Seven of our designs are by the same artist, and it is worth knowing that before you choose between them, because they share a way of handling light that makes them behave similarly under the brush.
Kim Norlien paints Northwoods scenes — lakes, cabins, canoes, weather. The recurring device across all seven is a small warm light source set against a large cool landscape: a campfire, a lit window, a sunset behind trees. That contrast is what carries each painting, and it is also the thing to protect while you work. If the warm areas get muddied, the picture goes flat, however carefully everything else is painted.
1. Aurora Bliss
A log cabin in snow under green and violet northern lights, with a campfire in the foreground and snow-laden pines around it.
The unusual thing here is that the aurora is lighting the snow rather than sitting behind it, which is why the greens and violets appear on the ground as well as in the sky. Painted as printed it works; the temptation to make the snow neutral white is what ruins it.
The most forgiving of the seven. Snow is broad, pale and covers ground quickly, so a lot of the canvas goes down fast. Aurora Bliss is a reasonable first Norlien.
2. Cabin Fever
A lakeside log home at dusk with a red canoe at the dock. Green and violet through most of the scene, with the lit windows and the canoe as the two warm notes.
Straightforward to paint and satisfying to finish. The canoe is a small area of strong red against a great deal of cool color, so leave it until the surroundings are in — judged against bare canvas it will look wrong, and judged against the finished lake it will look right. Cabin Fever suits a second or third canvas.
3. Guiding Light
A cliff-top lighthouse with a bald eagle over the water. Rock, greenery, sea and sky, with the lighthouse as the focus.
The most demanding of the seven. The rock face is broken into a great many small tonal sections, which is what makes it read as stone and also what makes it a long evening. The eagle is small and carries fine detail. If you want a challenge this is the one, and if you want a first kit it is not.
Work the rock one color at a time right across the cliff rather than section by section, or you will lose track. Guiding Light is worth the effort.
4. Moonlight Bay
A green canoe pulled up on the shore of a still lake, a campfire burning low, the moon high over the far treeline with its reflection running back across the water.
Two light sources doing different jobs — the moon cool and from above, the fire warm and from the ground — and everything in the picture is lit by one or the other. That is what stops it going flat, and it makes this the easiest of our night designs to make look good.
The one warning is a general one about dark scenes: rinse the brush properly between the dark blues, and do not thin them with water. Two darks that have contaminated each other become one dark and the shape you were painting disappears. Moonlight Bay is a good introduction to night work.
5. Mountain Paradise
A lakeside lodge below a mountain waterfall. Greens and blues through most of it, with the water as the feature.
Middling difficulty. The waterfall and the lake are broad areas that reward blending — softening the seams between the horizontal bands of the water is the single change that turns a flat blue shape into a body of water. The massed trees are where the time goes. Mountain Paradise is a good canvas on which to practice softening edges.
6. Still Waters
A lit log cabin and a loon on a still northern lake at dusk. Greens, violets and the warm yellow of the windows.
Beautiful finished, and some of our reviewers find the sections small. That is fair — the shoreline vegetation and the reflections carry a lot of fine work. A lamp placed to the side and a magnifier both help, and there is no shame in either.
The reflection under the cabin is the part worth taking care over. It should sit slightly darker and less saturated than the cabin itself, with softened edges, and that contrast between the crisp building and the soft reflection is what glues the two together. Still Waters rewards patience.
7. The Road Home
A white farmhouse and red barn at the end of a summer day, with the track running up to them.
One of our best sellers and one of the most forgiving canvases we make. Big simple shapes, warm light, nothing fiddly. The buildings are architecture — flat planes and straight edges, which is exactly what a numbered canvas is good at — and the fields and sky cover quickly.
If you want somewhere to start with this artist, The Road Home is it.
Five things that make any of them easier
Set the room up before you set the paint out
A lamp placed to the side rather than overhead throws a slight shadow into the printed lines and makes them far easier to read. On dark designs use a daylight-temperature bulb, because a warm bulb makes several deep blues look identical.
Keep the water jar on the far side of your working hand. A jar knocked over onto a half-finished canvas is the most common accident in this hobby.
Work one color at a time, background first, top down
Finish everything numbered 7 before opening pot 8. It is faster, you stop losing track, and each area gets time to dry before its neighbor goes in. Working from the top down means your hand rests on finished areas rather than wet ones.
Darks before lights
Pale colors in these kits are thin and will cover a dark that has strayed slightly over its line. The reverse very rarely works. Expect two coats on the creams and pale blues; that is normal and not a fault in the paint.
Damp brush, not wet
Rinse between colors, then press the brush out on a cloth. Water carried in the ferrule thins the paint on the canvas without you noticing, and that is the most common cause of a section that will not hide its number. It is also the cause of the muddied third color that appears when two paints meet on a brush that was not properly cleaned.
Do not flood a section
Too much paint in one area sits wet on the surface rather than soaking in, and it smudges under a hand or a sleeve. Two thin coats beat one thick one, and thick acrylic can crack as it cures.
If you fill a section with the wrong color
Easily fixed and not worth panicking about. Let it dry completely — properly dry, not touch-dry — then paint the correct color over the top. Acrylic is opaque enough to cover itself. Two thin coats blend in better than one heavy one, and if the old color still shows through, a third thin coat will finish it.
What not to do is paint over it with white first. White underneath changes the color that goes on top and you will see the patch.
You can see all seven and the rest of the range in the full collection, and there is a matched extra paint set for every design if a heavily used color runs short. Our beginner's guide covers a first canvas from opening the box, and finished work by other customers is in the customer gallery.
