Master Your Mediums: A Guide for Oil Painters: PART II of II

This submit is Section II, so if you have not yet, browse Aspect I first! There I focus on oil mediums, solvents, and the mediums that I Will not use or advise.

Stable, Particle-Based mostly “Mediums”

Technically these are additives, not mediums, but discovering their homes potential customers me to the medium I at the moment use and recommend, so it is really valuable to explain them here:

Fumed Silica (warmth-processed sand)
Fumed silica is an ethereal, feathery, powder dust created from granite sand. The particles have a substantial surface area space and reduced mass, so when it truly is combined with paint or oil it takes on “thixotropic” properties. This suggests when you mix it or apply tension it behaves like a comfortable flowing liquid, but when you will not touch it, it holds its form like a gel. I’ve applied it by mixing it straight into my oil paint with a palette knife ideal on the easel, and together with a very little oil, it’s a wonderful way to prolong the paint when keeping it transparent to make glassy glazes. The good way to mix it is with a muller, but I’ve liked the paste I can get just with the knife. However, there is an a lot easier way to use it which I am going to address underneath.

To remember its properties, maintain in brain: Silica is transparent! It’s sand, and that is what glass is built of, so use fumed silica for transparent glazes.

Watch my video demo for how I include fumed silica to my oil paint right here

Chalk (floor calcium)
Chalk dust is the same stuff children for generations have clapped out of blackboard erasers, and it can be just as messy! I have employed it by mixing it specifically into my paint, and it helps make the paint “chunky”, dry, and straightforward to pile up into craggy impastos. I feel sure it is likely the key ingredient in any real “magic formula medium of the Outdated Masters”. Like fumed silica, you can also mix it more correctly and totally with a muller.

To keep in mind its attributes, hold in mind: Chalk is OPAQUE. That’s why we use it to produce on chalkboards! So use chalk in your whites and light-paint mixtures, to establish up chunky impastos, thrust 3D shapes ahead into the light-weight, and basically capture the light with shiny peaks of texture.

Check out my movie demo for how I increase chalk dust medium to my oil paint below

My Favored Mediums
And now is the place we get to the superior section: The mediums I most hugely advocate! It really is actually pretty very simple: They are just the dry solids I listed previously mentioned, but conveniently mulled and tubed with linseed oil. Normal Pigments makes these mediums. They are incredibly easy and low-cost, and you could also make them easily at property, but Organic Pigments has completed the work for me, and I prefer to just open up the tubes and begin portray.

Tubed FUMED SILICA Medium for Glazes:
Oleogel medium by Purely natural Pigments
I use Oleogel by mixing it into my paint proper on the palette with my palette knife, and I also use it to oil out my doing work region of my painting with a make-up wedge (still left impression). Simply because it has sound particles blended into the linseed oil, it really is a great deal a lot more steady than working with linseed oil alone, and it would make a really wonderful clear glaze. Out of the tube it appears to be like like a crystal clear gel, you can see it in the middle of my palette in the middle picture. (Organic pigments also would make rapid-drying edition referred to as OleoRESgel, which I believe has alkyd added, so that could possibly be a a wonderful substitute for Liquin or Galkyd. And Organic Pigments lists all their components on their labels and simple fact sheets.)

Tubed CHALK Mediums for Impastos:

Impasto putty medium by Pure Pigments
Impasto medium by Normal Pigments
Velazquez medium by Pure Pigments

These are 3 diverse proportions of the similar substances: Chalk dust mixed with linseed oil. Impasto Putty has the most chalk, and it can be really thick, pretty much like a dry peanut butter, and it kinds small peaks when you “lift off” the palette knife.

Impasto Medium is in the center, the regularity is extra like home-temperature butter, with medium peaks.

Velazquez Medium is my favorite, it’s a bit less chalk and much more oil, and so you get prolonged ropey peaks, and the regularity is much more like a stretchy bitter cream.

All of them allow for you to pile up your paint into thick impastos that glance like previous-learn paint effects to me.

These chalk-primarily based mediums also allow for you to extend out the paint incredibly skinny, so I use it for my guide white under painting layer as properly, wherever I am employing the opacity and transparency of lead white paint to produce a assortment of values over the brown uncooked umber underpainting….

Watch my video clip demo for mixing Oleogel and Impasto Putty into my paint listed here

Check out my online video demo for how I use Oleogel and Impasto Putty in my recent portray

I’ll be sharing much more about developing a direct white less than painting when I release my new painting movie class afterwards this calendar year: Glazing and Scumbling a Still Lifetime with ROSES. My on the net online video study course Glazing and Scumbling is a excellent introduction to the strategies I will be sharing in the more innovative Roses training course.

Sign up for my mailing record to be notified as shortly as the new on line video class is unveiled!

I train Alla Prima, Direct, and Indirect oil painting right here on the internet, made available as entirely pre-recorded movie programs you can check out any time, including my Intro to Oil Portray which is ideal for inexperienced persons. I also present mentorship programs if you want help and support even though doing the job via the programs.

Your Thoughts about Mediums Answered:
These are more queries people asked me about mediums on social media that I could not fit gracefully into the article:

Do you use diverse mediums for plein air vs studio get the job done?
Performing en plein air or even alla prima in the studio, I locate I am racing against time so I use just a single medium, a very simple mixture of 50/50 linseed and odorless mineral spirits.

Do you use distinctive mediums for different grounds or supports, like chalk primed panel, or oil primed linen?
No, but I use unique grounds for unique kinds of paintings: I use a chalk gesso ground on a easy tricky panel for Oblique painting, and I appreciate RayMar’s oil primed linen panels for my immediate and alla prima paintings. You can see my resources lists with hyperlinks to my recommended solutions.

Why do some mediums make the paint continue being tacky, and ought to you paint on a tacky layer?
If the earlier paint layer is tacky you are likely employing as well significantly oil – or perhaps other ingredients that are not drying fast more than enough. A fantastic way to gauge if your former paint layer is dry sufficient to paint more than is the “thumbnail test” – If you can make an indentation in your paint film with a business push of your thumbnail, you must wait for it to dry far more in advance of painting on it.

Can you combine diverse mediums jointly?
As long as they are easy mediums, in all probability indeed, but you should be familiar with every component in your paint. I like to hold transparent mediums and impasto mediums independent, due to the fact I use them for various functions in diverse components of the painting.

Are some mediums a lot more unsafe than others?
Solvents (paint thinner or mineral spirits or turpentine) are far even worse for your health than any other ingredient utilised for portray, so do almost everything you can to restrict your exposure to fumes.

Is Galkyd extra fat or lean?
Fast-drying or gradual-drying is considerably much more important basic principle than body fat or lean. Alkyd mediums are rapid-drying, so use it only in the most affordable layers of a painting, or for moist-in-moist techniques, as in alla prima or plein air painting.

How do you avoid sinking in?
I really don’t, I just reside with it! The darkish places of a portray look lighter-worth and “matte” as a substitute of shiny and dim for the reason that the oil is sucked into prior paint layers. The much more layers there are, the worse the sinking-in will become. I do “oil out” the region I plan to paint into that day, but I depart the rest matte. When the painting is completed and dry, I do oil out the entire area after to choose a fantastic photo of the portray, but later on I wipe that oil off with odorless mineral spirits and a makeup sponge.
When the painting has had various months or months to dry, I varnish it, and then all the rich shiny dim colours return.