oil painting

First published on 1 October 2006.

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Since this month is the site’s two year anniversary, I am re-posting some items from the past that I particularly like. This one was first posted on 28 August 2006.

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Paulin writes,

Here my dilemma today. I need to fill a 36 × 36 Canvas with a base color. I need the paint to be really fluid/wet so as to have a very smooth surface (no brush strokes) and be able to blend monochromatically to give some depth. I am getting all kinds of mixed messages about how to handle the paint itself. Some say use galkyd slow dry with a bit of turpenoid, but I have read that the paint can “wrinkle”. Some say use liquin but it will take forever to dry…

I’m personally not a big fan of alkyd-based mediums, especially in multi-layered paintings. Also, I hate the way they smell.

Here’s what I’d do. I would thin the paint very slightly (I like real turps or spike, but not everyone likes the smell, so you can use mineral spirits if necessary). Make sure you have excellent ventilation. I’d apply the paint with a wide, soft brush, getting it reasonably flat. Then I’d take a clean soft flat or fan brush and dip it in solvent. With a very soft touch, I’d whisper it over the surface of the painting, knocking down flat spots. This would take a long time for a 36 × 36 canvas. I’d let the canvas dry flat in a dust-free room (or covered by a jury-rigged plastic “tent” to keep dust off of it).

Another option would be to add a bit of thinned stand oil to the paint. Stand oil tends to level brush strokes and dry hard and glossy, especially when the painting is allowed to dry flat to avoid sagging. For layers after that, you’d need to take steps to ensure adhesion to the glossy base layer, such as wet sanding or using a medium containing a balsam.

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I hesitate to post this. The image depends on very subtle gradations of value, and those are not captured very well by my camera (with my limited photographic skills at least). Many of the value changes are much harsher in this image than on the actual painting. But here it is.

“Bag and Bulb,” oil on lead-primed canvas, 16 × 20”.

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If you’re going to paint with oils, the simplest approach is just to go to an art or craft store, buy some stretched primed canvases, and paint on those. So far as I can tell, that’s what most people do, because it doesn’t involve any work or thought, and you can get a canvas pretty cheaply.

That’s not what I normally do. I don’t like painting on acrylic primer. (Which is usually, and misleadingly, labeled “gesso.” As I’ve said before, real gesso is made with hide glue and chalk or gypsum, not plastic.) Acrylic primer is rough on brushes because it has abrasives in it to provide tooth. Without those abrasives, it would be much too smooth, and the paint wouldn’t stick to it. It is also too “chattery” for my taste. By that I mean that the paint doesn’t flow as smoothly as I would like it to. Most acrylic-primed canvas is primed too thinly; it would be better if they applied another layer or two of primer. Some artists add more acrylic primer themselves, and that’s an improvement. But it’s still just acrylic primer. It is not fully clear whether oil paint on acrylic primer has good long-term archival properties. It is better than oil painting over acrylic paint, because the abrasives in the primer allow better mechanical adhesion between paint layers, but it has not yet proved itself over the long term. (CONTINUED) ⇒

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I’ve said previously that the belief by some artists that the color black is somehow harmful to pictures is silly. There are many pigments that I don’t happen to use, but I don’t think that you’ll harm your paintings if you use them.

The anti-black bias seems particularly odd when you consider artists like Leonardo, Velázquez, Rembrandt, or Caravaggio. All of them used lots and lots of black. Although they had more limited palettes than we do, they certainly could have mixed darks without black. In other words, their extensive use of black was their choice. I don’t see anyone painting today who could reasonably say to Rembrandt, “if you would only skip the black, your paintings could be as good as mine.” But there are plenty of art teachers today who tell their students that they should never, ever, use black. If you have a teacher who tells you that, you should consider whether their other advice is equally nonsensical. (CONTINUED) ⇒

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The acrylic primer on prepared canvases or available in stores is usually labeled “gesso.” It’s not actually gesso and manufacturers shouldn’t call it that. For oil painting, I find real gesso to be a much better surface than acrylic primer. Egg tempera and tempera grassa should be used only with real gesso panels. Gesso should only be used on inflexible supports (i.e., panels), because it is too brittle for canvas and will crack.

Gessoing is easy and almost foolproof, but time-consuming. It takes an afternoon to gesso a panel. On the other hand, it takes an afternoon to gesso five, ten, or twenty panels, so it pays to produce them in volume. I generally invest three or four afternoons a year in making enough panels to provide me with a steady supply.

Here’s how to make and apply gesso:

Materials

Hide glue (often labeled “rabbitskin glue” whether it contains any rabbit or not). Most major art suppliers have this.

Inert white pigment. This is powdered chalk or gypsum. The marble dust you can buy in art stores is chalk. Plaster of Paris is cooked (anhydrous) gypsum, but I have found it too gritty to make good gesso. (The word “gesso” means “gypsum” in Italian, since that’s what Italians made gesso from. In Northern Europe, chalk was the traditional material). You can buy good-quality powdered gypsum from specialty suppliers like Kremer.

Titanium white pigment. This is optional. Some people like to substitute up to 20% of the inert white pigment in the recipe below with titanium white, for brightness. I haven’t found it worth the bother.

Panel. There are various materials you can use for panel painting. One good option is to buy hardboard at the home improvement or hardware store. You can buy it cheaply in 4 foot by 8 foot sheets. Get tempered hardboard 1/4 inch thick. The staff at the store will probably cut it to size for you if you ask. Other materials you can use for panel include medium density fiberboard (MDF) and actual wood planks. Wood panels of any size, however, are best seasoned for 1-3 years, with planing to size if it warps, after it has been cut to final size.

Wide flat brush. A good house painting brush will do.

A double boiler. Or use one pan that can fit inside a larger pan. I use an empty tuna can to support the small pan in the large pan.

Measuring spoons, mixing spoons.

Sandpaper. Several grits.

Preparing hide glue

Make the hide glue the day before you plan to gesso the panel. Hide glue normally comes in powder or granular form. Mix one part hide glue with 11 parts warm tap water. One cup makes about enough to size and gesso two 8 × 10” panels, depending on how many layers of gesso you apply. Stir the water/glue mixture for about five minutes, then let it sit for 6-24 hours or so. It will form a thick gelatin. If the weather is very hot (95 degrees Fahrenheit+), it might not gel properly unless you put it in the refrigerator.

Preparing and sizing the panel

The edges of the panel should be smoothed with sandpaper or a rasp. Clean the panel with denatured alcohol to remove any trace of oil or other guck.

Now you want to coat the panel in a layer of hide glue. This is called sizing the panel because another word for hide glue is “size.” You’ll start by warming the glue to make it fluid. If you heat the glue too much, it will weaken the glue. As it turns out, hot tap water is about the right temperature to liquefy glue without damaging it. So fill the outer pan of your double boiler with hot tap water and put the glue into the inner pan. In about ten minutes, it will be about the consistency of milk (whole milk, not that low fat stuff). Brush the glue over the front, back, and sides of the panel. Give it a half hour to dry.

I generally add more layers of glue to the back. The reason is that the glue in the gesso on the front will be applying force to the panel. If the panel is large, this will noticeably warp the panel. So I generally add about four layers of glue to the back in order to counteract the warping effect that the gesso will apply to the front. This seems to help a lot.

Making gesso

Measure the volume of the remaining glue and pour it back into the double boiler. You will be adding 1.5 times this volume of chalk or gypsum to make gesso. Do this gradually, gently dropping each spoonful into the liquid to avoid making any bubbles. Distribute the chalk/gypsum around the pan so that it the glue soaks into it. Once all of the chalk/gypsum is in the pot, give it 10 minutes to soak. Now take a brush and gently stir the mixture, again trying to avoid making any bubbles.

Applying the first layer of gesso

For the first layer, spread it thinly over the surface of the panel, stroking back and forth in one direction. It’s not very opaque when wet. Let it dry; this takes 10-30 minutes, depending on humidity and temperature (dry days are best for gessoing panels). You’ll know it’s dry when it feels dry to the touch and any grayish areas have disappeared. Cennino, a 15th century Italian artist and writer, suggested rubbing the first layer in with your hand rather than spreading with abrush. That’s messy, but works just fine and may improve adhesion.

If the gesso in your pan is getting thick, it means that it’s cooling off. Replace the water in the double boiler with new hot tap water. Don’t overdo it; this is usually necessary only once every 30-60 minutes or so.

Applying the rest of the gesso

You will apply 6-8 layers of gesso. Brush strokes in each layer should be applied at right angles to those of the previous layer. Each layer is best applied shortly after the previous layer has become dry. It’s best to apply all layers in one day, so that they will bond with each other. If you get cracking, that means that you’re applying the gesso before the previous layer has dried. More layers will fix this. If you get little pits in the gesso, then you’re painting with gesso that has bubbles in it. Let the gesso stand for a half hour before applying any more, then rub the next layer in with your hand.

Once you’ve applied all the gesso, let the panel dry for at least three days. You can clean the brush, pan, and anything else that got gesso on it in warm water.

Smoothing the panel

Start by using a metal file to chamfer all of the edges of the gesso, so that they are at a beveled angle inward. This protects against cracking, should the panel strike something (I’ve had this happen with a large panel that I put a lot of work into, and it’s very irritating).

To get the panel smooth, I like to use a sanding block, starting with 400 grit sandpaper and moving to finer grits at the end. This produces a beautiful, eggshell-smooth finish that is almost too beautiful to paint on.

If I’m going to be painting with oil, I like to apply a final layer of hide glue to the smoothed surface of the panel. Without that, the gesso is a bit too absorbent. Others use a thin layer of shellac or varnish to reduce absorbency; I haven’t tried that.

For egg tempera or tempera grassa, plain gesso works great.

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Here are two swatches of ultramarine blue. The one on the left is in egg tempera. The one on the right is Doak’s ultramarine blue medium oil paint. Both are mixed with titanium white at the bottom. It’s not as obvious in this photo as it is in real life that the tempera is lighter and higher in chroma. A number of pigments, especially earths, are brighter in tempera.

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There are a number of oil painting mediums based on synthetic substances called alkyds. Alkyds can also be used as a binder for paints, but I’m specifically talking about mediums made for mixing with regular oil paint. These include Liquin, Galkyd, Neo-Meglip, and a number of other products.

Although they are popular, I don’t use them, for several reasons.

1. I don’t think they’ve been around long enough to prove themselves. While the first popular alkyd medium, Liquin from Winsor Newton, has been around for decades, it has apparently been reformulated several times. So we don’t know what modern alkyds do to paintings, exactly.
2. I have heard a few (not many, but a few) reports of delamination in multi-layer painting that artists have blamed on alkyds. It appears that under some circumstances, one layer of oil paint containing alkyd medium may not reliably adhere to another layer of paint containing alkyd medium. This issue is probably not a concern for for single-layer alla prima painting. If you do choose to use alkyd mediums in multi-layer painting, my recommendation is to reconsider. But if you do choose to willfully ignore my excellent advice, you should at least scuff the dried paint in between layers with a kitchen scrubee pad to encourage mechanical adhesion.
3. I like using traditional painting materials. I use some modern pigments, but I don’t like using modern binders or mediums. That’s just me.
4. I don’t particularly like the way the couple of alkyd mediums I’ve tried handled.
5. I hate the way they smell. It’s not a strong odor, but it’s insidious. Compared to, say, Canada balsam and oil of spike (one of the best smells in the world), alkyds smell like a distant petroleum refinery.
6. Used excessively, alkyd mediums can cause yellowing. So do many of the more traditional mediums, of course, but alkyds do not have “don’t discolor” as an advantage. As with any additive to oil paint, only a very small amount of alkyd medium should be used.
7. It’s hard to say whether alkyds are “fat” or “lean.” Fat mediums dry slowly and are relatively flexible. Lean mediums dry quickly and are more rigid. Alkyds dry quickly and are flexible. In multiple-layer painting, the rapid drying of alkyds could cause problems when used with other, slower-drying, fat mediums. If you use alkyd mediums in multi-layer painting, my recommendation is to use the same medium formulation throughout the painting, simply using a bit more from one layer to the next. Don’t use other mediums as you go.
8. Some artists seem to use alkyd mediums mainly for their property of causing the paint to dry more quickly. If that’s what you are looking for, there are a number of more technically sound methods.

Although they are cheap and easily accessible, I don’t see any particular advantage that alkyd mediums have that might balance out these concerns. If you are using mediums correctly, the amount that goes into any painting is so small that the expense of even a relatively expensive bottle of medium is miniscule. I admit that I’m a bit of a painting materials snob, but I’m OK with that. In my view, alkyd mediums are the fast food of oil painting. They are cheap and you can get them almost anywhere, but they aren’t very good for you.

I have heard of some artists who become so enamored of alkyds that they use them as a medium and also as a final varnish. That’s an especially bad idea, as most of the companies that make alkyd mediums will tell you. If used as a varnish, alkyd mediums may cause yellowing. Also, it will not later be possible to remove the varnish when cleaning the picture, which is a critical property for a varnish to have.

Update

1/31/07: rewrote with some additional information.

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Painters can be very particular about their palettes. For oil painting, I like to use a wooden arm palette. I’ve found that the best preparation is a method traditionally used in woodworking called French polishing. This method provides a tough, smooth surface that is not soluble in oil, turps, mineral spirits, or any of the other solvents used in oil painting. It’s easy to clean. Hardened oil paint, if necessary, can be quickly removed with a green kitchen scrubee pad soaked in turps or mineral spirits. The paint sticks well to the palette without resisting the brush or the palette knife.

Get yourself a new wooden palette and sand down any splinters or imperfections. Make sure it fits your hand well. You will need some fresh shellac; the stuff you get at a furniture store will do. You could also make your own by dissolving dry shellac flakes in denatured alcohol. You will need some denatured alcohol for cleaning up, a one-foot square of lint-free cloth, preferably linen, and a small amount of linseed oil. Fold the cloth into a convenient size—about 2” is good. Dip the pad in shellac and wipe it over the surface of the palette, covering thoroughly and evenly. Pour a small amount of linseed oil onto the surface of your cloth. While the shellac is still tacky, rub the cloth over the surface of the palette in a circular motion. With a little practice, you get a sense of how to do this so that the shellac is spread smoothly and pressed into the wood. Let the palette dry enough so that the shellac is it no longer tacky (15 minutes or so). Apply and then polish another layer, and another, and another, until the palette has a surface that feels sufficiently thick (I apply about 8-10 layers). It is beautifully smooth.

If the surface of your palette eventually gets damaged by repeated scraping, you can remove the old shellac with denatured alcohol and apply a new French polish. In three years of heavy use, I haven’t yet had to do that.

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“Dead coloring” refers to a painting tradition common in 15th century Glabnorkia, in which the flesh tones of all figures are rendered as if they were dead, as a reminder of the temporal limitations of the human body and the need to focus on matters of the spirit rather than the material world.

Well, no.

Actually, “dead coloring” refers to an initial layer in multi-layered oil painting. This initial layer is used to establish one or more elements of the final form and color of the painting, while leaving other elements to later stages of painting. Normally, the underpainting is allowed to contribute to the final visual effect of the painting. There are different ways to accomplish this. They include:

• The initial layer is done in shades of gray; this is called a grisaille. With this method, you solve all problems of value, composition, and placement, without having to worry about the complications of color. The next layer is a glaze of full color.<
• The initial layer is done in a monotone hue. For example, it could be in shades of blue. The underlayer provides an overall tone that affects each part of the painting. In effect, this is similar to painting in one layer while including a “mother color” in each paint mixture.
• Paint each general area of a painting with a single color, without details or shaded modeling. So, for example, a blue shirt would be painted with a flat blue that reflects the overall average hue, chroma, and value of the whole shirt. The next layer would begin to establish modeling and detail.
• Paint each area with the visual complement of the final color. A green tree would be underpainted in reds. The idea is that the complementary underpainting provides a visual resonance with the upper layer.
• The initial layer is painted as a blur, with all edges blended. Throw your eyes out of focus, then paint what you see. Further layers are painted with progressively increased focus.

All of these are essentially variations on the general idea of an initial dead coloring layer. Some of them could, of course, be combined.

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Here are some more swatches of oil paint.

Top row (L to R): viridian (Doak), cadmium green (Williamsburg), earth green (WB), pthalo green (M. Graham), Turkey umber (WB), French ochre extra pale (Doak), lead tin yellow (Doak), Bristol yellow (Doak), pyrol ruby red (Doak), cadmium red medium (Doak).

Bottom row: cadmium red (Graham), alizarin crimson (Graham), quinacridone violet (Graham), dioxazine purple (Graham), azo yellow (Graham), stil de grain, (WB), warm sepia extra (Old Holland), unbleached titanium (WB), transparent yellow oxide (Doak), Naples yellow (WB)

Related post

• Color swatches

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Here are some oil paint swatches. For each paint, the pure color is on top and that color mixed with white is below. There is no way for me to take a picture, post it on the web, and have you see it accurately on your computer monitor. But this gives some idea of what the color looks like. I find this to be a useful reference when I’m searching for just the right color to add to my core palette.

Top row (left to right): Red ochre (Williamsburg), Italian burnt sienna (WB), vermilion genuine (Doak), yellow ochre (WB), Italian raw sienna (WB), raw umber (Old Holland), burnt umber (WB), terre verte (WB), ultramarine blue (Studio Products), German earth (WB).

Bottom row: Florentine lake (Doak), Bohemian green earth (WB), Tuscan red (Studio Products), Pozzuoli earth (WB), Indian yellow (Doak), Fra Angelico blue (Doak), Alger blue (Doak), transparent blue oxide (Doak), milori (Prussian) blue (Doak), indigo (WB).

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So I’m working on a still life as a gift for my brother and my sister and law. They used to blow glass (hey, Steve and Linda, if you’re reading this—are you ever going to get back to glass again?). Anyway, the subject of the still life is two lovely glass Christmas ornaments that they gave me some time ago. It seems like a nice full-circle kind of gift. (Yes, I know it’s late.)

The two ornaments are sitting on a yellow comforter. Since that takes up the foreground, middle ground (except for the ornaments) and background, most of the composition consists of yellow fabric. It’s an oil painting on a gessoed hardboard panel.

On my first pass, I messed up the color of the yellow. For the lights, I used mostly ochres, especially Doak’s wonderful French ochre extra pale. In the darks, I used raw sienna, bunt umber, and raw umber. That was a lot of time panting complex folds of fabric, and while I was doing it it seemed fine to me. The next day, it just looked wrong. After some thought, I realized that I had screwed up the chroma of the darks, making them too dull. When I focus on the darks, they look pretty low in chroma. But when I painted that dullness, it became clear that the overall relationship between the chroma in the darks with the chroma in the light was wrong. That can happen when the difference between one color and another is subtle, but repeated throughout a painting. An error that would not be noticeable if it was in only one part of a painting looks really huge if the same problem repeats itself over and over.

So I went back over the fabric parts of the painting (after wet sanding for good adhesion from one layer to the next) and re-painted, paying more careful attention to chroma. For darks, I used yellow ochre, raw sienna, burnt sienna, and ultramarine blue instead of umbers. That worked much better.

I am no hater of umbers; for really low-chroma yellows, they are hard to beat (some artists think that umbers are “deadening” colors just like black is purported to be). But in this case, they were not the right tool for the job.

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I am fortunate in having no particular sensitivity to the aromatic solvents such as spirits of turpentine and oil of spike often used in oil painting. I take reasonable precautions while painting to avoid overexposure and ensure good ventilation.

Some people are specifically sensitive to spirits of turpentine, but are able to use alternate solvents such as oil of spike. Others are very sensitive to aromatic solvents, but are able to tolerate modified substances such as odorless mineral spirits. (I don’t like using OMS with oil paints because I don’t like the way they interact with paint. I also have a slight skin sensitivity to mineral spirits.) Note that not all spirits of turpentine are the same. Most modern gum turpentines are made from boiled tree stumps, which makes a nasty-smelling product. Look for stuff that doesn’t have a foul odor.

But there are some individuals who just can’t be around any of the solvents that are useful for oil painting. And even people with no sensitivity may find themselves taking a class or in some other situation in which solvents are not allowed. I think it’s useful, therefore, to discuss strategies for working with oil paint without solvents.

I’d first like to note that, for the first 100 years of oil painting, there is scant evidence of solvent use. Paintings from that period often exhibit very fine detail, demonstrating that just about any sort of painting in oil is possible without solvents. Since those paintings have often lasted very well (without excessive cracking or yellowing), it also demonstrates that multi-layered solvent-free painting can be done without having to dilute the paint with excessive oil or by egregiously violating the principle of fat over lean. (CONTINUED) ⇒

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