DON"T use Oil Painting Medium, Until You've Watched This!

one question i get asked more than any other is what medium do you use the reason for this is that we have this idea that oil painting mediums are some sort of magic ingredients that hold the secret to successful painting we've inherited this notion from renaissance times when artists used a technique called glazing which involves starting a painting with a finished under drawing then applying colour in transparent layers or glazes artists would make their colors transparent by diluting them in mixtures of oil and other ingredients and their recipes for these mixtures were often closely guarded secrets but if you're not using old master techniques like glazing and instead you're working directly in oil paint or alloprima then oil painting mediums don't play such an important role and they certainly don't hold the key to successful painting that lies entirely in learning to interpret the visual phenomena that we actually see proportion light and dark tonal values and color what i like to call the physics of painting if you're new to this channel and you want to learn more about the physics of painting i'll put a link to some of my other videos in the description below you may also want to check out some of the more in-depth courses over on my patreon channel the physics of painting aside there are some situations if you're using an alaprima technique when you may still choose to use a medium so in this video i'm going to be showing you when this might be and i'll be giving you some suggestions for mediums you could try but first what exactly is a medium well in this context a medium is something we add to paint to alter either its consistency its drying time or its finish the first thing you can do to oil paint to alter its consistency is to mix it with solvents or thinners like turpentine and odorless mineral spirits solvents can be used to thin oil paint the same way water is used to thin watercolour so they can be used to create washes and it's okay to mix a few drops of solvent into your colors in the very early stages of a painting for the blocking but after that you definitely shouldn't use any because solvents will break down the oil which binds the pigments together so they'll compromise the integrity of the paint if you need to make your paint flow more in the later stages of a painting rather than using solvent as a thinner you can use an extender most oil colors are made by mixing pigment with linseed oil so one way you can extend your paint is simply to add more linseed oil however before you start mixing loads of oil into your paint to make it flow more there's an intrinsic property of oil paint which means you need to be very careful about adding too much oil oil paint takes a long time to dry it may feel dry to touch after only a day or two but under the surface the oil can take many months to dry as it dries the oil in the paint hardens or polymerizes to use its technical term therefore until it has dried oil paint will remain flexible so the more oil there is mixed into the paint the longer it will take to dry and the more flexible it will be if you take a more flexible layer of paint containing more oil a fat layer and you apply a layer containing less oil a lean layer on top of it the top layer will dry faster and become less flexible then when the more flexible layer underneath moves as it dries it will cause the more brittle layer on top to crack this means that in order to ensure the stability of your paintings you need to make sure you apply the fatter layers of paint containing more oil on top of lean layers of paint containing less oil this is the fat over lean rule another problem that can occur if you apply a faster drying layer on top of a slow drying layer is that as it dries the slow drying layer underneath will draw the oil out of the layer on top this will cause some areas of your painting to appear dull and matte this is known as sinking in and it can be particularly annoying with darker colours as the differences between the matte patches and the more glossy areas appear more pronounced so when you work with multiple layers of paint you need to be very careful about the fat over lean rule artists use glazing techniques will often use a leaner medium with a greater solvent to oil ratio for the lower layers of a painting then use fatter mediums with a greater oil content for each subsequent layer to avoid the dull patches you get with sinking in they may add some varnish to their medium and in order to have a greater degree of control over the drying time they may use a cicative or another ingredient to speed up drying here's a typical example of a glazing medium taken from the artist's handbook of materials and techniques by ralph mayer one part linseed stand oil one part demar varnish five parts of pure gum turpentine and a few drops of cobalt dryers there are loads of different recipes and loads of ready-made oil painting mediums available they use a wide variety of oils and resins or they contain other ingredients like beeswax or chalk which affect the consistency of the paint making it firmer for creating impastos then there are modern alkyd resins like liquid by windsor and newton or gauked by gambling which speed up the drying time if you want to know more about all the different mediums there are there's a wealth of information out there unfortunately it isn't really my area of expertise the main thing is before you try a particular medium ask yourself what do you actually need it for then make sure you find out exactly what's in it and what it's supposed to do because using too much medium or the wrong kind of medium can seriously impact the long term stability of your work so don't pick up a medium and start using loads of it just because you've heard some other artist uses it if this all seems a bit complicated don't worry because if you're not using glazing techniques but instead you're working with a more direct alaprima method then mediums don't play such an important role if you're working on a study or a plein air painting that you intend to finish in a single session then adding a few drops of oil to your colors isn't going to matter too much because everything will be drying at a similar rate so the fat over lean rule isn't going to be so much of an issue if you think you might have to come back to a painting after it has dried for the first session at least i would suggest trying to avoid using medium altogether if you need to increase the flow of your paint before you add anything to it the first thing you need to do is simply to mix more paint it's really common for beginners to not use enough paint so they start using loads of solvent and oil to extend their paint when what they really need is more paint another thing you can do to increase the flow of paint without adding anything to it is to use a less absorbent surface like oil primed linen working on a slicker surface will enable you to move the paint around more so the surface itself will create flow without needing any medium in fact you have to be very careful with medium on oil primed linen as it only takes a little before turning everything into a slippery mess however there is one situation in allaprima painting when you might want to use a few drops of medium and that's to avoid sinking in when you come back to a painting after it has dried the medium i like to use for this is a fairly fat mixture of linseed stand oil and turpentine mixed in equal parts stand oil has a honey-like consistency and it's made by heating linseed oil to pre-polymerize it and thicken it but unlike other forms of thickened linseed oil stand oil is heated in a vacuum this removes the oxygen and slows its drying stand oil is also much less prone to yellowing with thyme than other forms of linseed oil to speed up the drying time i'm mixing it with rectified spirit of turpentine you can use other types of odorless mineral spirits for this instead of real turpentine but i find the quantity of medium i normally use when i'm painting is so small that the turpentine doesn't bother me because of the viscosity of stand oil in order to mix it with the turpentine i need to heat it so here i've placed the jar containing equal parts stand oil and turpentine inside a pan of water which i'm gently heating making sure it doesn't boil once it's been sufficiently heated i will shake the mixture vigorously to make sure the stand oil and the turpentine get mixed together then after the mixture has settled and cooled down it's ready to use the main reason i like using stand oil as a medium is because of its self leveling properties it smooths out the brush marks i normally use medium if i need to paint over darker colors because these are the areas where you get the most sinking in if you build up too much paint in the darks the thicker brush strokes catch the light and create glare so in order to avoid glare in the darks i want my brush marks to be smooth and even now i can apply medium in one of two ways firstly i can dip my brush into the medium then add it to the colors that i'm mixing you only need a drop or two so be really careful not to add too much the other way you can use medium is to apply it directly onto the canvas and then paint into it this is known as oiling out here you can see i'm applying some medium to an old painting of mine that has sunken in and do you see how applying a little medium removes the matte patches and restores the paint to its original gloss and color though this is only temporary after the medium has dried the areas that haven't been painted over will return to their former appearance once again the medium needs to be used sparingly as too much oil will negatively impact the long-term stability of your work so here i'm removing the excess medium by wiping it back with some lint-free paper towel and you only need to oil out the areas that you're going to be working on i've seen students slather their whole paintings until they're dripping in linseed oil please don't do this or your work will very quickly become a slippery mess also make sure your painting is completely dry before you start oiling out or else you will remove the paint underneath if your painting isn't completely dry you can still add medium by dipping your brush and mixing a few drops into the paint another way you can restore a painting to its original luster if it has sunken in is to use a temporary retouching varnish retouch varnish is varnish that's been diluted with turpentine you can buy ready-made retouch varnish or you can prepare your own i use a mixture of one part de mar varnish to three parts rectified spirit of turpentine there's quite a lot of debate as to which method is preferable oiling out or retouch varnish as in terms of conservation there are drawbacks to both methods too much oil in the paint can lead to yellowing and there are loads of examples from art history of damaged paintings because artists have slathered their paintings in oil and other weird ingredients so it's probably better to try and avoid both methods as much as possible and stick to adding a few drops of medium by dipping your brush and mixing it into your paint if you get some sinking in in your work it's not the end of the world because applying a final coat of varnish once the painting has properly dried after six months or so will remove any sunken in parts and restore it to its original gloss and colour but varnishing paintings is really a subject for another video so that's it from me on the subject of oil painting mediums it certainly isn't my area of expertise and this video is by no means a definitive source of information if you want to know more about glazing techniques and all the different kinds of medium that there are there's a wealth of information out there but it needn't be complicated particularly if you're into direct aliprima painting as mediums don't play such an important role in fact you can most definitely paint without using any medium at all remember if you want your paint to flow more the first thing you need to do is simply to mix more paint finally and most importantly mediums definitely do not hold the secret of successful painting that lies in learning to understand the visual phenomena that we actually see proportion values and color however if any of you watching do use a medium that you really like then that's great i'd really like to hear about it in the comments please tell me what it is and why you like to use it and in the meantime i hope you enjoyed this video and if you want to know more about the fundamental principles that are the key to successful painting remember to check out the links to my other videos in the description below and feel free to check out the courses on my patreon channel thank you for watching

Channel: SIMPLIFY Drawing and Painting

Views: 65,560

Keywords: oil painting mediums, oil painting techniques, how to use oil painting mediums, oil painting tutorial, oil painting mediums recipes, oil painting mediums how to use, oil painting mediums for glazing, oil painting mediums and techniques, glazing techniques, linseed stand oil painting, linseed stand oil, oil painting, fat over lean oil painting, fat over lean rule, fat over lean painting technique, retouching varnish for oil painting, alex tzavaras, retouching varnish

Id: 22zHMjpdK2Y

Length: 16min 50sec (1010 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 15 2021