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 publish is Component II, so if you have not nevertheless, read through Aspect I first! There I examine oil mediums, solvents, and the mediums that I You should not use or recommend.

Sound, Particle-Based “Mediums”

Technically these are additives, not mediums, but checking out their houses potential customers me to the medium I at present use and advise, so it really is helpful to describe them listed here:

Fumed Silica (warmth-processed sand)
Fumed silica is an airy, feathery, powder dust built from granite sand. The particles have a substantial area space and reduced mass, so when it is really blended with paint or oil it can take on “thixotropic” attributes. This signifies when you combine it or apply tension it behaves like a smooth flowing liquid, but when you don’t touch it, it retains its condition like a gel. I have made use of it by mixing it right into my oil paint with a palette knife correct on the easel, and alongside with a small oil, it can be a excellent way to prolong the paint when retaining it transparent to make glassy glazes. The right way to combine it is with a muller, but I’ve appreciated the paste I can get just with the knife. Nonetheless, there is an less complicated way to use it which I am going to go over under.

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

Enjoy my online video demo for how I incorporate fumed silica to my oil paint right here


Chalk (floor calcium)
Chalk dust is the same things youngsters for generations have clapped out of blackboard erasers, and it can be just as messy! I’ve applied it by mixing it right into my paint, and it would make the paint “chunky”, dry, and uncomplicated to pile up into craggy impastos. I come to feel specified it truly is possible the principal component in any accurate “mystery medium of the Previous Masters”. Like fumed silica, you can also combine it more appropriately and completely with a muller.

To bear in mind its qualities, keep in thoughts: Chalk is OPAQUE. Which is why we use it to publish on chalkboards! So use chalk in your whites and mild-paint mixtures, to create up chunky impastos, drive 3D designs forward into the light, and actually catch the mild with shiny peaks of texture.

Check out my online video demo for how I add chalk dust medium to my oil paint here


My Most popular Mediums
And now is wherever we get to the fantastic aspect: The mediums I most really recommend! It can be in fact very very simple: They are just the dry solids I detailed over, but conveniently mulled and tubed with linseed oil. Normal Pigments can make these mediums. They are incredibly uncomplicated and low cost, and you could also make them very easily at dwelling, but Normal Pigments has finished the get the job done for me, and I like to just open the tubes and start out portray.


Tubed FUMED SILICA Medium for Glazes:
Oleogel medium by Natural 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 working space of my portray with a makeup wedge (still left picture). Mainly because it has good particles combined into the linseed oil, it’s significantly far more secure than making use of linseed oil alone, and it can make a definitely wonderful clear glaze. Out of the tube it appears to be like a very clear gel, you can see it in the center of my palette in the center picture. (All-natural pigments also tends to make rapidly-drying edition referred to as OleoRESgel, which I imagine has alkyd added, so that may well be a a good substitution for Liquin or Galkyd. And Normal Pigments lists all their elements on their labels and fact sheets.)


Tubed CHALK Mediums for Impastos:

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

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

Impasto Medium is in the middle, the regularity is additional like space-temperature butter, with medium peaks.

Velazquez Medium is my favourite, it truly is a bit considerably less chalk and far more oil, and so you get long ropey peaks, and the regularity is additional like a stretchy sour cream.

All of them make it possible for you to pile up your paint into thick impastos that appear like aged-grasp paint consequences to me.

These chalk-based mostly mediums also permit you to extend out the paint really thin, so I use it for my lead white below painting layer as very well, exactly where I am employing the opacity and transparency of lead white paint to generate a selection of values in excess of the brown uncooked umber underpainting….

Observe my online video demo for mixing Oleogel and Impasto Putty into my paint below

View my video demo for how I use Oleogel and Impasto Putty in my present painting


I’ll be sharing extra about producing a direct white below painting when I release my new portray online video training course afterwards this 12 months: Glazing and Scumbling a Even now Life with ROSES. My on line video training course Glazing and Scumbling is a great introduction to the tactics I’ll be sharing in the extra innovative Roses study course.

Indicator up for my mailing record to be notified as soon as the new online movie course is produced!

I educate Alla Prima, Direct, and Oblique oil painting in this article on line, offered as completely pre-recorded movie classes you can watch any time, together with my Intro to Oil Painting which is ideal for rookies. I also give mentorship plans if you want help and help even though operating by the courses.

Your Questions about Mediums Answered:
These are a lot more inquiries folks questioned me about mediums on social media that I could not fit gracefully into the submit:

Do you use different mediums for plein air vs studio perform?
Doing the job en plein air or even alla prima in the studio, I uncover I am racing from time so I use just one medium, a basic combination of 50/50 linseed and odorless mineral spirits.

Do you use unique mediums for distinctive grounds or supports, like chalk primed panel, or oil primed linen?
No, but I use distinctive grounds for distinct types of paintings: I use a chalk gesso ground on a clean difficult panel for Oblique portray, and I appreciate RayMar’s oil primed linen panels for my immediate and alla prima paintings. You can see my products lists with inbound links to my encouraged goods.

Why do some mediums make the paint continue to be tacky, and ought to you paint on a tacky layer?
If the previous paint layer is tacky you are most likely utilizing much too substantially oil – or it’s possible other elements that are not drying rapid plenty of. A very good way to gauge if your past paint layer is dry more than enough to paint above is the “thumbnail examination” – If you can make an indentation in your paint film with a firm push of your thumbnail, you really should wait around for it to dry a lot more before painting on it.

Can you combine diverse mediums alongside one another?
As long as they are uncomplicated mediums, in all probability of course, but you need to be familiar with each component in your paint. I like to preserve clear mediums and impasto mediums independent, considering that I use them for different applications in different sections of the painting.

Are some mediums a lot more harmful than many others?
Solvents (paint thinner or mineral spirits or turpentine) are significantly even worse for your wellbeing than any other component made use of for portray, so do all the things you can to limit your publicity to fumes.

Is Galkyd fat or lean?
Speedy-drying or sluggish-drying is far far more crucial principle than excess fat or lean. Alkyd mediums are quick-drying, so use it only in the lowest layers of a painting, or for damp-in-wet solutions, as in alla prima or plein air portray.

How do you stay clear of sinking in?
I do not, I just dwell with it! The dim locations of a painting look lighter-worth and “matte” as an alternative of glossy and dim simply because the oil is sucked into prior paint levels. The additional layers there are, the even worse the sinking-in turns into. I do “oil out” the place I prepare to paint into that day, but I depart the rest matte. When the portray is completed and dry, I do oil out the total floor after to get a very good image of the painting, but afterwards I wipe that oil off with odorless mineral spirits and a make-up sponge.
When the painting has had numerous weeks or months to dry, I varnish it, and then all the loaded shiny dim colors return.