Does watercolor masking fluid work for oils?

Karen Barton · 03-09-2004, 09:35 PM

Hi, I am normally a pastel portrait artist. I am branching out with an oil painting of ducks on water. It is quite a stretch for me. I have the ducks drawn on the canvas and I was wondering if I can use masking fluid (the kind for watercolors) to mask out the ducks and paint the water first. Any advice? Karen

Michele Rushworth · 03-09-2004, 09:50 PM

I'm not sure if you have experience using watercolors, but they move around a LOT, hence the need for masking fluid. The nice thing about oil paint is that it stays exactly where it's put, so there is really no need for masking fluid.

I don't know how hard the stuff would be to remove from the texture of the canvas later. When I painted a lot in watercolors many years ago, it was even hard to get it off the watercolor paper sometimes, if I left it on too long.

Michael Fournier · 03-10-2004, 08:56 AM

Yes Michele your answer is right on. There is no need for masking fluid with oils for as Michele said you can put oils were you want. But also You can use White in oils there is no reason to preserve the white of the canvas.

Also you can use oils very much like Water color to produce transparent effects but with one exception. You can use thinner to remove areas right down to the white of the canvas.

This is a technique used by Bart Forbs and a few more illustrators who emulate this technique. But back to the question there is no need to mask off a area when you can ether paint over or wipe off any oil paint that gets were you don

Karen Barton · 03-10-2004, 08:14 PM

I guess you are right. Years ago I saw a guy on TV working in oils masking out some flying ducks in a sky background. He was using cut out shapes stuck to his canvas and then with a huge brush painting the smooth sky over them. I guess that was a quick method of being able to paint the ducks in without having to wait for the paint to dry first. Remembering that, I thought I could do the same with liquid frisket.

Since I posted that question I have gone ahead and painted the water around my ducks and it is working just fine. Thanks for your responses. Karen