The best medium for brightening

[Xander Calceta]

I am encountering problems with my paintings when it is dry; it turned dull and pale. Is it because of the medium I use? I only use linseed oil by applying it on the canvas first before proceeding to painting and not applying on the paint itself for thinning.
Is there anyone of you who could recommend me a nice medium that would make my painting brighter or glowing? something that would prevent earth colors to sink or to dull out?
Don't recommend me varnishes because I have tried it and it just made my painting glossy but not bright.
I want to know the secret in brigther painting.

Please, anyone who has an idea about this share it with me and I know most of us here in this forum are interested with this.


thanks,
Xander

[Richard Budig]

Xander:

When I studied with Daniel Greene several years ago, he advised us to apply a light spritz of retouch varnish to our paintings each morning so as to bring up to proper value and "juicyness" the paint we used the preceeding day. Paint tends to sink in overnight.

One thing you could do to prevent this, to some degree, is to seal your gessoed ground with something like a little Liquin (alkyd medium) and turp or mineral spirits.

Another thing we used to do each day was something called "oil out." Oiling out is simply putting a light coat of your oil on the painting's surface prior to starting you painting that day.

Earth colors seem to be known for their "sinking in." They go dead, or flat overnight, sometimes, but as you continue to build paint levels and oil out, that will diminish considerably.

Whichever method you finally use, I believe it is important to bring the paint on your canvas up to the same degree of color, depth an "juicyness" as it was the day before while still wet. One of these methods should work for you.

Also, others on this forum may have some good ideas, also. They are full of good ideas.

[Xander Calceta]

Richard,

Thanks for the tips. I'd like to add another question regarding the technique you said "oil out". How do you exactly do that if you are using ala prima technique? Like this one painting that I attached above, I just painted this in one sitting maybe for about about 5 hours. I was impressed with my work then but got discouraged when the paint dried out. As you can see, the dark areas faded away though I used enough paint on it and the juciness was gone. How can I improve this painting?

And another thing, when you said "oil out", what kind of oil do you exactly mean that I should put on the surface of the canvas? Is it linseed oil because that is what I usually use? Or another kind of oil medium?

Xander

[Richard Budig]

Xandra:

Oiling out is used mostly (my opinion, now) when the painting process takes more than one day. It must be done over oil paint that is at least "touch dry." You simply use whatever is your oil medium and brush on a very thin coat over your painting. If you feel you have applied too much, you can wipe off the excess GENTLY with a soft cloth that will not leave tiny fibers stuck to your painting surface. I used to use a medium that was one third stand oil, one third turp, and one third damar varnish.

Paint sinks in for several reasons. I'm not a chemist, but here is what I've heard and been told over and over: Earth colors tend to sink in, or dry very matte. Also, if the ground on your canvas is very absorbant, it will "suck" the oil out of paint, leaving it flat and dull. This tends to diminish over time if the painting procoss goes on for several days because, over time, you generally go over each passage as you "tweak" your painting by adjusting values and color. In this case, the first layer of paint has produced a "skin" over your gesso, and as you apply more paint, the new paint tends to not go flat.

You will have to check out what I say next to be sure I'm right, but I believe that if you put a coat of lead white (flake white) over you canvas before you start a painting, it will retard the tendency of sinking in. This must be dry before painting on top of it.

Or, you could try useing a bit of Liquin thinned with turp or MS and put a thin coat over your canvas before you start paiting -- like the day before, or at least a few hours prior to painting. Liquin is an alkyd medium that dries very quickly. There are also other alkyd mediums under other brand names that are just as good. This will seal the gesso surface of your canvas and will also retard the sinking in.

For now, I'd try some version of the oil medium I described earler, like some of your linseed oil, a bit of turp and a bit of varnish. However, linseed oil yellows paintings over time, they say.

Before anything else, you might buy a can of retouch varnish and spray the surface of your painting lightly. The color will instantly come back. Retouch varnish is about one tenth varnish, and ninely percent turp, so you won't hurt your painting with a spritz or two of retouch varnish. Over time, the paint may go on sinking in even after applying retouch varnish, but it will bounce back when you put on your final varnish in a few months.

As for me, I use Liquin as my medium for a couple of reasons: It tends to dry in a few hours, and it usually dries not quite so flat. Some people don't like Liquin because they have had delamination problems with it, meaning that in some cases, one paint layer separates from another paint layer. I've never had that problem. I know some artists who use Liquin as a final coat/varnish.

Good luck.

[Xander Calceta]

Thank you very much for that information. I haven't tried before mixing in my own medium. But if the mixing you said (1/3 of stand oil, turp and damar) works for you then defenitely it'll work for me.

You said that it's nice to use flake white also but isn't it dangerous because of its lead consistency? Anyway, you said that i can use liquin or any alkyd medium and i just remember that i got several alkyd oil i my bag that i never use anymore. Maybe i can substitute it from the flake white.

Thanks again for that helpful info. i'll try doing that as soon as possible and fix everything I done wrong.

Xander.

[Richard Budig]

Flake white is dangerous only if you ingest it. For example, getting it on your fingers, and then transfering it to a foodsuff, such as a crakcer, or fruit, or to a cigarette so that when you take a drag to inhale, you suck lead laden smoke into your lungs. Otherwise, it's okay.

Some argue that lead white can interract adversely with other paints, and I believe it did a few hundred years ago, but there are an awful lot of paintings around from several hundred years ago that still look crisp and fresh even though lead white was the lightening agent used to paint the picture.

If you intend using an oil medium, you should also research and become familiar with the "fat over lean" theory. It means that when you start a painting, your medium contains not much oil. Each day, you use medium that is a little more oil and a little less turp/varnish. The idea is that you want the slowest drying part of your picture as the top layer. Theoretically, the bottom layers, being lean, will dry faster than the top layers, which contain more (fat) oil. If it were the other way around (lean over fat), the top layer would dry faster than the bottom layer, which would cause your paint to crack.

I don't believe that applies when you use an alkyd medium. At least, none of my paintings have cracked for more than 20 years, now.

Hopefully, somone else in this forum is, or will read this and correct me if I'm wrong.

I started using liquin because I painted at night until the wee hours, and then got up and painted in the morning. Bofore using an alkyd medium, my paint was often still wet. The alkyd medium gave me a "touch dry" paint by morning.

Finally, this the ways I do it. Doesn't mean it's right or that you have to or should do it this way.

[Richard Budig]

Xan:

Below, is the text of a message by Marvin Mattelson in one of the forums on this site a couple of years ago. Marvin is a very good artist who also teaches. He has his own school, and, as he notes here, he has tried lots of mediums.

You might also go up to the top of this page and click down the search thingy and type in mediums and see what comes up.



The medium is not the message


I have recently received several e-mail inquiries concerning my choice of mediums. This can be a touchy subject among otherwise likewise thinking artists, but what is life without a little controversy? We vehemently defend our precious mediums, sometimes bordering on religious fanaticism. I think that this lies in the fact that we have created a mystique about the secrets of the old masters, that somehow they were able to do great paintings due to a mystical alchemy. If only I could find that right medium then perhaps I could be the next ????? There is certainly validity to the advantageous use of a particular medium whose specific characteristics can be harnessed to one's best advantage.

I have a love-hate relationship with painting mediums. Primarily, I use them to keep my paint thin. My perfect medium would keep the paint wet all day and be dry the next. I would be able to easily blend adjoining colors and at the same time lay fresh paint over them immediately, with no disturbance. I would like to mix my medium into my paint piles and have them stay fresh all week. Of course I want it to be nontoxic, archival and to prevent my darks from sinking in.

I have tried many mediums since I switched from acrylics to oils a dozen or so years ago. I played around with Liquin for a long time and tried modifying it with various oils. I was, in particular, attracted to the enhanced flexibility of alkyd mediums. The fear of toxicity, the awful smell and premature yellowing eventually soured me. I tried different oils in combinations, including the infamous 1/3, 1/3, 1/3 combos. I like to work in thin layers; I had trouble with the over saturation of oil that eventually prevented additional paint from adhering to the surface. Yes, I worked fat over lean.

Another thing that worried me was the cracking of so many old master paintings in the museums, particularly in areas of thick paint application. I also don

[Xander Calceta]

Richard,

I thought that when you say fat over lean it only refers to the application of the paint as in putting paint thinner then thicker the next time around. I never thought that it was applied to the medium as refering for the drying time. So I now understand that it is not the paint but the medium that should be fatter on top. Now I got it. I was afraid before to do glazing because you put less paint on top as for translucent effects or for refinement and thought that it might get into cracking. But I really find it hard sometimes to finish painting as ala prima because it can't do it all. So now I'll experiment on glazing and try to see what's good for my works. Actually I was painting awhile ago and tried to use my painting medium called "glazing medium" made by Talens. I add some turp to thin it down and as I work on it I find it really good. I'll just wait for another day when it's dry and see what would the result be.

Thank you for all the information. It really helped me alot.

Xander

[Richard Budig]

Fat over lean, as I understand it, means that each day you work on a painting, your paint must contain a higher percentage of oil than it did yesterday. So, if you used a drop of medium in your paint today, tomorrow, you can use a drop or two also, but it must contain more oil than it did the day before.

I know one artist who has mixed about ten versions of the stand oil-turp-varnish mixture so that each mixture contains a bit more oil and a bit less of the other two ingredients. He has a three-to-one (oil) mix, a four-to-one, a five-to-one, and so on out to about 10 variations. If the painting takes, say, eight days, he used the medium that is more oil by that much for that day's work.

It's not only the medium that need to be more oily as time passes, but it is the medium THAT YOU MIX WITH YOUR PAINT that needs to be more oily so that the top layers will dry more slowly than the lower layers, and thus, retard cracking.

As I understand it, if you're going to glaze, you need to wait untill ALL your paint is dry before applying a glaze. By its nature, a glaze is just a tiny amount of paint mixed with a large amount of medium. This thin mix (more medium - less paint) will probably dry rather quickly on top of your fat paint.

There are some artists (Richard Schmid is one) who say that the only reason you should glaze is because you want to be mean to your self, and your so bored you don't have anything else to do except watch paint dry.

[John Crowther]

As I read through the posts I wondered if anyone had mentioned Neo Megilp, and so was happy to see Richard's post. Megilp was invented in the late 18th century to make oil paintings more lustrous, and was used for many many years before it was discovered that the lead and mastic in it was turning paintings dark and yellow. Gamblin has developed Neo Megilp (which has a consistency of vaseline) with modern ingredients that presumably won't have the same disastrous results. I've started using it recently, and so far like it a lot.

John C.