January 22, 2025

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

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

This write-up is Part II, so if you have not but, read through Component I first! There I examine oil mediums, solvents, and the mediums that I You should not use or endorse.

Sound, Particle-Primarily based “Mediums”

Technically these are additives, not mediums, but checking out their homes leads me to the medium I now use and propose, so it truly is helpful to explain them here:

Fumed Silica (warmth-processed sand)
Fumed silica is an ethereal, feathery, powder dust designed from granite sand. The particles have a enormous area region and small mass, so when it is really blended with paint or oil it requires on “thixotropic” attributes. This signifies when you mix it or implement force it behaves like a soft flowing liquid, but when you do not touch it, it holds its shape like a gel. I’ve utilised it by mixing it right into my oil paint with a palette knife appropriate on the easel, and along with a little oil, it’s a wonderful way to lengthen the paint while holding it transparent to make glassy glazes. The good way to mix it is with a muller, but I’ve enjoyed the paste I can get just with the knife. However, there is an less difficult way to use it which I’ll cover beneath.

To keep in mind its attributes, maintain in brain: Silica is clear! It really is sand, and that is what glass is produced of, so use fumed silica for transparent glazes.

View my online video demo for how I incorporate fumed silica to my oil paint listed here


Chalk (floor calcium)
Chalk dust is the similar things youngsters for generations have clapped out of blackboard erasers, and it really is just as messy! I have utilized it by mixing it straight into my paint, and it will make the paint “chunky”, dry, and quick to pile up into craggy impastos. I feel sure it’s probably the key ingredient in any real “top secret medium of the Previous Masters”. Like fumed silica, you can also mix it much more properly and carefully with a muller.

To remember its homes, continue to keep in intellect: Chalk is OPAQUE. That’s why we use it to create on chalkboards! So use chalk in your whites and gentle-paint mixtures, to create up chunky impastos, thrust 3D styles ahead into the mild, and literally capture the light with brilliant peaks of texture.

Enjoy my online video demo for how I increase chalk dust medium to my oil paint listed here


My Most well-liked Mediums
And now is exactly where we get to the very good part: The mediums I most extremely recommend! It is really really pretty basic: They are just the dry solids I mentioned previously mentioned, but conveniently mulled and tubed with linseed oil. Organic Pigments makes these mediums. They are quite easy and low cost, and you could also make them quickly at dwelling, but All-natural Pigments has carried out the work for me, and I want to just open the tubes and start off painting.


Tubed FUMED SILICA Medium for Glazes:
Oleogel medium by Pure Pigments
I use Oleogel by mixing it into my paint ideal on the palette with my palette knife, and I also use it to oil out my doing work area of my portray with a makeup wedge (remaining graphic). Mainly because it has sound particles blended into the linseed oil, it truly is a great deal additional steady than using linseed oil alone, and it can make a seriously gorgeous transparent glaze. Out of the tube it appears to be like a crystal clear gel, you can see it in the center of my palette in the middle impression. (Pure pigments also tends to make rapid-drying version called OleoRESgel, which I think has alkyd added, so that may possibly be a a excellent replacement for Liquin or Galkyd. And All-natural Pigments lists all their substances on their labels and actuality sheets.)


Tubed CHALK Mediums for Impastos:

Impasto putty medium by All-natural Pigments
Impasto medium by Purely natural Pigments
Velazquez medium by Purely natural Pigments

These are 3 different proportions of the exact same elements: Chalk dust blended with linseed oil. Impasto Putty has the most chalk, and it is really truly thick, virtually like a dry peanut butter, and it varieties limited peaks when you “raise off” the palette knife.

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

Velazquez Medium is my favourite, it is a bit fewer chalk and extra oil, and so you get prolonged ropey peaks, and the consistency is extra like a stretchy sour cream.

All of them enable you to pile up your paint into thick impastos that search like previous-master paint effects to me.

These chalk-centered mediums also make it possible for you to stretch out the paint really slim, so I use it for my lead white beneath painting layer as well, the place I am working with the opacity and transparency of lead white paint to make a assortment of values more than the brown uncooked umber underpainting….

Enjoy my movie demo for mixing Oleogel and Impasto Putty into my paint in this article

Look at my video clip demo for how I use Oleogel and Impasto Putty in my existing painting


I’ll be sharing additional about building a lead white below painting when I launch my new portray online video course later this yr: Glazing and Scumbling a However Everyday living with ROSES. My online movie class Glazing and Scumbling is a terrific introduction to the procedures I will be sharing in the extra superior Roses system.

Indicator up for my mailing checklist to be notified as soon as the new on-line video clip system is released!

I train Alla Prima, Direct, and Indirect oil portray below on the web, available as totally pre-recorded movie programs you can watch any time, which include my Intro to Oil Painting which is perfect for inexperienced persons. I also offer you mentorship packages if you want assist and aid even though operating by means of the classes.

Your Concerns about Mediums Answered:
These are a lot more queries individuals questioned me about mediums on social media that I could not match gracefully into the write-up:

Do you use distinctive mediums for plein air vs studio function?
Operating en plein air or even alla prima in the studio, I find I’m racing from time so I use just a person medium, a simple combination of 50/50 linseed and odorless mineral spirits.

Do you use various mediums for unique grounds or supports, like chalk primed panel, or oil primed linen?
No, but I use distinctive grounds for different varieties of paintings: I use a chalk gesso ground on a easy really hard panel for Indirect painting, and I love RayMar’s oil primed linen panels for my immediate and alla prima paintings. You can see my components lists with hyperlinks to my advisable products.

Why do some mediums make the paint continue to be tacky, and ought to you paint on a tacky layer?
If the former paint layer is tacky you are probably making use of way too considerably oil – or probably other components that are not drying rapid enough. A superior way to gauge if your prior 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 firm push of your thumbnail, you need to wait around for it to dry additional right before painting on it.

Can you mix diverse mediums with each other?
As extensive as they are very simple mediums, likely of course, but you need to be common with every component in your paint. I like to hold transparent mediums and impasto mediums individual, due to the fact I use them for various needs in different elements of the portray.

Are some mediums much more unsafe than some others?
Solvents (paint thinner or mineral spirits or turpentine) are much even worse for your overall health than any other component used for painting, so do every thing you can to limit your exposure to fumes.

Is Galkyd fats or lean?
Speedy-drying or sluggish-drying is much extra significant principle than fat or lean. Alkyd mediums are rapidly-drying, so use it only in the least expensive levels of a portray, or for wet-in-damp approaches, as in alla prima or plein air portray.

How do you avoid sinking in?
I do not, I just reside with it! The dark regions of a painting look lighter-benefit and “matte” in its place of shiny and darkish for the reason that the oil is sucked into previous paint layers. The a lot more levels there are, the even worse the sinking-in gets. I do “oil out” the region I plan to paint into that working day, but I go away the rest matte. When the painting is performed and dry, I do oil out the complete floor at the time to choose a fantastic photograph of the painting, but afterwards I wipe that oil off with odorless mineral spirits and a make-up sponge.
When the painting has had a number of weeks or months to dry, I varnish it, and then all the prosperous glossy dim colors return.

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