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OIL PAINTING Traditional artists' canvas is made from linen, but the less expensive cotton fabric has gained popularity. The artist first prepares a wooden frame called a “stretcher" or "strainer." The difference between the first and second is that stretchers are slightly adjustable, while strainers are rigid and lack adjustable corner notches. The canvas then pulled across the wooden frame and tacked or stapled tightly to the back edge. The next step is for the artist to apply a ground (or size) to isolate the canvas from the acidic qualities of the paint. Traditionally, the canvas was coated with a layer of rabbit skin glue and primed with subsequent layers of finely ground chalk (or marble dust) and rabbit skin glue. Later the process was changed to a sizing of rabbit skin glue with subsequent layers of white priming (gypsum, chalk, barium oxide, titianium(IV) dioxide mixed with linseed oil). Modern gessos are made of titianium dioxide with an acrylic binder and are not "real" gessos in the true sense of the word. The artist might apply several layers of gesso, sanding each smooth after it has dried. Sanding the primed surface is important to roughen the generally slick surface so the subsequent layers of oils will properly adhere. It is possible to tone the gesso to a particular color, but most store-bought gesso is white. The gesso layer will tend to draw the oil paint into the porous surface, depending on the thickness of the gesso layer. Excessive or uneven gesso layers are sometimes visible in the surface of finished paintings as a change in the layer that's not from the paint.

A STILL LIFE is a work of art depicting inanimate subject matter, typically commonplace objects which may be either natural (flowers, game, sea shells and the like) or man-made (drinking glasses, foodstuffs, pipes, books and so on). Popular in Western art since the 17th century, still life paintings give the artist more leeway in the arrangement of design elements within a composition than do paintings of other types of subjects such as landscape or portraiture. Still life paintings often adorn the walls of ancient Egyptian tombs. It was believed that the foodstuffs and other items depicted there would, in the afterlife, become real and available for use by the deceased. Similar paintings, more simply decorative in intent, have also been found in the Roman frescoes unearthed at Pompeii and Herculaneum. The popular appreciation of still life painting as a demonstration of the artist's skill is related in the ancient Greek legend of Zeuxis and Parrhasius.

Still life

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(Please click on image to see more detail .)
Meadow's flowers
Meadow's flowers
oil on canvas , 20x16 ins.

© 2006 Pavel Kapusto