Letters.

A few letters and emails
email from a painter, Alicia 07/12/2011
Dear Len
No too long ago I found you in the internet with your beautiful and very useful lessons .I am not an Australian of birth but I love this country which, since 1995, I call home .I was lost in my self teaching , thanks to you I know now what I want to paint .I want to paint this beautiful land . I will try from lesson 1 and as soon I learn how I will send you a photo of my work .I am 66 years old lady so every thing related to tech take me a while .English is my second language [ I am from Argentina ] and I started learning it when I came here ,so many mistakes like in my paintings .Thank you for sharing your knowledge with others and something else your English is very clear to me , so that help me as well.Have a wonderful Christmas !!!!!!!. Alicia

Reply – Thank you Alicia for your email.
If you need any help with your paintings please email an image to me and I am glad to help. You have a wonderful Xmas also !!!!!!!.
Len Hend

Questions from a young painter.
Len,I have recently discovered you and your teaching DVD and really clicked!
I am using your speed painting DVDs to learn to paint landscapes and there from lesson one you advise using pallet knife to put the gum trees in as well as few other things.
However today I found you quick tutorials on
paintwithlen.com and there you use paint brush loaded with two colours rather than pallet knife.
Should I continue with the original approach (knife) could you please clarify this.In addition what kind of acrylic paint should I use?
Previously I used cheap mont mart  acrylics with my experiments. But I understand that it is not good enough so I got Atelier, I am still not 100% used to it, since different colours have different textures but I think it is better is some respects.
Since I am a very beginner student and repeat every class in DVD 3 times I will probably go through a lot of paint and Canvas paper.What Canvas brand is affordable but good quality and low maintenance, pre primes?I hope my questions are not too much, but I am very excited about your work and approach.
I know that you are in Thailand now, hope you have a good time there.Thank you very much,
Ivetta
Letter from Len

Ivette – You may use knife or brush it is up to you. I think you should learn to use the knife but when you really wish to paint well it is better to use the brush for the tree trunks. The knife happens to be a lot quicker when you get good with it (speedpainting) – I think the brush is a better look.
As you have now realised painting is a skill and it does not matter what type of paint you use when learning the skills. Painting the windows of your house, or the garden shed will all increase your skills with the brush.
If you have learned the bad things about cheap paints then you will see the difference when you move onto the more expensive tubes. But you do not need to use all artist quality paint. Some colors are OK in student quality – white, burnt umber, warm red, raw sienna – might be ok.
So start by trying an artist quality blue, then crimson, then a warm yellow. (remember that is the yellow that looks more like an orange than a lemon). Artist quality burnt sienna is useful and Australian sienna or red gold is great to use.
I like Matisse brand some colors are too expensive for experimenting so use a similar color, say instead of cobalt blue use a less expensive but similar artist quality blue. You will notice that it will take less paint to put a blue tone into the white undercoat of the sky.
After painting on canvas you now know how the paint should flow etc. So now if wish you can experiment with hardboard for practicing on. Give it a good coat of acrylic house paint and let it dry. You can paint in oils or acrylics on dry acrylic paint.  Hardboard is masonite or custom wood, cupboard backing or ply. Saves a few dollors.
cheers and happy painting Len