Breaking the rules of painting?
 

This is a partial quote lifted from a post by Jim Riley. As I listen to artists (myself included), we all seem to say that we pride ourselves that we rise above those old rigid and silly rules regarding some techniques and theory.

I am curious...what are some of these rules of painting that some of us follow and some of us scoff at?

The very first "rule of painting" that pops into my mind is "always paint fat over lean." However this rule can be tossed out the window if you simply use Liquin as your medium throughout the painting.

One of my favorite stories is the one about how Thomas Edison invented the light bulb. It's said that he had everything pretty well worked out except for the filament. It seemed that nothing he tried would work. After many, many experiments with all sorts of metals he stumbled upon the thin strand of tungsten.

The gist of the story for me are his comments regarding his search. He said that if he had known anything at all about the science of metallurgy he would have known that what he was trying to do was impossible.

Or use no medium, just paint....:)

Peggy

I've had problems with a couple of paintings in which I used Liquin. The upper layers can be seen de-laminating from the lower layers in places. It's quite obvious and thank goodness they were not commissions!

Michele,

Regarding the de-lamination, had the paintings been varnished?

Liquin vs oil based medium
 

Michele, I have heard that it is possible to get a bad bottle of Liquin. It has never happened to me but I have heard enough stories from others that I believe it to be true. I used Liquin in almost all of my illustration work.

I have done many oil wash paintings on gessoed panels using Liquin as the medium, since without some added medium thin washes of paint when dry do not have anything to bind the pigment to the surface. So far all my paintings are still ok.

I did learn something when I first started using that technique. Sometimes if the surface had oils (even the oil from your hands was enough) on the gesso the paint would not stick well. I would wash the surface with 409 or some other detergent that cuts grease and then the Liquin and turp-thinned paint would stay very well. You would think since there is oil in the paint this would not matter but it did, at least with the thin layers of paint I was using.

Sometimes that was the only layer giving it the look of a watercolor. Other times I would paint opaque paint over this. More well known artists that use this method are Bart Forbes, Bernie Fuchs and Michael Dudash.

Liquin dries faster than oil paint with no Liquin so you cannot put a layer with a lot of liquin over a layer with none until it is completely dry. Unlike oil-based mediums which slow drying and would be fat compared to oil paint alone, paint with Liquin added is like paint with less oil. So it is not fat but lean paint since it dries faster. You cannot use Liquin like other oil based mediums. This also could have caused your painting to delaminate.

Don't feel bad. Many illustrators do plenty of things you would not do in fine art paintings. Norman Rockwell used shellac as a fixative to isolate his drawing from the paint layers. This is not a great idea since shellac has a naturally waxy coating and the oil paint can delaminate from it.

This had a benefit for his purpose. Turps does not dissolve Shellac (alcohol does) so he could completely wipe his layers of oils off even if they were dry. He could start over and not lose his drawing if he wanted.

Conservators working on preserving his paintings today have to be very careful when they remove the top varnish to clean the painting that they don't disturb the layers of paint as well. Even now the paint can still be removed from the shellac layer if they are not careful.

Mike M, the painting had not been varnished.

I wish Winsor Newton would publish some information on exactly how to use Liquin. It has such great potential but it behaves so differently from traditional mediums!

Administrator's note: At present, there are 56 separate threads dealing with Liquin/varnish! Start here: http://forum.portraitartist.com/sear...der=descending

Aside from the very real and practical guidelines/rules which, as we see on this thread, are subject to changes in technology or limitations of a medium, I don't know how so many people can make such absolute statements about lighting, color, shading, composition, etc. that are really no more than personal preferences.

What works for one person should not be stated as a "rule" for the developing artist. It seems to me that there is nothing in the modern world to suggest that the artist should adhere to methods used by the masters who did not have the benefit of modern lighting and the effects they cast as part of our day to day experience.

Most of us for instance do not really know each other or our families under the presence of north light and the insistence upon it's exclusive use, it could be argued, might appear more artificial than man made lights. (Staged)

For my part it doesn't so much matter in the eventual quest of traditional portraiture to capture personality and lighting doesn't make the critical difference. I have often thought that the "Old Masters", if they could return to the human condition, might jump for joy at the opportunity artificial lights provide. (I never made a study but often wondered if the left handed masters used an upper right light source to prevent working in the shadow of their hand and arm.)

Another "rule" that I fail to follow and understand is the warm/cool colors advance/recede postulate. I don't even think about it. As a great jazz musician once said, "If it sounds good, it is good" and the same applies to painting if it looks good.

If the subject has a light blue shirt I'll give him a light/cool reflected light on the chin or neck. Who said it can't be cool and light?

"Rules" often are the result of overstatement made in effort to be helpful to the developing artist and then become a larger concern than new projects warrant. I avoid "always" and "never" unless it relates to illicit behavior.

Paint out of the tube is just pigment in linseed oil, walnut oil or other kinds of oils.

So, does that mean that if you add turps to your paint that the paint straight out of the tube is actually fatter? So it would seem that adding "some kinds of medium" to your paint would actually make it leaner.

If you mix your own medium using oils, varnish, and turps, then if you add that to your paint, will it be leaner or fatter?

And what about glazing? I think that the standard glazing recipe is 1 part oil, 1 part varnish, and one part turps, so is your glaze actually leaner than the tube paint, because the tube paint has only oil in it? So, then are you glazing lean over fat?

Now everyone, keep your sense of humor here.

Rules? Or Basics?
 

In representational painting, which is what we are all really about here, there are, in my view, absolutely a set of fundamentals. They involve things like drawing, value behavior, the division of space, harmonious color, light and shadow, and the way the eye moves about the surface. There are fundamentals because there are some basic things inherent in the way we see stuff.

Within that context are a wondrous set of tools at each of our hands: things like contrast, saturation, hue, temperature, shape, line, edge management, texture...that allow for an infinite number of variations.

When a painter decides to use the tools at hand, (presuming he or she has some measure of control over them) to move outside the variations that comprise the norm, more power to them. Sometimes the painting will still "look good', sometimes it will fail. (Sort of like what can happen even if you stay within the variations.)

So break any rule that you would like, flaunt variation. If it works, it will be evident. If it fails, it will be evident, too. The big difference in understanding the fundmentals, is that if your painting fails, you will at least have some basis for knowing WHY...and if you wish, you can avoid repeating the mistake next time.

Break all the "rules' you want...you will enoy all the consequences, good or bad. My point is, it's far better to understand the fundamentals first.

So when I offer a critique, I am absolutely going to go with what I see as the fundamentals, the basics, where going with the odds will tend to serve one better than not. What the recipient chooses to do with all this is no longer in my domain.

As the most famous person in the world once said "the laws are made for man, not man for the law". :sunnysmil

Truth or consequences
 

There are truths and there are rules. Painters of note have always recommended the study of nature as the path to discovering the truth. This doesn

Linda Ciallelo: I just realized that no one answered your question about the "fat over lean" rule. This is one of those unbreakable rules that should be followed unless you don't mind your painting surface cracking over time.

Sometimes it helps to simply remember that all mediums are considered FAT. And here is a more detailed explanation that I hope clarifies...

In indirect painting (Leonardo style - painting from dark to light) the artist builds up three general layers of paint and medium.

Bottom layer or layers: A color is used to block in the painting. The paint in this layer is often thinned with turpentine and a small amount of medium. This layer is lean.

Middle layer or layers: This is where opaque colors are introduced. The medium can be thinned with 10% to 20% turpentine.

Top layer or layers: A glaze layer that modifies the opaque colors and makes the surface very rich. No thinners are added to your medium in this layer. This layer is fat.

Paintings built in this manner follow the "fat over lean" rule. Again, ALL PAINTING MEDIUMS ARE CONSIDERED FAT so thin your medium less as you work from the bottom layers to the top ones.

Oil paints that look shiny are FAT to begin with. And oil colors that look more matte (dull) are LEAN.

Some other painters (Rubens sometimes worked this way) often apply thick opaque paint as the initial layer and add transparent glazes to modify that underpainting. The "fat over lean" principle applies to this too. I did an underpainting example at: http://forum.portraitartist.com/show...=&threadid=794 that illustrates this.

"Fat over lean" applies to all methods of painting in traditional oils whether direct, indirect or when using a combination of methods.

Mixing Medium vs. Mixed Media
 

Karin, Great info. I wanted to add a few additions that also might help.

The first one is not all mediums dry at the same rate nor do all paint colors. So you must be careful when using different additives to your paint and when you have heavy applications of slower drying paints that you do not put a faster drying layer over a slower drying one.

The rule of Fat over Lean assumes that the Fat layer of paint contains the same or similar type of oil-based medium as the lower layer.

All oil paint contains oil so even directly from the tube it can be fat depending on the layer you intend to apply over it.

If you use linseed, almond or similar oil-based mediums then as you add more medium to your paint it is Fat, meaning that it contains more oil.

But, here is the gotcha:

Alkyd resin mediums like Liquin which are quick drying will dry much faster than oil paint direct from the tube or with added oil-based mediums. If you were to follow the rule of Fat over Lean, assuming that the paint with more medium (Liquin in this case) was Fat then you would be in trouble if the layer you are painting over was thick oil-rich paint direct from the tube, even with no oil medium added.

Some mediums can contain other drying agents like Japan Drier which also hasten the drying of oil paint. (Caution: Japan Drier can cause paint to become brittle and should be used very sparingly if at all.) These mixes also should not be used over an oil-rich layer.

Even if you waited until the oil rich layer was dry to the touch it still is likely to shrink more than a faster drying layer over time, causing the top layer to crack or worse even flake off.

You could put a layer of paint that is 50% Liquin down as an initial layer of paint and it would dry very fast. You could paint over it with paint direct from the tube with no medium added and it would still be following the fat over lean rule. Why? Fat means "more oil" and paint from the tube has more oil than a 50/50 mix of paint and Liquin and dries slower.

And one more note: paint thinned too much using just solvent, either turps or an odorless substitute (most are mineral spirits) is a very weak layer of paint and you should be careful not to thin top layers too much.

On bottom layers it is ok (many artists use an oil wash to tone their canvas) since the loose pigments will combine with the subsequent layers of paint and bind with the oil in those layers.

When an oil wash is to be left visible or as the final layer it is best to thin the paint with some kind of medium that will bind the pigment. I use Liquin for this because it dries fast and because the alkyd resins in it bind the paint to the surface.

I have done oil wash paintings using all transparent layers thinned with Liquin with the top layers having less Liquin and more oil. None have cracked or have had any separation between layers. (The oldest have only been around for 10 years so I cannot say what might happen in 50-100 years from now.)

The best advice beyond what Karin has given is: Think of "Fat" as "slow drying" and "Lean" as "fast drying". Then if you follow "fat over lean" you should be ok.

I was specifically speaking to "traditional" oil paint and "traditional" mediums (like a standard mixture of Damar varnish, oil & turpentine medium).

Alkyd paint, Liquin, Galkyd, etc. are not considered to be entirely "traditional." With materials like these you have more latitude working within the "fat over lean" rule. The best way to approach working with these newer materials is to read and follow the manufacturer's suggestions on the label of each product.