Oil over acrylic?

Kimberly Dow · 08-17-2003, 11:48 PM

I pulled out an old painting recently. It is an unfinished acrylic figurative. I was not able to get the skin colors to blend sucessfully like I can in oil, so I set it aside. I want to go back and re-paint the skin in oil, can I? I have done this before a long time ago, on a practice canvas. It's still sitting around somewhere. I haven't seen anything go wrong with it except a tiny bit of differrence between matt and shine. Anyone know what the worst case scenerio of this is?

I tried a search on this topic and did not find anything.

Michael Georges · 08-18-2003, 09:39 AM

Kimberly:

Yes you can paint oils over acrylic. I might wipe the surface down with some light solvent and then scuff up the surface a bit with some sandpaper. While like prefers like, oils will adhere to acrylics and hold pretty well. The scuffing will help with a mechanical bond.

Tom Edgerton · 08-18-2003, 12:28 PM

Kim--

Michael's right. Just don't do the reverse, and paint acrylic over oil.

Kimberly Dow · 08-18-2003, 04:09 PM

Thank you kind sirs!

Carl Toboika · 08-19-2003, 07:23 PM

I queried the good people at Golden on this last year and the short version of the response is, while they currently have no real official word, until they are able to complete their own planned testing, however they recommended a thin coating of Mat acrylic medium before going to oils to increase tooth of the acrylic paint.

Further they recommend their own full bodied acrylic color line if you do this on purpose, since they are formulated the same as acrylic gesso and would take oil paint much better than standard acrylic colors.

Kimberly Dow · 08-19-2003, 08:09 PM

Thank you Carl!

I think I will try the acrylic matte medium, makes sense to me. I wonder if the recommendation to use theirs is just marketing? Either way, it's not something I would do on purpose. Although, if I had a large solid color background to do I imagine this could save some money.

When I have done murals I have always used acrylics, but had a hard time with people (skin tones) - the quality was not as good. If I can use acrylics, but then just the people in the murals in oil...that may be useful. I use large canvas and staple them to the walls when done. I can roll them up with no damage to transport. So this brings me to another question, could I do the same with one that had oil as well? I'm thinking no, but someone else knows better I am sure.

Carl Toboika · 08-21-2003, 05:07 PM

Kimberly,

No, the Golden's recommendation to use their full-bodied acrylics if you are going to put oil over it, is not just marketing on their part. They are an unusually artist friendly company that goes the extra mile in the technical department.

Their full-bodied acrylic is formulated the same as Acrylic Gesso, and so will give more tooth for the oil to stick to. That way if you are comfortable painting in oil over acrylic primed canvas, the Golden full-bodied acrylic gives you the same surface with colors.

They had told me they were planning to do their own experiments in oil adhesion to acrylic paint at some point, and will publish the results.

Others will have to help you with the canvas rolling question, as I don't have personal experience with it. Though I believe it can be done with a dry enough canvas, and rolled in the largest circumference you can deal with.

Kimberly Dow · 08-21-2003, 08:03 PM

Carl,

OK, thank you. I will definitely keep that in mind if I decide to use this on future murals.

I was so ignorant about materials before this Forum. Well, actually I still am, but I am learning.

Leslie Ficcaglia · 08-24-2003, 04:11 PM

This question comes up repeatedly, and because I had a friend who was painting in oils over acrylic and I thought I had heard that this wasn't a good idea, I particularly noticed an article in one of the major artists' magazines around that time. It advised against this practice because artists' color acrylics have a different composition than acrylic gesso and the oil paints wouldn't adhere to them over the long term, but would delaminate or peel off eventually. It sounds as though Golden Paints have addressed that issue, but it doesn't seem like it's wise to use oils over acrylics if you have the standard variety.