The place where art is created should be a nice place to be- comfortable and safe. Keeping a pleasant and healthy environment for making art means you’ll spend more time there, and do better work. Good studio habits include knowing how to use, store and dispose of the materials in use every day.

Like most products used in the home and at work, art materials carry specific recommendations for safe use, storage and disposal. For every new product you bring to the studio, read the label and follow any specific health labeling for safe use. For more detailed advice, request or download materials data safety sheets on any products of concern.           

Mechanical drawings require precise, continuous lines of specific widths, drawn in a dark black ink. Originally, industry-standard use of dip pens and ruling pens (a split-nib pen with a variable width) meant that a great deal of skill was required among professional draftsmen. Ruling pens always carry the risk of dropping ink, potentially ruining hours of labor; dip pens produce lines of varying width, and must be constantly reloaded.

Rapidograph pens translate extremely well to artistic and illustrative drawing styles. For drawings where precise line or dot work is important, technical pens can be used to create art that communicates extreme detail, and photographs or scans perfectly. Some artists may not like the fact that absolutely no variation in line width is possible without switching pens, but many artists use this quality to maximum effect.

There is a recommended procedure in varnishing a picture. Retouching Varnish is considered a temporary varnish and it is applied when the surface of the painting is dry to the touch. Final Picture Varnish is applied only when the painting is thoroughly dry.

A painting with a moderate impasto or thinly applied paint layers can receive a final picture varnish anytime after six months of drying. A painting with heavy impasto should dry between one and two years after completion of the painting. Varnish a picture on a day with low humidity and a painted surface free from moisture.