Tracey Costescu Fine Art

I often get asked what paints, brushes & supplies I use so I thought I would create a post with images for all us visual learners to make sharing the info easier. These are the supplies that I use when I teach my workshops and art classes.  My next class starts in March, please visit http://register.asapconnected.com/EventDetail.aspx?pk=343461 if you would like more information. Brushes   Silver Bristalon Synthetic Round s - Absolutely LOVE these brushes! They allow you to scrub to your hearts content yet the bristles stay together nicely and do not splay.  They may break down over time, but they always retain their shape and you don't get that annoying odd stray hair sticking out the side as you usually do with scrubbing brushes.   Silver Ruby Satin Synthetic - Again love this brush.  Excellent snap, soft yet able to achieve fine control.  Very resilient brush. Rosemary & Co Ivory Long Flat - Love, love these brushes for a...

Graphite Pencil Sphere on Paper not as many as you would think! I have never really drawn a sphere without some sort of crutch, ie grid lines, compass or masking tape roll.  I honestly did not think would be so easy to get a relatively perfect sphere, ok so it is not perfectly round, but I think it is pretty close.  Basically I used four straight lines to form a box  around the sphere and then filled in the spaces between the lines to form a circle, using smaller and smaller straight lines.  It took shape much more quickly (well, that term is relative I guess) than I had expected.  The shading, using only a 2H and H pencil on the other hand, took much longer than I had expected.   The pencil leads were sharpened with sandpaper to a lethally sharp point and the values were built up very slowly and methodically working from the terminator (point where the light no longer reaches) to the highlight.  The idea is to work only in one area at a t...

Oil Sketch - Around the Bend $95 Framed This is another quick little oil sketch I did during the summer when I was trying to get ready for an upcoming Plein Air workshop that I signed up for.  I worked from my imagination for this one and was experimenting with mixing various greens as I do not paint greenery...at all.  I was quite happy with how the distant mountains turned out. Working from imagination it turns out is much harder than working from real life, at least for me it is!  When I finally did get to go to the Plein Air Workshop I was pleasantly surprised with how my practice of mixing and trying different brush work paid off and I could just focus on what was in front of me and enjoy the day.  I am definitely hooked on plein air painting and hope to do some over the winter as well...when it is not raining that is.

Ocean View - Oil Sketch $95 Framed This is a little oil sketch I did during the summer when I was trying to get ready for an upcoming Plein Air workshop that I signed up for.  I do not usually paint landscapes in oil so it was definitely a challenge but fun to do.  I painted this one in a couple of hours and learned a lot. Plein air painting is really fun because you are trying to figure everything, color, composition, paint handling, in one go in a very short time so it forces you to make faster decisions than you would normally make.  So much fun!

Pencil Drawing on Stonehenge Paper in Progress I decided to start a separate blog to document my fine art training that I have been working on.   I just realized that from my commissions blog which I have not updated sinc February that it looks like I have been up to a whole lot of nothing. Not true! I have been studying the classical method of drawing and painting which takes much more time but I think the results are so worth it. The drawing I am currently working on still needs a fair bit more work but it is getting there.  The darks seem to take a lot more time to build up on this paper and using harder pencils.  I intend to do an oil painting of the drawing once it is completed.  Normally I do a very rough sketch or a mock up in photoshop prior to starting a painting.  I decided this time around I really wanted to work out as many issues as possible before I even get to the canvas.  I may also do a monochromatic oil study and then a full color ...