Acrylic Artist Toolkit – Ruth Armitage

The spring issue of Acrylic Artist includes in-depth information on several acrylic artists, including their painting techniques and life as working artists. Wanting to learn even more about these fascinating artists, we asked them to give us a look into their toolkit. Here is what acrylic artist Ruth Armitage has in her toolkit:

 

“Hide and Seek” Ruth Armitage (acrylic on paper, 22×30)

Brushes – My favorite are a 1 and 2-inch bristle Skipper brushes by Cheap Joe’s I also use a variety of round and flat watercolor type brushes. Occasionally I like to use a Niji Waterbrush filled with acrylic inks or Golden High Flow Acrylic.
Drafting Table – Alvin Ensign drafting table with a pneumatic lever to easily adjust from flat to an angled painting surface.
Mark-making tools – Messermeister silicone bowl scraper, Progressive GT-3352 7 inch mini spatula, soft rubber brayer by Speedball, bone folder, Colour Shaper tools by Dick Blick, Black Soluble Stabilo Pencil, Caran d’Ache Neocolor II water-soluble crayons and Caran d’Ache water soluble graphite.
Matte Medium – I use very little medium, unless it is Golden soft matte gel for adhering collage. For this process I use open acrylics or Golden’s open medium for additional working time.
Paints: Golden open acrylics, heavy body acrylics, fluid acrylics and high flow acrylics.
Favorite colors: quinacridone gold, Indian yellow, green gold, phthalo turquoise, Teal, hansa yellow opaque, cadmium orange, pyrrole orange, cadmium red, quinacridone magenta, permanent violet dark, ultramarine blue, yellow ochre, transparent red iron oxide, Payne’s gray, titan buff, titanium white, carbon black. Daniel Smith: quinacridone gold. Sennelier: Sennelier brown, light Naples yellow and dioxazine violet. M. Graham: cadmium yellow, cadmium red light, Indian yellow, alizarin crimson, cerulean blue, azo green, terra rosa and raw umber.
Paper – I make my own collage papers using a mono-printing technique with the Gelli-Plate.
Surface – My support for acrylic is most often Rives BFK printmaking paper or Fabriano Artistico Watercolor paper, 300 lb. soft press.
Underpainting – Often I use a watercolor underpainting. I use a broad range of pigments from different manufacturers, including Holbein, M. Graham, QoR, Winsor & Newton, American Journey, Daniel Smith, Da Vinci and Sennelier.

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