* Hey everybody, how's it going? Now, normally I would say "welcome back" to an art history video,
"welcome back" to an art hack video,
but for the first time on the history of this channel,
I'm combining both. Recently, I was beyond lucky to find in a nearly perfect condition,
on Ebay, a whole entire lot of the Walter T. Foster art books.
And for those of you guys who may not have ever heard of the Walter T. Foster art books, between the 1930s and the
1970s, they were THE way to learn artwork. Every single book in the collection has its own theme, uh, like for example,
we have "Painting with Sunsets."
And they were made by highly knowledgeable artists who would put their whole entire life's knowledge, tips, tricks, everything
into a convenient 35-page book to teach you simply how to learn artwork.
And you guys, one of the books that caught my eye from the 1960s is literally called "Art Secrets and Shortcuts."
And guys, when you open up this book, it's literally just an old vintage book of
1960s art hacks. And not just that, but there's actually two of them,
there's another one that also has really great advice, this one being even older from the
1950s called "The Beginner's Guide to Art Materials and Terms Used."
And it's absolutely fascinating to see what 70 years ago an art hack would look like and so guys, I made a list of all the best advice,
hacks, everything from these books, which I'm going to share with you guys today.
Which, if we're gonna be quite honest here, I'm like, vibrating with excitement because you guys know I love art history,
I love learning, I love art hacks. It's like everything I love in a book, you know. I'm so excited.
Uh, but yeah, before we get into it, guys, I would like to give a huge shout out to my second channel.
I've been uploading a lot there recently,
some of you guys might not even know that I have a second channel,
and it's just been such a nice way to like, disconnect from all the terribleness of the world.
So if you guys would like to join me, I will leave my second channel linked down below.
With that being said guys, let's get this party started.
Now, this very first hack really really surprised me.
Obviously now, in modern day, if we don't want to get paint somewhere, we use painter's tape.
Now, painter's tape, for those of you who don't know, is a kind of sticky tape.
You can put it on pretty much anything and easily peel it off without damaging your surface.
But in the 1950s, they didn't have painter's tape, so they had to resort to making their own.
Now, the first thing they would do is get
Scotch tape and make it a little less sticky because right off the bat, it's so sticky it'll rip your page.
So to make it less sticky,
you're gonna put it on some jeans, a T-shirt and just rip it off and stick it on a few times,
and what this does is it reduces the stickiness by adding fibers to the tape.
And from that point on, anything that you don't want to get paint on, you can put it directly on paper as so,
wait for it to dry.
*Clock ticking*
But yeah, it's dry, it's crisp, let's see how well it worked.
Oh! So satisfying!
And here's the painter's tape.
Oh!
We had a tear!
So yeah, if you guys don't have painter's tape, `scotch tape may be the way to go.
Now, this next tip is more of an art advice than an art hack, and when I say this art advice is life-changing, dude,
it's life-changing.
First, you're gonna get an object to draw. It literally can be anything in the world.
Today, I'm drawing a pumpkin because I am ready for fall, I'm ready for this terrible, terrible summer to just be over already.
But anyway, here's where it gets sneaky. Now, whatever color your object is, you're gonna draw it on the exact same color paper
so, for example, I have an orange pumpkin, I'm drawing it on orange paper.
And since the paper is already orange, it's gonna force you to draw EVERYTHING else that makes up that pumpkin,
we're talking the shadows, the highlights, the implied lines, the colors, everything in that pumpkin
except for the orange because it's already there. And boom! Just like that, you now think and see just like an artist.
Now, this next little tip deals with color theory and I feel like a lot of people might already know this, some may not,
but I feel like it's insanely helpful for a lot of people
and by the way,
I actually made a video on this on my TikTok so if you'd like to go check that out,
if the US doesn't ban it,
here it is!
But yeah, I thought it was a useful tip and that is how to properly darken yellow.
Now, normally first in sync when you want something - *stammers*
Let me try that again.
Normally, our first instinct, whenever you wanna make a color darker, is you add a gray, blue, a black and thus, yeah,
boom, look at that. It makes a darker color.
But if you try to add any of those colors with yellow,
it's gonna turn green, it's not gonna turn darker.
What you're gonna do is get a nice warm
brown to mix with that yellow. You mix the two together and boom! You still get that beautiful yellow
but it's just a little bit darker now and more importantly, it's not green.
Now, the next tip that I read from the book is a product that is designed to change your life.
And in 2020 we can all go for an easier life, let's be honest here.
I personally have never used one of these,
I'm more of like a reusable kind of girl, but if you're on the go, maybe you're painting in a public place -
well, I mean not now. Stay home.
Stay home! But you know what I mean,
when you're in a situation where you need quick cleanup, the book suggests that you try paper paint palettes.
Alright, so here is the paper paint palette that I have. You can get this at any craft store,
I got this for seven bucks, which isn't too bad. And when you open it up,
it's very interesting because every single piece of paper is coated in kind of like a wax.
And it's just super simple to use, you can mix, you can blend, you can do whatever you do with the normal palette.
And even though I don't recommend using this permanently, I think in the right situation,
it could be so useful, whether you're on the go, you're in a coffee shop, maybe you're doing a demo. It's great,
you can beat this thing up. You can add so much water, charcoal -
you can add whatever you want and the possibilities of a portable palette, they're endless. And when you're done...
You just throw it away. You're done. That's it. It's good.
Now, for this next art hack advice, apparently there's been something that we have all been doing very wrong.
I'm sure most of you guys are aware of the toothbrush trick where you like,
and it flings little dots of paint everywhere, you know what I mean, but sometimes whenever you do the toothbrush trick,
you'll get like, giant blobs that aren't supposed to be there,
it gets really messy and it's not a perfect system. But apparently we've been doing it wrong all along because you're supposed to use cardboard.
Now, I tried out all the other ones but I haven't tried this one out so let's try it out.
Now, whenever I make -
Hello? Whenever I do paint splatters, I like to make the water very thin, not runny
but kind of thinned out and I have the toothbrush all loaded up, ready to go and here we go.
*Music*
Tada!
Now, with your finger, it gets all over the place, it's not perfect as you can see, there's like, random blobs everywhere.
Alright, so here it is with the toothbrush. As you can see, it's loaded nice and good. Okay, here we go!
Eh, I'm not gonna lie,
this one was kind of a flop and my theory is that when you look at old toothbrushes,
the bristles were much harder than what we have in modern day.
And so, I think that's why they had different results, because our toothbrushes now are so drastically different.
Now, this next tip is something that I learned in college
but I was way too shy and awkward to ask why we were doing it,
I just kind of accepted it, you know? And it's basically a way to preserve your canvas drawings forever.
Now, as much as we all love canvas, it's not the most sturdy thing in the world,
it's literally just cotton stretched over a piece of wood.
So what you're gonna do is get your painting and this actually was a painting made by one of my friends,
shout out to you, Jesse, you are the one true of all time!
But anyway,
you're gonna get some acrylic paint or be old school like we were back in college and use some cheap house paint.
And I know it seems kind of weird but you're gonna paint the back of your canvas
and so now things that would normally soak through that cotton, like moisture, oil, debris,
it's not gonna be able to soak through because we have a protective layer.
Now for this very last tip, it is so,
so extra, I feel like a mass majority of people might not know this, I apparently didn't know this.
In fact, I have been around tons of artists all my life, and I don't think I've ever seen one single one
ever do this and this trick is how to properly remove debris from your drawing.
Now, in this specific case, they're talking about pastels
but I think this could go with any medium including erasers because we all know erasers do that thing.
There's two types of people, there's the blower
and the smudger.
But the proper way, my friends, is to get your drawing and tilt it forward.
And gently just shake it all off.
Tada!
And by tilting it forward and shaking it gently, you don't have to worry about smudging it,
you don't have to worry about spitting on it when you blow, trust me that happens way more than you think.
And it's the easiest way to control where everything falls and it keeps your drawing clean and I gotta hand it to them,
it seems so simple but gosh, that's some good advice! And with that being said guys,
this is all the vintage tips and tricks and advice that I have for you guys today.
There are literally so many more tips in this book
so if you want a part 2,
let me know. I'll leave my second channel down below as well as a playlist of my other art hack videos
and yeah, with that being said guys, thank you so much again for watching and I will see you next video. Bye!