User talk:B Clyde Beck

Watercolor Painting Helps and Hints

Painting in watercolor is both easy and a great challenge to those who want to paint in this medium. 1. It is an easy and washable medium for children to explore painting and colors. 2. It has many challenges just because of its use of water as the fluid medium and how that water interacrs with the paint and the paper.

   These interactions are the primary reason watercolor painting as a fine art skill is so challenging.

3. There are beneficial effects of watercolor that attract artists to take on the challenges of the medium. These Include:

    a. Transparency - watercolors are by nature transparent enough to be enhanced by the reflection of light 
        off the paper upon which it is placed. This transparency gives life to the color and the painting, which
        is part of the attraction to watercolor by admirers and painters, as well as collectors and patrons of the arts.
     b. Colors and hues are easily lightened by adding water to allow the white of the paper to reflect through the diluted pigment. 
        Thus a red can become pink by simply adding water.
     c. Colors can be lightened to a paler hue directly on the paper by adding water on or next to the color on the paper and drawing the 
         pigment out into the water. Graded washes of a color can be achieved in this way, whereas an opaque medium, such as Acrylic,
         must have additional white paint mixed with the color and blended out to get a similar effect of lightened gradation.
     d. Overlaying paler washes onto dry/almost dry color can deepen effects such as creating depths of water or shadows on grass
         while preserving the detail.

Woodworking Tips and Hints - Historic, Well Known, And "New"

This page is for the capture of valuable woodworking wisdom whether historic and time tested or more contemporary because we have a lot of modern tools that can be used in woodworking.

For Example: Historically (late 1800's and before) chisels were sharpened on multiple flat stones of different grades using a wooden angle block with runners sliding along the stone edges to get the correct angle resulting in a flat chisel angle. Also, because the process was at low speeds, no one was concerned with overheating and destroying the temper.

Nowadays we tend to use rotary grinders with metal guides for the angle and in doing so we get a slightly radiuses hollow ground angle. this can be both good and bad. Good because the edge is sharp. Bad because we can grind too long and "blue" the steel, taking out the temper. Always dip the chisel into water at regular short intervals to cool the steel so the temper is preserved, making the chisel edge both strong and sharp. Also, the slightly hollow ground edge can allow the edge to be easily damaged because the steel behind the edge is not fully supported by the wedge of steel. The slight curve also works against paring wood down because it is not flat and can take off wither too little or too much wood. It is wise to finish sharpening the edge with a flat stone to restore the wedge of steel to a flat surface. That way, whichever way you pare or cut the wood, you have a true edge for a guide.

Need less to say, excellent sharpening systems such as Tormek (high end) or Veritas rolling guides (affordable hand sharpening) for chisels and planes.