The best medium for brightening

[Richard Budig]

Flake white is dangerous only if you ingest it. For example, getting it on your fingers, and then transfering it to a foodsuff, such as a crakcer, or fruit, or to a cigarette so that when you take a drag to inhale, you suck lead laden smoke into your lungs. Otherwise, it's okay.

Some argue that lead white can interract adversely with other paints, and I believe it did a few hundred years ago, but there are an awful lot of paintings around from several hundred years ago that still look crisp and fresh even though lead white was the lightening agent used to paint the picture.

If you intend using an oil medium, you should also research and become familiar with the "fat over lean" theory. It means that when you start a painting, your medium contains not much oil. Each day, you use medium that is a little more oil and a little less turp/varnish. The idea is that you want the slowest drying part of your picture as the top layer. Theoretically, the bottom layers, being lean, will dry faster than the top layers, which contain more (fat) oil. If it were the other way around (lean over fat), the top layer would dry faster than the bottom layer, which would cause your paint to crack.

I don't believe that applies when you use an alkyd medium. At least, none of my paintings have cracked for more than 20 years, now.

Hopefully, somone else in this forum is, or will read this and correct me if I'm wrong.

I started using liquin because I painted at night until the wee hours, and then got up and painted in the morning. Bofore using an alkyd medium, my paint was often still wet. The alkyd medium gave me a "touch dry" paint by morning.

Finally, this the ways I do it. Doesn't mean it's right or that you have to or should do it this way.

[Richard Budig]

Xan:

Below, is the text of a message by Marvin Mattelson in one of the forums on this site a couple of years ago. Marvin is a very good artist who also teaches. He has his own school, and, as he notes here, he has tried lots of mediums.

You might also go up to the top of this page and click down the search thingy and type in mediums and see what comes up.



The medium is not the message


I have recently received several e-mail inquiries concerning my choice of mediums. This can be a touchy subject among otherwise likewise thinking artists, but what is life without a little controversy? We vehemently defend our precious mediums, sometimes bordering on religious fanaticism. I think that this lies in the fact that we have created a mystique about the secrets of the old masters, that somehow they were able to do great paintings due to a mystical alchemy. If only I could find that right medium then perhaps I could be the next ????? There is certainly validity to the advantageous use of a particular medium whose specific characteristics can be harnessed to one's best advantage.

I have a love-hate relationship with painting mediums. Primarily, I use them to keep my paint thin. My perfect medium would keep the paint wet all day and be dry the next. I would be able to easily blend adjoining colors and at the same time lay fresh paint over them immediately, with no disturbance. I would like to mix my medium into my paint piles and have them stay fresh all week. Of course I want it to be nontoxic, archival and to prevent my darks from sinking in.

I have tried many mediums since I switched from acrylics to oils a dozen or so years ago. I played around with Liquin for a long time and tried modifying it with various oils. I was, in particular, attracted to the enhanced flexibility of alkyd mediums. The fear of toxicity, the awful smell and premature yellowing eventually soured me. I tried different oils in combinations, including the infamous 1/3, 1/3, 1/3 combos. I like to work in thin layers; I had trouble with the over saturation of oil that eventually prevented additional paint from adhering to the surface. Yes, I worked fat over lean.

Another thing that worried me was the cracking of so many old master paintings in the museums, particularly in areas of thick paint application. I also don

[Xander Calceta]

Richard,

I thought that when you say fat over lean it only refers to the application of the paint as in putting paint thinner then thicker the next time around. I never thought that it was applied to the medium as refering for the drying time. So I now understand that it is not the paint but the medium that should be fatter on top. Now I got it. I was afraid before to do glazing because you put less paint on top as for translucent effects or for refinement and thought that it might get into cracking. But I really find it hard sometimes to finish painting as ala prima because it can't do it all. So now I'll experiment on glazing and try to see what's good for my works. Actually I was painting awhile ago and tried to use my painting medium called "glazing medium" made by Talens. I add some turp to thin it down and as I work on it I find it really good. I'll just wait for another day when it's dry and see what would the result be.

Thank you for all the information. It really helped me alot.

Xander

[Richard Budig]

Fat over lean, as I understand it, means that each day you work on a painting, your paint must contain a higher percentage of oil than it did yesterday. So, if you used a drop of medium in your paint today, tomorrow, you can use a drop or two also, but it must contain more oil than it did the day before.

I know one artist who has mixed about ten versions of the stand oil-turp-varnish mixture so that each mixture contains a bit more oil and a bit less of the other two ingredients. He has a three-to-one (oil) mix, a four-to-one, a five-to-one, and so on out to about 10 variations. If the painting takes, say, eight days, he used the medium that is more oil by that much for that day's work.

It's not only the medium that need to be more oily as time passes, but it is the medium THAT YOU MIX WITH YOUR PAINT that needs to be more oily so that the top layers will dry more slowly than the lower layers, and thus, retard cracking.

As I understand it, if you're going to glaze, you need to wait untill ALL your paint is dry before applying a glaze. By its nature, a glaze is just a tiny amount of paint mixed with a large amount of medium. This thin mix (more medium - less paint) will probably dry rather quickly on top of your fat paint.

There are some artists (Richard Schmid is one) who say that the only reason you should glaze is because you want to be mean to your self, and your so bored you don't have anything else to do except watch paint dry.

[John Crowther]

As I read through the posts I wondered if anyone had mentioned Neo Megilp, and so was happy to see Richard's post. Megilp was invented in the late 18th century to make oil paintings more lustrous, and was used for many many years before it was discovered that the lead and mastic in it was turning paintings dark and yellow. Gamblin has developed Neo Megilp (which has a consistency of vaseline) with modern ingredients that presumably won't have the same disastrous results. I've started using it recently, and so far like it a lot.

John C.

[Xander Calceta]

Richard,

I did say glaze but I didn't mean it as painting less apint and more medium but applying a second time around with enough amount of paint. When I paint, I usually take the advice of Morgan Weistling. He emailed me not to use medium as possible because it makes less the tinting power of the paint. I have read also an article from Richard Schmid in the "Artist's Magazine" that the secret on his painting is by not using medium at all. We all know he's known for his ala prima technique. I tried their advice but didn't able to satisfy my works. There's usually something missing, mostly, the juciness of the painting and the power to create good effects.

Lately, I discovered the technique that was shared by some artist in the "International Artist Magazine". It was the technique that you have shared before which is applying a painting medium on the canvas first before painting rather than applying it on the paint. I do this technique and find it alright except when it was dry I get frustrated with the result by not achieving those quality I see in the gallery (especially the brightness and brilliance of a painting that is why i post here asking that technique.)

You said that in glazing, if you apply this it would rather get dry quicker. This I don't understand. I thought that applying more medium would prevent the top layer from getting dry. Can you explain this to me a lil further?

All the information that you shared really helped me alot that's why I am now in the process of experimenting. I am now looking for tiny bottles wherein I can put my mixture of medium in different amount of oil and turp.

[Xander Calceta]

Hey John,

I 'd love to buy and test this neo megilp made by gamblin but there's no product yet of Gamblin here in my hometown in Manila. The only available products here are those from Winsor&Newton, Lefranc, Grumbacher and Talens. Do you have any idea if there is a counterpart of Neo Melgilp in other brands?