Tips

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  Working With Acrylic Paint:

  Acrylic paint is fast drying paint that can be diluted with water, but become water-resistant when dry. Depending on how much the paint is diluted (with water) or modified with acrylic gels, media, or pastes, the finished acrylic painting can resemble a watercolor or an oil painting, or have its own unique characteristics not attainable with other media.
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  Using the van Gogh roller:

  
  The van Gogh roller works best if paint is applied evenly on all of the raised areas. (Be sure the paint layer is not too heavy.) Roll continually up and down or from left to right, but always in the rolling position. The van Gogh roller was designed so the paint goes on in a very sporadic way. Each roll is unique., just like van Gogh’s brush strokes.
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  Working with Oil Pastels:

  Oil pastels are a painting and drawing medium with characteristics similar to pastels and wax crayons. Because of its pigment mixed with a non-drying oil and wax binder, the surface of an oil pastel painting is therefore less powdery. Oil pastels provide a harder edge than "soft" or "French" pastels but are more difficult to blend. Think of it more as a paint and you mix your colors instead of blending.

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  Working with Soft Pastels:

  Soft pastels are the most widely used form of pastel. The sticks have a higher proportion of pigment and less binder, resulting in brighter colors. The drawing can be readily smudged and blended, but it results in a higher amount of dust. Finished drawings made with soft pastels require protection by either framing under glass or spraying with a fixative to prevent smudging.

  When using soft pastels, it is easy to think of them as chalks but with much stronger colors. They can be erased with a chamois (included in the Water Lilies Masterkitz®) or they can be easily blended or smudged by just using your fingers.

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  Mixing Colors:

  Did you know that you could use the primary colors (red, blue, and yellow) plus black and white to make all the colors of the rainbow?  To be able to mix colors takes a lot of practice, but each kit has selected colors that represent the master painting to help make it easier for children to decide colors.

  Here are some color mixing ideas you can use with the oil pastels included in The Starry Night Master Kitz® to make even more colors:

  

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  Stencils:

  
  

  Stencils are just cut outs of letters or objects that you can place on a surface to trace, paint or stain the object and then remove the stencil. There are single stencils and repeating stencils which can be used with many different mediums and applications.

Ideas

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  Mix-and-Match Mediums:

  Because most Master Kitz® Tools are reusable you can use them to create other drawings. Why not mix and match from other kits.  You can use the pastels from the Monet Master Kitz with the Tree Stencil from the Tree of Life Master Kitz.  Don’t stop there…you can find great handmade papers at craft stores, so you can experiment with using different colors and textures of paper.
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  More than painting on paper:

  You can use Master Kitz® Tools on many different surfaces other than just making a painting.  You can use the stencils with chalk on the side walk, you can use the van Gogh roller to make decorative paper or wrapping paper.  The possibilities are exciting and we would love to see what you can come up with…send us your pics and we will post them online.