Transparent monochrome

[Chris Saper]

I have been such an admirer of transparent monochrome work that I have decided to try to gain some skill in it. It seems to satisfy my most basic love, which is drawing, and marry it with oil painting. This is the first one I have actually tried with materials recommended my artist Dan Goozee.

Dan uses water-based transparent color (here I have used Artisan's Burnt Sienna) on acrylic-primed linen. His reasoning is that with water-based paint, you have two opportunities to lift color: first, with a water-dampened rag; and second, (once the water evaporates) with mineral spirits. Of course you can't use oil-primed linen or the paint beads up.

This is just a quick sketch from open studio, but it was a great deal of fun.

Can anyone share their experience, technique, material, etc., with respect to this medium?

[Tammy Nielsen]

Fantastic study, Chris. I guess that's what you do when you're not helping on-line. Did you do a lot of wiping out? It looks like you just nailed everything the first time? Thanks again for your help posting.

Tammy

[Chris Saper]

Thank you, Tammy.

Yes, wiping out is the beauty of this medium, from what I can tell so far. The surface is incredible forgiving, so you can really adjust values readily, just like you can in a charcoal portrait. Sort of the "make a line, break a line" concept. With the second, mineral spirit, erasure, you can almost restore the white of the canvas, just by lifting the color.

I should be so lucky to "nail" everything the first time!

Oh, by the way, I have used water-based oils to paint before and I greatly dislike them.

[Morris Darby]

This is the technique I used many, many times with our weekly 2 hour model sitting. I still use it to sharpen my drawing skills. I use Transparent Oxide Red by Rembrandt on acrylic primed linen. It was like driving a car for the first time, but the more I did it the better I was able to handle it. Great picture, as always.

[Khaimraj Seepersad]

Chris,

I am almost afraid to reply to this topic since you said you hated water soluble/mixable paints.

However here goes. I chose Artisan's cadmium yellow hue and just drew out the image. I used only a wet rag to remove the pigment and water as the solvent. Then I just marked in a light and shadow pattern.

From the next stage I treated the Artisans as normal oil paints. Artisan is a paint that is manufactured to be semi-opaque or transparent,so just working straight out of the tube will give stained glass type effects.

In the last stages any addition of medium will render the paints even more transparent.

The sticky quality left behind when the paint is fully dried will slowly oxidise away.

Here's a bit I noticed a week or so ago. I attached a thin sheet of plywood to the face of painting, effectively blocking out all light. After 4 months the section blocked had not yellowed. This was done to a range of colours painted across the canvas, white, red, green and flesh tone.