Materials & Tips

There is a number of items that Joshua requires when creating his artworks these include;

Oil paint, stretched canvas, palette knives, acrylic paint, paintbrushes, B2 lead pencil & 1 large sheet of glass to mix the paint.

Joshua's uses use an old glass window as his palette. The window is cleaned every afternoon to ensure that it is smooth and ready for use the next day.

When painting with palette knives, it is important that you get most of the strokes correct the first time around. After a day the paint will form a skin making it extremely difficult to rework any areas you aren't satisfied with.

Try to get the balance of the size of the strokes right. Joshua tries to vary the sizes of his strokes to give the painting depth and dimensions. The trick is to know when to change up the stroke to make this happen.

Have rags or tissues handy. It is important to clean your palette knives whilst working to ensure you have the right colours mixed. This will also avoid having paint drying on the knives making it difficult to clean.

It is always good to remember that every painting that doesn't turn out the way you want is the spring board to a better painting. Joshua's has developed his style through consistently trying new things whilst understand that will be times that a painting will not go according to plan.

You will never know what you can achieve without experimentation. To develop a unique style always requires risk, the more risk you take the bigger the reward. Always look to keep a record of all your successes and failures, you will always learn more from the pieces that didn’t quite meet your expectation.