Master Your Mediums: A Guide for Oil Painters: PART II of II
This article is Part II, so if you have not nevertheless, study Element I to start with! There I focus on oil mediums, solvents, and the mediums that I Never use or endorse.
Stable, Particle-Based “Mediums”
Technically these are additives, not mediums, but discovering their properties potential customers me to the medium I presently use and recommend, so it’s beneficial to describe them below:
Fumed Silica (warmth-processed sand)
Fumed silica is an airy, feathery, powder dust produced from granite sand. The particles have a enormous floor location and small mass, so when it is mixed with paint or oil it can take on “thixotropic” houses. This suggests when you blend it or apply strain it behaves like a smooth flowing liquid, but when you will not touch it, it holds its form like a gel. I’ve made use of it by mixing it directly into my oil paint with a palette knife correct on the easel, and together with a minimal oil, it can be a excellent way to increase the paint even though trying to keep it clear to make glassy glazes. The proper way to blend it is with a muller, but I have relished the paste I can get just with the knife. Nonetheless, there is an a lot easier way to use it which I’ll address beneath.
To try to remember its attributes, maintain in brain: Silica is clear! It’s sand, and that’s what glass is produced of, so use fumed silica for transparent glazes.
Look at my movie demo for how I add fumed silica to my oil paint below
Chalk (ground calcium)
Chalk dust is the same things small children for generations have clapped out of blackboard erasers, and it’s just as messy! I have made use of it by mixing it specifically into my paint, and it would make the paint “chunky”, dry, and uncomplicated to pile up into craggy impastos. I really feel specific it really is very likely the key ingredient in any true “key medium of the Previous Masters”. Like fumed silica, you can also combine it more effectively and completely with a muller.
To bear in mind its qualities, maintain in thoughts: Chalk is OPAQUE. That’s why we use it to produce on chalkboards! So use chalk in your whites and light-weight-paint mixtures, to create up chunky impastos, thrust 3D designs ahead into the gentle, and basically capture the gentle with dazzling peaks of texture.
Watch my video demo for how I add chalk dust medium to my oil paint below
My Chosen Mediums
And now is the place we get to the fantastic part: The mediums I most very endorse! It’s essentially incredibly simple: They are just the dry solids I stated previously mentioned, but conveniently mulled and tubed with linseed oil. All-natural Pigments tends to make these mediums. They are incredibly straightforward and cheap, and you could also make them very easily at residence, but Purely natural Pigments has finished the perform for me, and I favor to just open the tubes and get started painting.
Tubed FUMED SILICA Medium for Glazes:
Oleogel medium by Organic Pigments
I use Oleogel by mixing it into my paint suitable on the palette with my palette knife, and I also use it to oil out my working location of my painting with a make-up wedge (left picture). Mainly because it has solid particles combined into the linseed oil, it’s substantially additional steady than working with linseed oil alone, and it tends to make a really wonderful transparent glaze. Out of the tube it appears to be like like a obvious gel, you can see it in the center of my palette in the middle image. (Purely natural pigments also would make rapid-drying version referred to as OleoRESgel, which I believe has alkyd included, so that could be a a terrific replacement for Liquin or Galkyd. And Organic Pigments lists all their ingredients on their labels and fact sheets.)
Tubed CHALK Mediums for Impastos:
Impasto putty medium by Purely natural Pigments
Impasto medium by Pure Pigments
Velazquez medium by Purely natural Pigments
These are 3 various proportions of the identical ingredients: Chalk dust blended with linseed oil. Impasto Putty has the most chalk, and it’s seriously thick, practically like a dry peanut butter, and it forms quick peaks when you “lift off” the palette knife.
Impasto Medium is in the center, the regularity is far more like room-temperature butter, with medium peaks.
Velazquez Medium is my favored, it is a bit fewer chalk and a lot more oil, and so you get prolonged ropey peaks, and the consistency is a lot more like a stretchy bitter cream.
All of them allow for you to pile up your paint into thick impastos that seem like old-grasp paint results to me.
These chalk-primarily based mediums also enable you to stretch out the paint quite skinny, so I use it for my direct white under portray layer as very well, exactly where I am applying the opacity and transparency of direct white paint to build a range of values around the brown uncooked umber underpainting….
Watch my video demo for mixing Oleogel and Impasto Putty into my paint in this article
Enjoy my video demo for how I use Oleogel and Impasto Putty in my current portray
I am going to be sharing more about generating a direct white below portray when I release my new painting video class later this yr: Glazing and Scumbling a Nonetheless Daily life with ROSES. My on the net movie system Glazing and Scumbling is a terrific introduction to the procedures I will be sharing in the a lot more innovative Roses training course.
Indication up for my mailing list to be notified as soon as the new on line video clip course is launched!
I train Alla Prima, Direct, and Oblique oil painting right here on the web, made available as totally pre-recorded video programs you can view any time, like my Intro to Oil Portray which is ideal for beginners. I also supply mentorship systems if you want aid and assistance although functioning via the programs.
Your Thoughts about Mediums Answered:
These are more concerns men and women questioned me about mediums on social media that I couldn’t match gracefully into the post:
Do you use distinct mediums for plein air vs studio function?
Operating en plein air or even alla prima in the studio, I obtain I’m racing versus time so I use just 1 medium, a uncomplicated combination of 50/50 linseed and odorless mineral spirits.
Do you use distinct mediums for distinctive grounds or supports, like chalk primed panel, or oil primed linen?
No, but I use distinctive grounds for diverse types of paintings: I use a chalk gesso floor on a clean really hard panel for Oblique portray, and I like RayMar’s oil primed linen panels for my immediate and alla prima paintings. You can see my materials lists with one-way links to my advisable goods.
Why do some mediums make the paint continue to be tacky, and really should you paint on a tacky layer?
If the prior paint layer is tacky you are most likely making use of far too substantially oil – or it’s possible other substances that are not drying rapid ample. A excellent way to gauge if your preceding paint layer is dry enough to paint about is the “thumbnail check” – If you can make an indentation in your paint movie with a organization press of your thumbnail, you should wait for it to dry more ahead of painting on it.
Can you combine diverse mediums with each other?
As extended as they are very simple mediums, probably of course, but you must be common with each component in your paint. I like to retain clear mediums and impasto mediums separate, considering that I use them for distinctive functions in various areas of the painting.
Are some mediums much more damaging than other people?
Solvents (paint thinner or mineral spirits or turpentine) are significantly even worse for your health and fitness than any other component applied for portray, so do all the things you can to restrict your exposure to fumes.
Is Galkyd excess fat or lean?
Rapid-drying or gradual-drying is significantly far more vital basic principle than fats or lean. Alkyd mediums are rapid-drying, so use it only in the lowest layers of a painting, or for soaked-in-soaked procedures, as in alla prima or plein air portray.
How do you prevent sinking in?
I do not, I just are living with it! The darkish parts of a painting appear lighter-worth and “matte” alternatively of glossy and dark mainly because the oil is sucked into former paint levels. The more levels there are, the even worse the sinking-in gets to be. I do “oil out” the place I system to paint into that working day, but I depart the relaxation matte. When the portray is completed and dry, I do oil out the entire area as soon as to acquire a superior photograph of the portray, but afterwards I wipe that oil off with odorless mineral spirits and a makeup sponge.
When the portray has experienced quite a few months or months to dry, I varnish it, and then all the wealthy glossy darkish colors return.