kept in the dark. Since they cannot be enjoyed and appreciated without light, it is wiser to think of ways in which direct light, with the irreversible chemical changes it imposes on paper, can be minimized.
Light has visible and invisible effects on paper, both of which can cause embrittlement and eventual deterioration. The most obvious visible effect of light is bleaching-the whitening and fading of paper color and some of the colors used to create the image. All light fades works of art on paper and fading is not reversible. Less light means less fading, and not no fading.
While this is occurring, invisible damage is also taking place. The ultraviolet rays in sunlight and fluorescent light cause chemical changes in the paper and accelerate the process of fading. Most of the light energy entering a room is converted to heat, but the minute fraction which is absorbed by paper is responsible for a process called photocatalyzed degradation. Paper which has been sized and exposed to dyes, pigments and dirt is vulnerable to complex photocatalyzed reactions. After oxidation occurs, the fibers in the paper are broken down until they are too short to stay bonded and embrittlement ensues. The effects of deterioration initiated by light will continue even after the paper is removed from direct light.

To minimize the effects of light, consider the following tips:

• Avoid hanging pictures on a wall directly opposite windows, since the light there is greater.
• Use louvered blinds or translucent curtains to moderate or redirect sunlight during the brightest hours.
• Rotate the position of your pictures around the house every year to decrease the chances of fading.
• Never work on, or hang, pictures in direct sunlight.
• Cover your fluorescent lights with protective sleeves which filter out radiation.
• Replace your picture frame glass with ultraviolet-filtering Plexiglas.
• Varnish paintings with picture varnish containing a UV-absorber.

Temperature/Humidity
These two factors work as a team on the destruction of paper. Evidence proves that the lower the storage temperature of paper, the longer it lasts. The useful life of paper is approximately doubled with every decrease of 10° F. For homes and studios, temperatures between 65°-70° F are optimal Relative humidity is the ratio of the amount of moisture in the air, at any temperature, to the amount required at that temperature to saturate the air.
Current research suggests that paper will last the longest when kept at a relative humidity of 45%. Ranges of 50-70% are considered acceptable for private homes and studios. Some climates may require a winter humidifier and summer dehumidifier to maintain this standard. If humidity is too low, it can cause the desiccation and eventual embrittlement of paper. Too much humidity accelerates the growth of mold and the internal decomposition of paper. Mold is nourished by sizing and paper fibers, and can also feed on the binders used in pastels. The presence of rusty-colored patches indicates that foxing — chemical action of mold on the metallic salts in the paper due to prolonged, high humidity— is occurring. Exposure to direct sunlight for 1 hour, or enclosure in a closed container with thymol crystals for 2-3 days, will kill mold. Thymol is a fungicide, available at chemical supply houses and some drug stores. Since thymol softens oil paint, it should not be used on oil paintings.
While low temperatures are best suited to the storage of paper products, consistency of temperature is critical. Temperature/humidity fluctuations, called cycling, can often be more detrimental to paper than consistently high temperatures.  Cycling weakens, and eventually breaks down, the fibers of paper by causing expansion and contraction due to water contained within it.

Changes in temperature/relative humidity should be minimal (10° F and 10%), and gradual. Some ways to prevent mold and minimize deterioration due to heat and humidity are:

• Maintain the lowest, most consistent temperature you possibly can between 60-70° F.
• Keep humidity between 45-70%.
• Avoid hanging pictures on the outside facing walls, especially if they feel cold or damp.
• Avoid framing pictures directly against glass or Plexiglas without a spacer or mat, as this provides an excellent surface for moisture and mold.
• Dust framed pictures regularly, as airborne mold spores are contained within dust.
• Keep frames away from the wall by inserting small cork squares in the two lower corners of the frame. This creates good circulation and reduces chance of mold growths.
• Avoid leaving pictures in a closed room or house for extended periods of time without some form of circulation or dehumidification.
• Never hang pictures over a heating register, air duct or fireplace.

Air pollution
Large urban and industrial areas promote a process called sulfation, which occurs when flue gas constituents (water, carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide, etc.) react to form sulfuric acid. Sulfur dioxide gas is absorbed by paper, where it reacts with moisture to create a destructive sulfuric acid problem within the fibers. This is called acid hydrolysis — the reaction of an organic compound with water in the presence of acid. This process breaks down the cellulose, causing discoloration, embrittlement and disintegration of the paper fibers. At normal temperatures, it occurs very slowly, but at elevated temperatures, the process is greatly accelerated.  Sulfuric acid does not evaporate or leave the paper, even after removal from the contaminated area.
Other major pollutants include industrial smoke and particulate matter, photochemical oxidants and haze, motor vehicle emissions, solar radiation, temperature inversions and sodium chloride (prevalent in coastal areas). Solid particles found in polluted air accelerate the deterioration of paper. Dust and grime are abrasive to the surface of paper. In the presence of moisture and in combination with the acid droplets around dirt, they promote a corrosive process which penetrates the fibers as well. Many compounds are not dangerous themselves, but they promote paper deterioration because they form acids when they mix with atmospheric moisture.

If you live in the urban environment, the only way to combat air contaminants is through an air conditioning and filtration system.  While it is initially an expensive outlay, air conditioning with proper filtration will reduce restoration costs and capital losses of objects, and prove a good investment in time.
Insects
Paper contains ingredients, such as gelatin and glue sizing, wood pulp and flour paste, which are appealing to insects. Cockroaches, silverfish, termites and woodworms are the most common destroyers of paper. Silverfish love dark places and can make nice little homes inside frames as they nibble on sizing and wood pulp. Termites and woodworms like anything made of cellulose, as well as wood, so a rag paper picture in a wood frame is susceptible. Cockroaches can cause damage to paper by eating glue sizing or any painting media containing sugar.

To help prevent infestation of harmful insects:

• Clean picture frames regularly.
• Never store works of art in dark, damp places such as basements or attics.
• Use screens on windows and doors to minimize insects.
• Use powdered or aerosol insecticides if signs of insects appear.

Useful Paper Terms
Acid-Free Paper: Paper that contains no free acid. Acids have pH values below 7 (1-6). Alkalies have pH values above 7 (8-14). Specifications for an acid-free paper range from 6.5 to 7.

Acidity: The state of a substance that contains acid. Paper becomes acidic from the ingredients used in its manufacture, from the environment or both.

Alum: An astringent crystalline substance used in rosin sizing to hold paper fibers together and responsible for introducing acid into the paper.

Archival: A term describing the use and collection of government or corporate documents. Agencies that govern large archives, like the Library of Congress, set standards for their curation, called “archival standards.”

Bast Fibers: Refers to a group of fibers commonly used in Japanese papermaking, including flax, gampi, hemp, jute, kozo and mitsumata.

Buffering: A process that neutralizes a paper’s acidity over time by adding an alkaline substance, like calcium carbonate, at the pulp stage. Buffering helps reduce the acidity of paper over time.

Cold Pressed: Mildly textured surfaces produced by pressing the paper through unheated rollers. Generally considered to be a surface between rough and hot pressed.

Deckle:
1) Wood frame resting on or hinged to the edges of the mould that defines the edges of the sheet in handmade papermaking.
2) Strap or board on the wet end of a paper machine that determines the width of the paper web.

Deckle Edge: Natural, fuzzy edges of handmade papers, simulated in mouldmade and machine-made papers by a jet stream of water while the paper is still wet. Handmade papers have 4 deckle edges, while mouldmade and machine-made papers usually have two.

Durability: The degree to which paper retains its original qualities with use.

Esparto: A grass from North Africa which makes a soft, ink receptive sheet (Basingwerk contains esparto.)

Fibers: The slender, thread-like cellulose structures that cohere to form a sheet of paper.

Filler: Generic term to describe the nonoxidizing clays or minerals added to the pulp at the beater stage to improve paper density.

Finishing: Term used to describe the cutting, sorting, trimming and packing of paper.

Gampi: A bast fiber from the gampi tree used in Japanese papermaking to yield a translucent, strong sheet.

Gm/m2: The European measure of weight for artists’ papers. It compares the weights of different papers, each occupying one square meter of space, irrespective of individual sheet dimensions.

Grain Direction: Direction in which the fibers of machine-made paper lie due to the motion of the machine. When machine-made paper is moistened, the fibers swell more across their width than along their length, so the paper tends to expand at right angles to the machine direction. Handmade and mouldmade papers have indistinguishable grain directions.

Handmade Paper: A sheet of paper, made individually by hand, using a mould and deckle.

High Alpha: A nearly pure form of wood pulp which has the same potential longevity in paper as cotton, linen or other natural fiber.

Hot Pressed: Smooth, glazed surfaces produced by pressing the paper through hot rollers after formation of the sheet.

Kozo: The most common fiber used in Japanese papermaking, it comes from the mulberrv tree. This is a long, tough fiber that produces strong absorbent sheets.

Laid Paper: Paper with a prominent pattern of ribbed lines in the finished sheet. It is accomplished in handmade paper using a screen-like mould of closely set parallel horizontal wires, crossed at right angles by vertical wires spaced somewhat further apart The same effect is achieved in machine-made paper with the use of a “dandy roll,” positioned at the top of the wire in the wet end of the paper machine.

Linters: A general term for pre-processed pulp, cotton or wood, purchased in sheet form. Cotton linters are fibers left on the seed after the long fibers have been removed for textile use. They are too short to be spun into cloth but can be cooked and made into paper. Stiffer and more brittle than long-fibered cotton, linters produce a low-shrinkage pulp good for paper casting. They cannot produce a paper with the strength of cotton rag. Wood linters are called hardwood or softwood depending on grade.

Machine-made Paper: A sheet of paper produced on a rapidly moving machine called the Fourdrinier, which forms, dries, sizes and smooths the sheet Uniformity of size and surface texture marks the machine-made sheet

Mitsumata: A bast fiber used in Japanese papermaking that yields a soft, absorbent and lustrous quality.

Mould: The main tool for hand-papermaking, it is a flat screen that filters an even layer of fibers through it to form the sheet In western papermaking, it is accompanied with a wooden frame called a deckle.

Mouldmade Paper: A sheet of paper that simulates a handmade sheet in look, but is made by a slowly rotating machine called a cylinder- mould. The machine was introduced in England in 1895. No mouldmade are made in the U.S.

Permanence: The degree to which paper resists deterioration over time.

pH: A measure of the hydrogen ion concentration of a water solution and substance, denoting acid or alkaline. A substance with a value of 7 is considered neutral.

pH Neutral Paper: Paper made with any kind of pulp having a pH of 6.5 to 7.

Plate Finish: A smooth surface found on paper that has been run under a calender machine one or more times.

Ply: A single web of paper, used by itself or laminated onto one or more additional webs as it is run through the paper machine.

Pulp: A general term describing the beaten, wet mixture of stock used in making paper, whether its contents are wood, cotton or other fibers. Also called pulp finish.

Rags: Processed clippings of new cotton remnants from the garment industry for use in high quality papers.:
Rag Paper: Paper made from fibers of non-wood origin, including actual cotton rags, cotton linters, cotton or linen pulp. Rag papers contain from 2-100% cotton fiber pulp.

Rice Paper: A common misnomer applied to lightweight Oriental papers. Rice alone cannot produce a sheet of paper. Rice-straw is only occasionally mixed with other fibers in paper-making. The name may be derived from the rice size once used in Japanese papermaking.

Rough: Heavily textured surfaces produced by minimal pressing after sheet formation.

Size: Material, such as rosin, glue, gelatin, starch, modified cellulose, etc. added to the stock at the pulp stage, or applied to the surface of the paper when dry, to provide resistance to liquid penetration

Sulfite: A term for pulp made from wood. Depending on how it is processed for papermaking, it can either be acidic or neutral in pH.

Surface-Sized: A term applied to a paper whose surface has been treated with a sizing material after the sheet is dry or semi-dry.

Tub-Sized: A term applied to a paper that has been surface-treated and/or impregnated with a sizing material in a tub-size press.

Vellum Finish: A slightly rough or “toothy” surface on a sheet of paper. Waterteaf – A paper with little or no sizing, like blotter, making it very absorbent If dampening is desired, this paper can be sprayed with an atomizer.

Watermark: Design applied to the surface of the paper mould which causes less pulp to be distributed in that area and results in the transfer of the design to the finished sheet

Web: The continuous ribbon of paper, in its full width, during any stage of its progress through the paper machine.

Wet Strength: The strength of a sheet of paper after it is saturated with water.

Wove Paper: Paper with a uniform unlined surface and smooth finish, generally made on a European style mould with a woven wire surface. Most papers produced are of this type.

How to recover a corrupted Illustrator (AI) File

Yesterday I was working on some designs for t-shirts in Adobe Illustrator. Today, when I try to open the file I get a message from Illustrator that says that Illustrator “Can’t open the illustration. The illustration contains an illegal operand.” WTH??

So here’s how to fix it. Most people aren’t even aware that there is a feature in Adobe Illustrator called ContentRecovery. By default, this function is turned off. You can turn it on and then recover your file to correct the problem. These are the steps…

Enable content recovery
1. Quit out of Illustrator.
2. Locate your Adobe Illustrator Prefs, make a backup copy and put it somewhere else and then edit the other:
Mac: <user name>/Library/Preferences/Adobe Illustrator CS4 Settings/en_US/Adobe Illustrator Prefs
Windows XP: C:\Documents and Settings\<user name>\Application Data\Adobe\Adobe Illustrator CS4 Settings\en_US\AIPrefs
3. Using a plain text editor that can search, (I used Bean) search for this string: /enableContentRecovery 0
4. Change the 0 (zero) to a 1 and save it. Do not change its filename.

Correct the offending command
1. Launch Illustrator.
2. Using File > Open, hold down Command + Option + Shift (Mac), or Ctrl + Alt + Shift (Windows),  and click Open. Do not use Recent files (Mac) or double click the file to open. You want the full Open dialog.
3. Your file will be blank. Close the file without saving or altering.
4. Go back to your directory. You will now have a second file with an underscore at the beginning of the filename. (myfile.ai vs. _myfile.ai).

The underscore file is your recovered file. It will also be larger than your original. Mine was 4.1 megs which shot up to 10.8. When you go into your file later and edit it, it will go back down to the size it was originally.

5. Open your recovered file in a plain text editor and search for something unique in the offending command message. I searched for the word “sugar”. I was able to find the exact line that matched the message. Delete it. Save the file and close.

This is what I deleted:

A word about finding the correct offending command
According to Adobe, there are two things to be aware of…
1. Because postscript is a programming language, functions toggle on and off. So when you delete, your line should start with: %AI8_BeginPluginObject and end with: %AI8_EndPluginObject. The presumed offending command should be between these strings. That means when you delete, block from %AI8_BeginPluginObject and end on %AI8_EndPluginObject. You can see that in the above image where I deleted where it says “BeginEncoding” up to where it says “EndEncoding”.

2. Sometimes, you can have a brush or pattern that can corrupt your file. In this case, you would look for these strings…
(Adobe Calligraphic Brush Tool)
(Adobe Scatter Brush Tool)
(Adobe ArtOnPath Brush Tool)
(Adobe Pattern Brush Tool)
If you find a string that does not match any one of the above, delete it.

Sometimes, you will have to search and delete every instance of the string. In my case, I just happened to find the exact string quoted in the error message. As it turned out, I opened the file and it still loaded the font “Sugar”. The very first thing I did was convert it to outlines to remove it from the document font list altogether.

This is my recovered file…

Mimic Font for Mac and Windows

Sometimes you can have so many things on the go at the same time, it’s easy for the little things to get buried. Some years ago I began this project. At the time I was experimenting with a retro look. I was recalling the Frigidaire logo on my mother’s turquoise refrigerator when I was a kid. It was so blue, it always made me think of toothpaste and ice. When we got our second refrigerator, the blue one went to the basement where it stood for years holding pop and other things. My mother was forever down there chiseling out hunks of ice from its tiny freezer compartment.

The logo I was remembering was from the 50s and 60s. It was a raised piece of chrome on the front of the door, similar to some of the car logos of the day. I remember how streamlined it looked. What struck me most about it was the play between straight vertical stems and curves. I found the curves connecting to the straight vertical stems wonderfully pleasing and I’ve never forgotten that relationship.

This project was an experiment in designing a font with a similar relationship with the same sort of interplay. That is, in my mind, what gives this face the retro look from my childhood.

I know my memory isn’t remarkably accurate (no one’s really is) so I wasn’t seeing the logo in my head as precisely as I would have liked. With that in mind, I decided to create a face that was similar, with a similar relationship between straight and curved lines. This font is the result of my bad memory and experimentation.

So here for your viewing (and downloading) pleasure, is Mimic Regular for mac and pc. There are two archives both in zip format. One is mac and the other is pc. Both contain OpenType, Postscript Type 1 and a True Type version for each platform. I plan to finish the family with bold, italic and bold-italic later on. The download link is at the bottom of this page.

I think this face has a pleasing retro feel. Tracked out, Mimic takes on a more modern look.

Mimic Regular for Macintosh
Mimic Regular for Windows

How to make painting vanishes, mediums, balsams and resins

Here for your reading pleasure are a list of pdfs I’ve collected over the years. These files contain recipes for painting mediums, varnishes, balsams and resins. Included in this list of goodies are century-old master recipes. Some of the ingredients can only be obtained through the net, but it gives you something to add to your arsenal and a better understanding that the varnish you may be using is not all that there is out there. They contain definitions, techniques on how to make and use and drying times times of resins, oils and balsams. Some of these recipes claim to create jewel effects in the varnishes and resins while others claim to create a depth of field effect unlike any commercially available varnish.

Glazes
Balsams

• Larch, Venetian and Strasbourg Turpentine
• Canada & Copaiva Balsam

Mediums

• Fast-drying painting mediums
• Copal concentrate and Canada Balsam
• Canada Balsam And Copal
• Cananda Balsam And Sun Thickened Oil
• Canada Balsam, Double Mastic, Copal Concentrate & Oil
• Canada Balsam Medium (Basic)
• Copal Concentrate And Stand Oil
• Copal Varnish Basic
• Damar And Double Mastic And Wax
• Damar-Oil Canada Balsam
• Double Mastic
• Egg And Damar Emulsion
• Egg And Beeswax Emulsion
• Gelatine Solution For Paper
• Gesso For Panels (Technical Gelatine Formula)

Personally, I think it’s important to at least know how our predecessors worked with paint, before this information is lost to time forever. Some of these recipes have been in use for centuries before the advent of modern commercial varnishes and resins. Remember, I cannot verify their longevity but I can verify their authenticity.

Download the PDFs here:

• Drying times of resins, oils and balsams.pdf
• Making oil painting mediums.pdf
• Oil mediums.pdf
• Resins and varnishes.pdf
• Varnishes, balsams and resins.pdf
• Why use a final varnish.pdf

Welcome to The Design Dark Ages

So here we are in the first month of 2009 and all the bad news just gets worse. In this bizarre economic climate, we’re all adapting to new ways of working… and not all of them good for design.

Ten years ago, there were a few freelancing sites out there and when you went to one, most of the subscribers were local, or at least from your within your own country. Now, they’re from all over the world. The bidding climate has changed from competitive to viscous. When you bid on a job that is reasonable and fair, you can bet your grandmother’s life insurance someone will underbid you to the point where its not worth bidding at all. They’re bidding just to get the job at any (or no) cost.

The way I see it for designers, is the quality of design will go down… way down. We’re entering the Design Dark Ages. Companies and design firms are cutting back, way back.They’re hiring younger people with little or no experience and cutting out the guys and gals with years of accumulated experience. The experience is what makes a designer good, having worked with lots of other designers and clients. But that experience costs money to staff, more than say a kid fresh out of art school. A senior level art director is more expensive than Joe Common who started with a summer job at a firm and was then handed a full-time design position. At the same time, the firm will only get designs that come out of Joe’s inexperienced head and not from Frank-Been-Doing-This-A-Long-Time who can design circles around Joe. It used to be that it was the experience we were all trying to collect working in a design firm, but it seems that its almost dangerous to have now.

Seen from another angle, with the economy taking a face plant into the proverbial toilet, its causing designers to looking for escape routes out of the design field altogether. Good designers are turning to accounting jobs and retail, and let’s not forget those that made the leap to real estate (my condolences).

Every time there is an economic boot to the head, advertising dollars are the first to go. Advertising for businesses are luxury dollars they don’t have these days. Firms began to add more services for their clients in a bid (to keep their clients and) to help them generate new revenue and create new revenue streams for themselves. That alone raised their overheads. So they cut back on personnel, cutting the bigger fish first. The work that was done by three people is now being done by one and chances are, he’s younger than my shoes.

Experience is a good thing but if you have lots of it, you probably haven’t noticed the targeting laser on the back of your head. Good design is out there, don’t get me wrong. There’s just less and less of us doing it.

Digital Stock Photography

AS DESIGNERS, Images and text are what make up any piece of graphic design. The text we get from the client or agency writers, and the imagery we create, have created for us or purchase online. Ideally, it would be great if the photography was unique to each piece, but uniqueness costs money and can get very expensive for the client. So what does a graphic designer do when he needs some artwork for a client, but doesn’t want to spend a lot of money? He turns to online stock photography.

A stock house is a distribution house for the photographer. They use their network to get the photographer’s work out there to the graphic designing public. When an image is sold, the photographer gets a percentage, depending on the license type.  If the license is royalty free, the photographer gets a small piece of the pie, but the image can be sold over and over again. If the license is rights managed, the photographer gets a much larger chunk of pie and in some cases, can control how that image is even used. In special cases, some rights managed images cannot be used by two different companies in the same industry at the same time. And there are variations.

So in a nutshell, most stock houses are generally the same in what they do but their definitions may be slightly different, particularly from country to country. It’s always a good idea to read everything about how they do their licensing when dealing with a new stock house.

Another consideration is time zone. If you are working on a project with a tight deadline (and who hasn’t?)and you need an image at a special size (let’s say that image is stocked in a smaller size only), keep in mind where the company is physically located. An ad agency in Toronto, Canada who needs the image by 3:00 the following day, won’t get it in time because their stock house in Sacramento California is not only three hours behind them, but wont even see the request until 12 noon Toronto time or 9 am Sacramento time.

Licensing There are two types of licenses: royalty free and rights managed. Each stock house deals with these two terms differently and it’s always recommended to read the fine print of any contract at least once. Don’t assume that if one company says you can do whatever you wish with the image, they all say the same thing.

Getty’s use of royalty free images means the designer purchases the image and uses it over and over again. The larger the image, the more he pays. Some places such as 123rf allows you to purchase a set rate subscription per image. Others such as  Shutterstock have single rates where you pay once, and download as many images as you require over a set amount of time, such as a year or 25 days. The longer the time period, the higher the subscription rate. The downside to royalty free images is that anyone can have the same image as you which means although you may have come up with a smashing design, your imagery is not so smashing after all.

Rights managed means (in most cases) the stock house may distribute the image, but the photographer holds the rights to how that image gets used. Getty’s use of the term is fairly straight forward. The designer negotiates with a rep on how he or she intends to use the artwork and pays based on a number of variables such as duration (how long the printed image will be in distribution), print copies (also referred to as circulation), image percentage (ratio of how big the image is in the overall printed piece) and so on. And those variables are in reference to each usage. Want to use it in web? Then there are a whole new set of variables to consider.

Now let’s say your client decides to add a brochure into the mix, the designer must then go back to the rep and negotiate a new license based on new usage. The downside to the uniqueness of rights managed images is that only a few people may have a copy of your image and it’s far more expensive than royalty free.

And while we’re talking about the downside, let’s not forget the downside of online digital photography itself. The one horrible aspect of such photography is that it tends to homogenize all design, everywhere. Anyone can have your images and as a designer, you loose your own uniqueness when you use it. Consumers become unresponsive to the same images appearing over and over again in all advertising. Digital Stock house catalogs can take on a bland and predictable appearance. Designers crave unique, edgey photography but rarely have the client budget to afford specialty photography.

Lens Correction in Photoshop

As a painter, I’m cursed. One of the things I have to always consider is documenting my paintings. What curses me is the curvature of the lens. By virtue of the curve, straight lines always come out curving around a bulge in photographs.  That’s the lens doing that. It’s called field distortion and it drives me crazy.

I could fix it by buying a lens for my camera that would correct it, but they’re expensive.

I could buy software such as DxO Optics Pro. It too can be expensive. DxO Optics Pro retails for $253.00 CAD.

I have Photoshop already… and guess what? It comes with a lens correction filter already (as of CS2). As it turned out, I had the perfect image to try it out on. I did a painting of Queen Street in Toronto from a series I’ve been working on of a row of buildings. As you can see in my original image, the distortion isn’t bad. But enough that I’m not happy with the way it is.

Original image

The second image shows guides to see just how far off it really is. Not much… but enough. Click for the enlargement to see the detail.

From the Filter menu, go to Distort -> Lens Correction.

Pulldown menu in Photoshop

That calls up a workspace window with controls on the right hand side and tools on the left.

The Workspace

Closeup of Menu

Here’s a closeup of the controls.

Remove Distortion is a setting that controls which way the distortion will operate, convex or concave.

Chromatic Aberration is when your channels or areas in your channels are not aligned and you get an offset occurring.

Vignette is when an area of your photograph is fuzzy and out of focus.

Transform refers to the entire image tilting in perspective top to bottom (vertical perspective) or swinging left to right (horizontal perspective).

The Edge and Scale settings refer to when the image is distorted to correct the aberration, the filter will squish in the image, pulling it away from the original edge of the image. This setting tells the filter what to put there in its place. The default is transparency, or in other words nothing.

So the first thing I need to do is straighten the image by rotating 1 degree. You can see the canvas exposed along the edges after the rotation. Had I changed the Edge setting to a fill colour, the exposed areas would be solid and not transparent.

Then I changed the horizontal perspective to -4 and the vertical to +6 to align the front picture plane to the viewer.

This was the result. It was enough that it represented what I wanted. Just enough to remove most of the distortion. I’m not going to fuss too much with it. The more I fuss, the less people are going to believe that this is what my painting really looks like.

From here, I used Free Distort to align and straighten the edges more

The final image

My finished file.

What software has done to the industry of making things pretty

Technology advances… it always moves forward. It makes our lives easier. Each time software for example, advances; it makes the designer’s job easier, or its supposed to. Take Adobe InDesign, thats software for a designer like myself. Its a tool of my trade. The trouble is that anyone can buy it. So every Tom, Dick and Harriet can download a copy. The problem with every Tom, Dick and Harriet is that they may learn how to use it, but they haven’t a clue about good design.

For designers, software advancement has its downside too. Our deadlines get shorter because we can do things faster. Software companies (like Adobe) have a tendency to rearrange menus or reformulate how to do things, so there’s always a learning curve in new versions.

Ever notice how it seems like suddenly everyone started getting more junk mail? More badly designed paper for the bird cage? That’s because now that every Tom, Dick and Harriet can call themselves a designer, just by virtue of the fact that they own a copy of InDesign.

Owning a copy of InDesign, does not a designer make…
and you can quote me.

Nevermind… I quoted myself.

Guaranteed Tom, Dick and Harriet don’t know anything about good typography either. Kerning is probably not even a concern for them. Take a look at any junk mail you have, and look at any period. Its probably miles away from the character next to it. The same with a “1” character, as in a telephone number. Its even happening in bad web banners.

And speaking of type, look at font design. Everyone knows there are zillions upon zillions of free fonts out there.

Here’s a Google search result for “free font”.  1001 free fonts, 11980 free fonts and on and on.

Most of them designed by people who downloaded a copy of Fontographer, Fontlab Studio or Font Creator and uploaded their creation. Font creation has its own rules to follow and you can bet that Bobby down the street who just uploaded his new handwriting font, didn’t follow them. Any studio or print manager cringes the moment he or she discovers that the font in his job wasn’t from a reputable type foundry. Plus it’s a good bet that the font itself will blow his job right out of his rip and dump the job altogether.

I suppose it would be a good idea if all the places that accepted uploads from Bobby practiced a standard set of font file rules, such as proper kerning tables and font metrics. But how would you police that? Chances are, they wouldn’t consider it if it meant they would have a lower inventory.

Cudos to Bobby for getting his creation out there and someone finding it, but a kick in the pants for costing a studio money to fix it. Now Mr Print Manager has an even tighter deadline and how does he tell his client that the job he was sent had to be ripped apart because of the font that was used?

And then there are the images. This is where things get a little sticky. A few years back the buzzword was “copyright”. When Joe Client goes to a designer and asks him or her to build a brochure, its up to him or her to follow proper rules of image acquisition. That means opening an account with a digital image supplier such as Getty or Comstock and negotiating the rights to use the image, unless its royalty free, which can also have its own licensing criteria.

Images also have to be assigned proper profiles for printing and their densities checked and altered for the right output device. They have to be color-corrected, sharpened and resized. I’ll bet you your first born child these things were never done in your junk mail. I’ll bet it was all corrected at the print house and then billed back to the client.

And then there’s colour, and paper… but you get my point.

Part of this problem stems from the fact that Tom, Dick and Harriet are just plain cheaper. They won’t be charging what a seasoned designer or big studio would charge. So as always, you get what you pay for. A well designed piece that may win an award for its striking design and excellent typography, or bird cage paper.

Good design is not only taught, but learned with experience. Designers learn over time how to design well. They know when something works or doesn’t work. Tom, Dick and Harriet on the other hand are merely concerned with “getting it out,” regardless of whether it follows the rules of good design.

So the next time you get junk mail and it’s looking perfect for the bird cage, just be sure of one thing… it wasn’t designed by me. 

The new trend thats too new

When was the last time you walked through a contemporary art gallery? Ever notice the 1/8 inch thick layer of epoxy resin on some of the paintings? It’s a trend that has slowly crept into the modern artists consciousness over the last 10 years. And I’ve been watching its arrival.

Well, its here. Not ony is it here but it’s bought land and built a house on Looked Like A Good Idea at The Time Avenue.

Being a traditionalist in the way that I build my paintings, my methods have been tried and true for centuries. I build my paintings to last, otherwise I woulden’t care about the pigments’ lightfastness. But I do, because I want them to last a long time.

So here’s how I was taught to build a painting…

1. Stretch your canvas onto wooden stretcher frames (see helpful Phil above)
2. Coat front and back with polyvinylacetate sizing, to seal the fibers of the canvas
3. Prime the front with two coats of gessoe, sanding between each coat
4. Start with a pencil, charcoal or paint sketch
5. Work in 3 layers, increasing the amount of “fat” or oil in your paint as you go to the next layer. Layer 3 should have the most oil, while the first layer should have the least. This is known as painting “fat over lean.” It’s one of the tried and true methods I was talking about. Using the fat over lean method creates “cross-linking” at the molecular level of the paint film between each layer of paint. This reinforces your painting with each layer bonding to the next as you work.
   Secondly, use a paint medium as you paint… this is where you are adding or decreasing the amount of fat in your mixtures. You should be using three different pre-mixed mediums… thin (which is usually more turp than oil), medium (50 fat to 50 turp) and fat (80 fat to 20 turp). But you should use a full recipe for mediums which are available on the net. As you increase the amount of fat in you painting, the longer it will take to dry and cure.
6. Six months after the oils have fully cured, its varnish day! Use a varnish that was NOT included in your medium mixture. If you used an alkyd medium to build your paint layers, use a damar in your varnish. Never, ever use the same one as both in your paint layer and as your varnish. The varnish layer is always meant to be removable for cleaning. When a painting ages and discolours, its not the paint thats changing, its the varnish.

So now you know what I know. Its the way I was trained.

But here’s my dilemma… a 1/8 thick coating of this epoxy resin layer hasn’t been around long enough for anyone to really know how stable it is and how long it will last. No one has tested it. So let’s say someone pays $25,000 for a painting with one of these coatings. Five years from now, he drops it while moving and it cracks. What happens then? It’s highly probable the coating will bond to the paint. How do you repair something like that? Okay, let’s say it doesn’t bond, but cracks off… now you have a 1/8 deep cut into your painting. How do you repair something like that? Okay, let’s say it doesn’t crack off but just splits along the surface. Will the painting now be predisposed to blooming in the summer?

You see, that’s the problem. No one knows because it hasn’t been here long enough. My other dilemma is with the buyers. It’s fair to say that if we discover that “Oops, It Really Was A Bad Idea – The Movie” has been playing all along, then we’ll most likely stop using these coatings on works of art. Unfortunatley when that day arrives, you can bet your entire lunch money AND Oreo cookies that every buyer of these types of paintings will be screaming at an artist for being… well, an artist!

Apparently there is supposed to be quite a big debate going on about this… but I don’t have tickets.

Open Source Design

Here’s something I came across a few days ago. Open Source Web Design. 1,280 downloadable web designs.

The Open Source Web Design project was founded in September, 2000 by Francis J. Skettino. The goal was to provide the Open Source community with quality web designs to help get people’s projects on the web in a way that is both organized and good looking.

An advocate of the Web 2.0 standard, this Philadelphia-based site proposes to share knowledge by spreading their webwares. Its a great idea and was the basis for learning html… share, copy, modify. Now THAT’s technology.

Hello world, no really

As a designer, your eye stays peeled for anything of design interest whether you want it that way or not. You can’t help but notice little things such as the fluid curving arm of your mom’s kettle or the unusual tight kerning in an ad. It’s just the way designers are wired.

This blog represents my travels… on the net or the world around me. Anything I find of design interest is going here for other designers to rummage through. As well, anything of art and culture is landing here. So, for your reading pleasure, here are the keywords for today… design, graphic, art direction, font, type, typography, colour (yes, in Canada we use a “u”), paper, pigment, canvas, brush, oil, watercolour (See? I did it again), acrylic, alkyd, support, medium, art, painting, illustration, writing, literature, short story, novel, book cover, art direction.

This blog will link back to my online portfolio.