Composition in plastic arts,
go into details with this topic.

     What is casein?

     How to use it ?

          What can I do with plaster ?

Or with candle wax ?

Are oil glazes and contemporary art compatible ?

 If cement were an outstanding product ?

  What about the "non-artists" art professionnals, those who are not in the limelight ? 

                 What does my paint tube contain ?

Which lead-free medium can I use ?

I need fireproof transparency films for my installation.

    Acrylic dries on my paper palette. What can I do ?

                        What is the purpose of alumina hydrate and of colloidal silica ?

I need to send my work by post

but cannot find  cardboard tubes !

Dotapea and ArtRéalité.com,
that is more than 1 000 pages dedicated to the REAL world  of plastic arts, divided into :

* a website devoted to art techniques, Dotapea.com.    Contents :

- a technical documentation about plastic arts

- authentic dialogs with experts

- a list of suppliers, a bibliography and other references

- a  dispatch thread
 

* another site devoted to people, institutions, art manifestations, ArtRéalité.com. This site holds notably :

- a section of interviews- articles : artists, models, etchers, art dealers, all kinds of people involved.

- a press portal

A few questions among millions asked by professional artists, teachers, art lovers, students, product designers, sales counselors and every single person facing plastic arts reality.

 From a set of technical information (which is kind of the "historical core" of the site), we very much extended the fields of study and the know-hows that we mention. And this, without getting far from our editorial policy where reality and experience are essential.

Beyond this engagement, the philosophy of the website is to submit information, not to strike it. "When one doesn’t know, one asks”: the internaut is invited, through these pages, to share his experience of specific products or practices, but also of contents on which the team cannot pronounce. And it works! You do it, and we thank you for that on behalf of all.

An evolution towards an extension of the branches of knowledge, within a well-defined editorial policy

 Technical information : sources and editorial policy 

WARNING

The technical information in Dotapea.com constitutes only documentation: you will not find here any artistic learning process, strictly speaking, or pedagogy.

Our information sources are :

* Testimonies and experimentations of artists, teachers, researchers, professionals.

* Written works by artists or scientists.

* Manufacturers’ instructions, which are often very informative, precise and experimental. Because of their quite scientific aspect, they sometimes cut into pieces some a priori and unfair reputations. We strongly recommend reading them: most of the time, these informations are extremely relevant.

* There are some outstanding educational works that we did not give rise to here because of their nature, too different from a more technical approach proper to Dotapea.com. Yet, we read and appreciated them, and our own approach takes them into account.

* Some specialized periodic publications, where sometimes the worst, sometimes the best can be found.

* The most important source of dependable information, is comparison combined with experimentation, which leads us to the editorial policy, this site philosophy.

No know-how was ever born without experimentation!

New or past and sometimes forgotten practices, are always respectable whatever their success because they help us to progress, even in case of failure. However, integral maintenance of tradition and needless repetition of contents already given out to the public by other means are absolutely not the credo of Dotapea.com.

Present experimentations are of interest to us because they interest the evolution of art. OUR GOAL IS TO SPREAD THE INFORMATION.

... but not any information : hunting down false opinions, is also one of our purposes. That is why we wanted to open the site to internauts’ interventions: nobody is perfect; none of the comments you will find here will be safe from being corrected.

>>> WARNING

Despite our precautions, none of the processes and recipes you will find in our pages can be guaranteed as for results. One must consider them as information. Any project possibly hazardous for people, animals or environment requires the consultation of one or more specialist. The same applies with goods. In addition, do not hesitate to tell us about your experiments so that we will be able to refine our indications. Thank you in advance.

The colors of Dotapea.com

We noticed that our visitors generally read a lot of text at each visit, which is understandable as this kind of documentation compels actually exploration, therefore attention and thought.

We have been keen on preserving our initial chromatic choices: visitors must not be aggressed and even less put to sleep by dull and homogeneous colors. So, our chromatic style remains always a bit "floral" and playful. Above all, no "graphic charter", no "institutional" or "entrepreneurial" look for Dotapea.

Have your say: click here.

FIDELITY AND CALIBRATION

Depending on the adjustments of your monitor, the appearance of the colors of the site can be quite far from what we tried to create. But, as Dotapea.com deals widely with pigments and colors, too important variations – which are unfortunately very common – may cause a discomfort, not to say errors when our visitors order or purchase with their suppliers.

Do not hesitate to calibrate your screen on Pourpre.com.  >>> Click here <<<

Once done, you should see our colors as follows :

The red of the opposite column on the right is not bright but intense. It does not verge at all on a fluorescent or an orangey hue. For the people knowing the appearance of pigments, this  is  cadmium red deep.

On certain Apple computers, the brightness of the screen is almost always very strong. Black does not exist. The background of this page (and of the others) should normally seem very black, with only a few details recalling a kind of slightly enlightened charcoal.