Artist Toolbox: Surfaces & Supports

This was a book full of tips and creative inspiration.  It is full of learning materials; from the little basic details, all the way to the larger details.  This would be a great  book to include in a teaching curriculum.  This book describes tools and their various uses, along with how to choose and prepare the surfaces you are choosing to create your art on.  
The images and tutorials were very simple to follow, and personally, have helped me with my creative endeavors. A must have guide for every artists library.

This is a must have for a beginner to experienced artist you can find plenty of information on most surfaces for all types of media.  You will get information on the history, uses and preparation of them.

Artist Toolbox: Surfaces & Supports is a tutorial manual for visual artists covering drawing and painting on different types of surfaces including paper, textiles, and wood. There are a number of collaborators and artists who contributed to the book, so the reader gets a nice overview of materials and methods from several viewpoints. It lends the book a lot of versatility.

Released 5th March 2019 by Quarto on their Walter Foster imprint, it's 112 pages and available in ebook and paperback formats. The electronic version includes a handy interactive table of contents. 

 Since this is a book specifically about surfaces for painting and drawing, there is a lot of in-depth information on specific types of manufactured papers and which formats they can be found in. The book includes numerous close up pictures of different papers with sample coverage for different drawing materials (pastel, graphite, pencil, conté crayon, etc). The same format is used in the following chapters on canvas, woods, textiles, and alternative surfaces. It includes numerous sidebars with clear photos and explanatory text.

There are several semi-tutorials included with step-by-step process photos including a very interesting treatment using alcohol inks on ceramic tile which has me itching to try it.

This would make a good support text for the visual artist's library or a painting/drawing course. It is a useful reference, but note that there is no included index. There are some resource website listings peppered through the text, including the collaborators' websites, for further reading.

Four stars.

Beautiful book for a beginner wanting to get familiar with different mediums of art and want to know about the kind of papers, canvas etc to work on. 

The fornat is simple with pictures and snippets about the said pictures. 

The book also gives a peek into various forms of art like Batik, silk paintings etc. 

It was an easy read and i enjoyed reading this book.

I was a little disappointed that many of the exact same exercises and photos were used in this book that were also used in the other Artist Toolbox book for drawing. This book covers far more including the use of acrylic paint, watercolor and oil paint, however, I felt that since it's a separate book that it should have had its own unique pictures and information not just copy and pasted from the other. It's for this reason that I rate it only 3 stars, even though the information contained within is fabulous.

This, the third title in a series, proved to be another useful book of information to help you not so much take steps as to stride confidently through your art ambitions by ensuring that you have the most suitable surfaces on which to work once you embark on an art project. It covers not only drawing and painting surfaces you might employ, but also what effect this medium has over that medium when using those surfaces.

Just like a building, a firm foundation gets your creation off to a good start in not only supporting your work physically, but also bolstering it artistically in terms of how your work looks both texturally and colorfully. There's no point is painting brilliantly if your support isn't there and your efforts are washed out or otherwise undermined because of a poor choice of material on which to paint or draw. It's not just how you do it and what medium you use to create the work, it's also about upon what medium you use as a foundation for your work, and how that's going to interact with your other materials and influence the final piece.

The book covers:

Canvas
Glass
Metal
Panels
Paper
Stone
Textiles
And the coverage isn't just in selecting a good medium and knowing how and what to paint on that particular piece, but also how to clean and prepare the material before you paint, so your efforts are not destined to fail. It also covers how to best preserve your work once it is painted.
The book contains some fabulous examples of artwork on each of these surfaces, and while no one can guarantee you will end up with strong artwork like those, you will be assuredly a lot closer to it knowing your materials and approaching your project fully prepared than ever you will going at it haphazardly! I commend this for being comprehensive, easy to understand, and offering good advice, and lots of tips and examples.

Ever wonder why your paint sticks to this paper but not to that paper? Or maybe you’ve just picked up a new set of watercolors and you’re stuck wondering what sort of paper to get -- does the cotton actually make a difference? What about cold press and hot press? Or hardwood panel versus canvas? 

Wonder no more. This book by Elizabeth Gilbert will help every artists who has wandered through the aisles of their local store, intimidated by the options. It will help you stretch your materials and give you the information you need to gather the courage to create on whatever surface you choose - from stone to metal, paper to textiles, this book covers it all. 

Clearly organized and easy to read, this reference should be on every artist’s shelf. Having this information at hand will help you to be fearless in exploring new media. I highly recommend this to every artist regardless of your primary tool of choice.

Thank you to the publisher and Netgallery for proving me with a digital ARC for my honest review. Opinions are my own. 


This is a comprehensive guide of the different kinds of surfaces use can use with dry and/or  wet mediums . I appreciate her inclusion of not only traditional surfaces buy as alternative surfaces. She touches on different uses for fabric, this includes batik and silk painting. Also included is wood and metal, she also provides the steps needed to prep all these different surfaces. I also appreciate an organized table of contents, which also provides hyperlinks to skip to certain sections. Unfortunately some ebook apps make it impossible to utilize the table of contents. However, I would recommend purchasing this book in it's physical form.

A nice book for an introduction and reference for those who are creating items. You are looking at different types pf paper, silk painting, ceramic, choosing your support and other topics. So a nice little overview of some different materials to use.

A comprehensive look at creating canvases, paper, and other surfaces for artists. Includes step-by-step with photos for making frames, stretching and treating canvas, and more. Handy tables such as selecting the correct type of paper or canvas for your medium.

I love this book! It is full of information, techniques, ideas and things to try.... Surfaces such as wood, glass, metal, ceramics, and stone as well as all types of papers are all discussed.  Add in paints, pastels, glazes, anything you might think to use along with techniques for achieving different results. I can't wait to try some of them! This will definitely be a well used addition to my shelf of art books! Highly recommend!