The use or non use of mediums

Sharon Knettell · 10-25-2005, 11:03 AM

Anthony,

I had a long talk with Micheal Harding, the paint maker. He is particularly persnickety about procedures, mediums and paint quality.

He said quite emphatically NOT to paint oil over acrylics, including acrylic sized canvas.

Oil primed canvasses are the best, and if you can get one properly made and cured, lead primed canvas.

He also suggested that the MOST archival surface in his opinion was MDF board, cradeled and simply sized with two coats of rabbit skin glue.

The best medium is simply the best refined turpentine you can find.

He was aghast that I would buy an oil primed canvas and tone it with a Liquin or Gaklyd wash.

Michele Rushworth · 10-25-2005, 01:31 PM

[quote]He said quite emphatically NOT to paint oil over acrylics, including acrylic sized canvas.[quote]What did he say would happen? I have a bunch of inexpensive acrylic primed canvases lying around that I use for landscapes, etc. (For portrait commissions I use the oil priimed Claessen's that you recommended a few years back.)

Lacey Lewis · 10-25-2005, 03:42 PM

I am more and more interested in painting sans mediums. If I may, here's what my journey has been thus far:

Somehow, I learned in college to use Turpenoid Natural as a medium. I know better now! But that's what I did up until a little over a year ago. Luckily, those paintings aren't important and are all stuffed away.

After that, I painted with no medium. I honestly can't remember exactly what that felt like, but I do remember wishing that I could get certain paints more 'slippery'.

I got some mediums and have experimented with a couple, and have regularly begun to use Liquin because it dries underlayers well and makes it 'slippery'.

So, I've now been thinking about going back to using no medium, or to start using either Turp or OMS/Gamsol (I have some of both... would prefer to use OMS/Gamsol) and/or and an oil like linseed.

Can you please tell me, how do you deal with stiffer pigments when you aren't using a medium? Do you use Turp or OMS to help? What kind of a drying time to you have under these conditions?

Anthony, I don't mean to steal your thread and if I am please feel free to have this moved to a new thread! I hope this will give both of us some good info.

Michele Rushworth · 10-25-2005, 04:14 PM

I usually paint with no medium but to soften stiffer paints I'll use a little bit of a 50/50 OMS/Linseed oil mixture. I don't really trust anything else.

Anthony Emmolo · 10-26-2005, 06:45 AM

Thank you all,

I've been away from the computer for a couple of days and it was nice to see the responses.

Sharon, did Michael Harding give you any reason why painting over acrylic with oil would be problem? You've got me a little worried now.
Anthony

Sharon Knettell · 10-26-2005, 09:34 AM

Anthony,

I was on the phone with him for over 2 hours. We talked about everything from how to grow the right flax for canvas the best kind of oils used for paint making, cold-pressed, refined, you name it.

I took notes but the amount of information he has was overwhelming. He has a site and you can email him. It is better it comes directly from him than second hand from me.

After scouring the universe for the right kind of oil paint for my use, I came across his paint and won't use anything else.

http://www.michaelharding.co.uk

Anthony Emmolo · 10-26-2005, 11:51 PM

Thank you, I appreciate your help.

Good luck,
Anthony

David Boles · 10-29-2005, 11:37 AM

One possible problem with oil over acrylic is a variation of the fat over lean issue. Acrylic gives a very flexible paint film as compared to oil regardless of how much oil is used as a medium. Flexilble over less flexible is what is actually meant by fat over lean so acrylic paint would have to be thought of as fat even though there is no oil present. Putting acrylic over oil would have its own set of problems since acrylic dries so much faster than oil. In my opinion it just best to keep the two apart.

Acrylic grounds in the form of gesso is a slightly different thing. They are not as concentrated a paint, more absorbant, more open with an abrasive to grab hold of later paint layers. A well aged oil ground would be my preference, but I have no real concerns about using an acrylic primer.

Back to the original problem of green nasty thingies appearing on the canvas. Could it be mold? If the water hadn't fully evaporated before oil layers were put on it could result in mold forming due to the trapped moisture.