Oil Bars

Posted on July 30, 2011 by Julie

Oil Paint Bars

Oil bars, also called pigment sticks or oil sticks, are artists’ oil colour in a handy stick format. Not to be confused with oil pastels, they are made by adding just enough wax to the oil paint to make it form into a stick and they should be thought of as you would oil colour. They are also much larger than an oil pastel. Since it is oil paint any exposed part dries into a paint film and each time you use them they must be peeled back at the tip to exposed the paint. This film can be deterred by keeping the bars tightly covered. R&F sticks come in individual bags and Winsor & Newton bars come in individual plastic boxes.

Great for oil painters who love to draw, they are superb for drawing on canvas either as the prelimary step in a painting that is continued with tube colour or they can be used for the entire painting process. If you wish to use a painting medium you can use solvents as normal or a transparent oil bar. Both Sennelier and R&F make a transparent painting medium bar.

Jackson’s stocks three makes of oil bars each with their own characteristics of softness/hardness and drying variances. You may want to try some colours for your palette from each make and then replace your colours as needed with the make that you have found you prefer. Each of the makes also have introductory sets to provide a good starter selection.

R&F Pigment Sticks
Sennelier Oil Paint Sticks
Winsor & Newton Oil Bars

Art papers

Posted on July 20, 2011 by Julie

Art papers

Watercolour Paper
Watercolour paper has a “hard size” on top of the paper that allows the water to penetrate and the pigment to remain on the surface. This gives the painting its brilliance and also allows for corrections.
Watercolour paper comes in different textures. Hot Press (HP) is the smoothest. Not (also called cold pressed) has a medium textured surface and is the most popular finish, it is especially good for beginners. Rough is highly textured paper.
The weights of the papers range from 90 lb to 400 lb. The heavier the weight of the watercolour paper the less the paper will buckle when wet. For lighter weight papers (140lb and below) the paper is usually wetted and laid out on a board and taped down with gum-strip tape. Alternatively you can use a specially designed paper stretcher device like the Keba Artmate.
Watercolour papers come in sheets, pads, rolls, and blocks. Blocks are pads that are glued on all four sides except for a small space on one side. This allows for painting without stretching and when the painting is dry you can remove the top painted sheet by running a butter knife around the edge from the gap in the side.

Drawing Papers
Cartridge paper is a high quality type of heavy paper used for illustration and drawing.
Bristol is a strong and durable, all-purpose drawing paper. It has a very hard surface that is heavily sized, polished, and compressed.
Pastel paper is used for soft and hard pastels and charcoal. It is usually coloured paper, with the colour chosen being very important as it will be a major component of the finished work. It comes in a few different textures. Ingres is a laid paper with a mesh imprint from a screen. Random texture gets its surface from a cloth matt imprint, similar to Not texture watercolour paper. There are a few types with toothy textures from ground cork that are similar to sandpaper. A few come with the colour screenprinted on and some are waterproof for working the pastels with water.
Paper for oil pastels is hard and white and usually comes in a pad with glassine paper interleaving to protect it from smudging.

Oil and Acrylic painting papers
These medium to heavyweight papers are usually canvas textured and primed for painting with either oil or acrylic. The ones prepared for acrylic paint are universally primed to accept both oil and acrylic. Paper must be sealed completely if painting with oil paints because the oil will separate out if the paper is absorbent and it will also rot the paper over time. Although acrylic paint can be used on any paper, this paper is specifically designed to mimic canvas. It is especially useful for taking to classes or using in the field and is an economical choice for making a study or sketch prior to the major work on canvas.
You can also get sheets of primed actual canvas (as opposed to the canvas-textured paper) in pads.

Fine Art Digital papers
Inkjet papers that allow high quality reproductions of your artwork come in a wide variety of textures and weights. They are coated to accept the ink jet inks. They can be sprayed with an inkjet fixative to prevent smudging if that is a problem.

New- Jacksons Aqua Oils

Posted on July 19, 2011 by Julie

Jackson’s Aqua Oils

Following on from our very popular Jackson’s Oil and Acrylic ranges we are very pleased to announce the launch of Jackson’s Aqua Oil, our brand new range of water mixable oils. Easy to clean up and less toxic they have been developed to a very high standard and are very reasonably priced – easily as good as other leading water-mixable oil ranges, at a fraction of the price. We urge you to give them a go!

We have worked tirelessly with paint specialists to develop our new water-mixable oil paint range. Aqua Oil’s range consists of 40 vibrant colours that mix well with other water-mixable oils. Use with water-mixable oil mediums to extend colour and increase transparency. Jackson’s Aqua Oil are low odour and kind to your hands. Ideal for those who’d like to avoid paint fumes and harsh solvents without having to compromise the quality of their materials. We urge you to give them a try!

Mussini Oil Colour offer

Posted on July 13, 2011 by Julie

Rarely on offer! The resin-based oil colour from Schmincke – Mussini – uses customised oil blends and resin to achieve particularly brilliant colour, especially suited to glazing. The use of resin also results in even surface drying. On offer with an additional 20% off until August 23rd.

Mussini Oil Colour

The uniqueness of these fine professional artists’ colours stems from using the old masters’ practice of combining selected artists’ oil with natural resin. Different variants of linseed oil, safflower oil, poppy-seed oil and sunflower oil are combined with the most suitable natural dammar resin.

The dammar resin crystals are finely incorporated into the artists’ oils and these enhance the brilliance of the colour layers. The addition of resin gives Mussini another advantage: it dries more evenly, reducing the danger of wrinkling and cracking during the drying process. The chemical drying process which begins on the surface via oxygen uptake is balanced by the solvent content in the dammar solution which evaporates from inside.

It goes without saying that they contain only the best traditional artists’ pigments together with several outstanding newly developed artists’ pigments, each in the highest possible concentrations resulting in artists’ colours of the utmost brilliance and purity. Thanks to the particularly extensive range of pigments suitable for glazing, their fine processing and the specially adapted formulations, Mussini provides for fine glaze colouring with outstanding brilliance, luminosity and light depth.

Jackson’s Black Hog Brushes are possibly the most popular oil brush we stock! These beautiful and durable brushes are an excellent value at any time, but for a limited time they are an even better price at 30% off!

Offers end August 23rd.

Up to 50% off on Winsor ink sets, pads & more!

Posted on July 6, 2011 by Julie

Amazing deals! Up to 50% off the list price on a selection of Winsor & Newton brush sets, pads (watercolour, cartridge and pastel pads), and paint sets (Cotman watercolour, Griffin Alkyd, Designers Gouache and Galeria Acrylic). The offer also includes some new products we haven’t stocked before including Winsor & Newton ink sets and bristol board.
Offer ends August 30th.

Click here for the offer on the Jackson’s website.

Winsor and Newton ink set

Jackson’s YouTube art instruction videos

Posted on June 16, 2011 by Julie

Jackson’s Art Supplies has gathered together 117 (so far) helpful practical art videos in one place. You can see them all together on the Jackson’s YouTube channel.

These are free to watch and each short video covers a single art tip or instruction. The videos vary in length from about a minute to almost 10 minutes long. They are made by knowledgeable art materials makers like Winsor & Newton, Liquitex, Golden Acrylics, Faber-Castell, Schmincke, Sennelier, Marabu, Derwent, and Daler-Rowney and cover topics like varnishing a painting, creating texture with acrylics and botanical illustration with coloured pencils as well as showing how to use speciality products by the manufacturer.

There is a very short video on how to best sharpen a pencil, videos that answer common questions about popular techniques such as using acrylic medium to transfer an image and making acrylics look like encaustics and videos from brush manufacturers Escoda and Da Vinci that show how to create effects with brushes.

Go take a look and see what all there is to learn about!

Here is a demo showing ways to use the new Derwent Inktense Blocks:

Your art shop in Hackney

Posted on June 14, 2011 by Julie

Jackson’s Art Supplies is located in the north part of the borough of Hackney in East London, on the border of Dalston and Stoke Newington. The borough of Hackney has the highest concentration of artists in Europe. So this makes a fine location!

Although Jackson’s is primarily a mail order supplier of art materials if you wish to handle your paints then you might want to try coming into the shop. Our shop counter is a “hidden gem” according to local artists and it feels like “being a kid in a sweet shop” to wander our aisles. Some people particularly like our old Victorian building down a cobbled cul-de-sac.

Jackson’s Art Supplies
London Art Shop
1 Farleigh Place off Farleigh Road
London N16 7SX
Click here for a map

Our opening hours are Monday to Friday 9:00 to 5:00 and 10:00 to 4:00 on Saturday.

Almost all of the employees of Jackson’s are artists themselves so you should be able to get some advice on a material you haven’t used before.

We have a huge selection of paints, brushes, pencils, pastels, paper and canvas, though a few of the items in our jam-packed catalogue are kept at our other warehouse. So you may want to ring ahead if you are after a specific item. Phone: 0844 499 8430

The Chocolate Factory N16 studios are our neighbours.

Using water-mixable oil colours

Posted on June 12, 2011 by Julie

If you have been thinking about using water-mixable oil colour to avoid solvents in your painting process there are two videos I would like to recommend that explain a bit about Winsor & Newton Artisan Water-mixable Oil Colour.

video: Winsor and Newton Artisan Water Mixable Oil Colour

video: Using Artisan Thinner vs Water

Artisan Water Mixable Oil Colour has been specifically developed to appear and work just like conventional oil colour.
The key difference between Artisan and conventional oils is its ability to thin and clean up with water. Hazardous solvents are not necessary for Artisan and artists can enjoy a safer painting environment, making it ideal for artists who share a work space, schools or painting at home.
The Artisan range consists of 40 colours and has a dedicated range of 11 Artisan solvents, oils, mediums and varnishes, allowing you to achieve all oil painting techniques.
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Artisan is on offer at Jackson’s for 35% off the rrp until June 14th.

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Artisan

All Winsor Oils on offer

Posted on May 25, 2011 by Julie

Winsor & Newton Oil Colour

All four types of tube oil colour made by Winsor & Newton are offered at a 35% discount off the rrp until July 19th at Jackson’s. The re-launched oil bars are on offer as well at 30% off until June 14th.

Winsor & Newton Oil Colours

Artists’ oil colour
Artists’ Oil Colour is unmatched for its purity, quality and reliability – a success which is reflected in its world-wide reputation amongst professional artists. It has 120 colours in the range, offering the widest spectrum of all the Winsor & Newton oil ranges.

Griffin Alkyd fast-drying oils
Griffin Fast Drying Oil Colour offers the excellent advantage of faster drying times compared to traditional oil colours. This means that the traditional oil techniques of both impasto and glazing can be done in considerably less time and a painting can be completed in a single session.
The full range of 50 colours are ideal for working outdoors, and greater transparency means increased depth and clarity for glazes.

Artisan water-mixable oils
Artisan Water Mixable Oil Colour has been specifically developed to appear and work just like conventional oil colour.
The key difference between Artisan and conventional oils is its ability to thin and clean up with water. Hazardous solvents are not necessary for Artisan and artists can enjoy a safer painting environment, making it ideal for artists who share a work space, schools or painting at home.
The Artisan range consists of 40 colours and has a dedicated range of 11 Artisan solvents, oils, mediums and varnishes, allowing you to achieve all oil painting techniques.

Winton student quality oils
Winton is a traditional range of oil colours, made from moderately priced pigments, formulated for student and amateur artists or more accomplished painters requiring large volumes of colour within moderate cost limits.
The application of traditional skills and modern colour chemistry techniques has resulted in a range of 47 carefully selected Winton Oil Colours which are of excellent quality.

Winsor oil bars

Winsor Artists' Oil

Winsor & Newton Oilbars 30% off

Posted on May 19, 2011 by Julie

50ml of artists’ oil colour in a handy stick format.
Superb for drawing.
30% off the RRP at Jackson’s until June 14th.

Winsor & Newton Oilbars

Winsor & Newton are reintroducing their Artists’ Oilbar. The Winsor & Newton Artists’ Oilbar is a unique medium because it provides artists with a buttery consistency and richness of oil colour together with the freedom and directness of pastels or charcoal. The 50 rich colours are superb for drawing on canvas and can be mixed with tube oil colour and mediums.

The Oilbar range is formulated with pigment, linseed or safflower oil and wax. The colourless Oilbar is the equivalent of linseed oil in traditional oil colour, and is mostly used for blending and glazing colours directly on the canvas. It serves as a medium in solid form. Oilbar can be used with both traditional oil colour and alkyd colour. Due to the wax content thick Oilbar films are not recommended underneath thin oil films. Doing so would contravene the ‘fat over lean’ rule. Once on the canvas, the colours will become touch-dry in 2 to 7 days.

Just peel or scape off the skin of dried oil paint that has formed on the exposed end of the stick of oil colour and begin painting or drawing straight away!

Winsor & Newton’s Oilbar technical video.