A No-lead Maroger medium?

[Douglas Drenkow]

I value all your research, Leopoldo; and I respect your decisions as an artist

[Karin Wells]

Leopoldo,

Lead in paint has been around long before the sirens alerts were broadcasting doom and people survived.

Long ago, the toxic and sometimes lethal effects of the build-up of lead in the soft tissues of the human body was unrecorded because it was unknown.

I am always amazed by the few artists who go screaming exaggerations, when the appearance of lead and the topic comes up.

And I am always amazed by the few artists who feel that we all should ignore the potential hazards and use lead paint because they do.

I think that using lead paint is a wee bit like jumping out of airplanes...maybe you will get hurt, maybe you won't....but the more you do it, the greater your chance of harming yourself. It obviously isn't for everybody.

How do you dispose of your cadmium and lead-laden spent brush cleaner in a manner that is safe to the environment?

[Leopoldo Benavidez]

Doug,

The issues of the use of maroger, like always, seems to continue to be debated. If the evidence of its failures were so conclusive, I believe artists would have discontinued its use years ago. I have several paintings done exclusively with this medium that date back more than 10 years with no visible signs of deteriation, but I do have paintings that cracked with the use of liquin! Years ago, I was introduced to maroger by David Leffel, in his work that he rendered so beautifully using this medium. The handling qualities of maroger are wonderful, particularly when it is applied with loaded brushes in ala prima techniques.

As an artist, I find myself in a continued state of evolution, exploring new horizons to keep from being completely bored from repetition. One of those areas is in the use and exploration of different mediums like maroger, wax, copal, canada balsam, amber, stand oil or just plain linseed oil. I found each has its place. I have moved to a point in my work, where I don

[Leopoldo Benavidez]

How do you dispose of your cadmium and lead-laden spent brush cleaner in a manner that is safe to the environment?

Karin,

I haven't come to that problem yet since I reconstitute my turps after the settling process from a large container. Eventually the sludge will be high enough where it will have to be contained in a leak proof vehicle, encased in cement and driven over to Hanford Nuclear Waste Disposal site in the state of Washington. Just kidding Karin, it will be disposed locally for hazardous materials. It certainly is the responsibility of artists that choose hazardous materials in their work to be environmental aware!..L

[Marta Prime]

Everytime I sit down to paint, I take my turp from the last session and carefully, so as not to disturb the sludge at the bottom, pour it into another clean plastic container. Then I wipe out the grey sludge with a paper towel. (Maybe I should save all the sludge in a container and make my own version of grey much like Gamblin does.) I never really have leftover Turps to dispose of. Now, living in Nevada near the test site, it is a local joke about how we all glow anyway.

[Karin Wells]

I decant my brush cleaner too...but at some point it just becomes exhausted.

Marta, if you use lead, cadmium, etc. will the government's new toxic dump site take your sludge laden, flammable paper towels?

Sometimes, I think that the proper disposal of toxic materials is more important than the use. Way back when I was a signpainter, we only used heavily leaded paints. I paid the owner of a local gas station to add my spent thinners into his toxic material for disposal.

Many of my colleagues did not bother to do this...they dumped the stuff down the nearest drain or poured it out in the backyard. Alas, burning these materials does not rid the environment of the heavy metals either.

Sadly, I suspect that many "fine artists" are probably clueless about what to do with used turps. and toxic (and flammable) old paint rags. It is easier to just not use toxic materials.

[Pam Phillips]

On the topic of darkening paintings, an artist friend of mine told me that if some darkening occurs and the paints were mixed with linseed oil and some maroger, if you set the painting out in the sun for a day, it will lighten right up. He makes his own maroger and I thought he said he uses beeswax--maybe I'm just confused, which happens alot, lol. I've started using maroger and I can't live without it now, and the smell is like aromatherapy! Maybe this neo stuff by Gamblin is better and I hope to try it eventually, but I'm hesitant to do so because of a bad experience I had.

I ran into a problem with Gamblin Galkyd Lite. I had been painting for less than a year and some of my paintings had very patchy glossy and matte areas. It was suggested that I could cover the surface with Galkyd Lite to even it out, and later apply varnish. The GL only made the surface worse. I took the painting to a friend who restores old paintings for advice and she called the effect bubbling. Her associate who was trained in restoration in France glazed my painting (it took three coats to even out the surface) and he said in 10 years the GL will start to darken. They told me linseed oil, turpentine, a little maroger and nothing else! I was also told to write on the stretcher that I had used maroger because if the painting is ever restored that information will be very helpful.

[Douglas Drenkow]

My, all the interesting topics people bring up! Let me see if I can throw in my two cents' worth.

On the topic of reversing the darkening of paintings, let me quote from Ralph Mayer's The Artist's Handbook:

"Several much-quoted letters written by Rubens recommended exposure to sunlight for certain oil paintings that had in each case been boxed soon after being painted, and stored for some time. For centuries artists have known that freshly painted oils should be exposed to daylight under normal conditions, that continual or severe exposure to bright, direct sunlight is not beneficial [it leads not only to fading of the pigments but also to embrittlement of the paint film, particularly if there is any resin in the painting medium], and that the darkening of oil paintings from continued absence of light during the drying process is a reversible reaction that can be corrected by further exposure to daylight."

As for beeswax in megilp, Pam, you may not be confused (Confusion is my middle name). Although beeswax is not typically added to megilp (as in the recipes I cited in the post above), there is a famous exception. In http://www.lavendera.com/paint%20tech/maroger.htm there are six recipes for maroger, including...

"Fourth Lead Medium (attributed to Peter Paul Rubens)

"This medium was allegedly based on the black oil of Giorgione with an addition of mastic resin, Venice turpentine and beeswax. One or two parts litharge or lead white, combines by cooking with 20 parts raw linseed or walnut oil. A little more that one spoonful of 'black oil' combined with even one spoonful of mastic varnish resulted in the 'jelly' medium thought to be Megilp (another name of Maroger mediums)."

As for evening out glossy and matte patches -- which I find often occur in areas of different pigments, with different capacities for oil absorption, or in areas where I have handled paint differently, particularly areas I've touched up (perhaps evidence of the "suede effect" attributed to the alkali-refined linseed oils typical of modern oil paints) -- there is this from a current Gamblin brochure:

"If you would like to unify the surface and saturate the colors without varnishing, consider a clear glaze layer of Galkyd or Galkyd Lite, thinned with 50% odorless mineral spirits."

That worked for me (at least so far, in the short run -- I will varnish in 6 months or more).

From Mr. Gamblin himself, I received the following in an e-mail:

"When the work is done, and all that is left to do is to determine the surface gloss, then we are in the domain of varnish and not medium. I would use the Gamvar [Gamblin's specially formulated varnish], but make a 'retouch' concentration. Add an additional two parts solvent so that you have a very light coating of the varnish. This is standard practice. If you use a painting medium then technically you have glazed the painting but the glaze has no color, except for any color change the medium goes through. If there is linseed oil in that glaze then it will warm up the painting over time."

Once again, after 6 months it is typically beneficial to varnish, although that, too, will change the overall look of the work.

As for the stability of paintings created with alkyd mediums over time, Gamblin states (http://www.gamblincolors.com/newslet...sletter07.html):

"Galkyd painting mediums speed the drying time of oil colors and increase their flexibility. Galkyds will not yellow over time."

And I'm sure Winsor & Newton makes similar claims for Liquin.

As I've said, some impartial experts say it's too soon to tell; but the consensus seems to be that paintings done with alkyds are at least as durable as those done solely in oil (and probably more so than those done with mediums incorporating natural resins, even soft mastic).

I would be interested in seeing any sound, controlled scientific data (i.e. not just "anecdotal" evidence) for long-term or accelerated aging studies of oil paintings executed using mediums with alkyd resins.

Finally, on the topic of toxic materials, I must admit to using cadmium yellows and reds (I prefer their more "earthy" tints, tones, and glazes to those of modern pigments; and I value their lightfastness and, in many instances, their opacity). However, I use the colors from Gamblin, who claims that their cadmium colors are "made from chemically pure cadmium of low toxicity (no health warning labels required)." Here in California, however, with the strictest environmental standards in the country if not the world, there indeed is a standard warning label on all cadmium materials, although the indication seems to be that the major danger is from inhalation via spraying.

Nevertheless, from the official MSDS filed by Gamblin for their cadmium reds and oranges (there is a similar statement for the yellows) -- found at http://www.gamblincolors.com/msds/cadredorago.html -- comes the following:

"OSHA has chosen to regulate occupational exposure to all cadmium compounds, including pigments, as a single category. The standard states that substances containing cadmium are a cancer hazard and can cause lung and didney [sic] disease.

"Cadmium and cadmium compounds are listed in the Annual NTP Report as carcinogenic to animals, but with only limited evidence of carcinogenicity to humans. This information is based on test results for cadmium compounds other than pigmentary forms.

"Although certain cadmium compounds are known to cause kidney damage in humans and has [sic] been shown to cause lung cancer in laboratory animals, no chronic health effects have been shown to result from exposure to cadmium pigments. Cadmium pigments have been shown to be significantly less biologically available and less active than other cadmium compounds...

"No known medical conditions aggravated by exposure to cadmium oil paints...

"Small amounts can be dried and disposed of as ordinary trash."

As every locality has its own standards and methods of trash and sewage disposal and treatment, I'm not going to touch that topic with a ten-foot pole.

Cheers!

I have recently tried the Neo-Meglip, and while I thought it was a decent alkyd medium, a maroger or meglip it is not...

It is tacky and sticky, and while true Maroger can be like this as well, it is not to the same extent. None the less, for those not wanting to work with lead compounds, it's a decent quasi choice on limited levels. It definitely drys with a similar glossy and slick finish ala Maroger, but not as glossy and to my eye, it has that slight "plasticy" look that the highly processed alkyd mediums have.

Also one of the great advantages of a true jelly Maroger is the fact that once you stop moving it around with your brush on your ground , it sets up rather quickly (thixotropic), often allowing you to make fast layers over another, while still wet, within even minutes at times (although a few hours is more like it); I found this harder with the Neo-Meglip, as it seems tackier and stickier even though it sets up like a classic Maroger. But when I tried to layer over the Neo-Meglip after a few hours, the lower layer would come up and create a mess, negating the best reason to use a jelly medium in the first place. Quick layering with a jelly medium (which is why Rubens was so fond of this medium) was much harder with Gamblin's Safe And Friendly Maroger in my opinion. Wet on wet layering is one the strongest reasons to use a Maroger medium.

I have been using a pre-made Maroger--LeFranc & Bourgois's Flemish medium, in conjunction with their black oil mixed into the paint nuts on my palette and WOW... I can see now, as much as I HATE the phrase, "Secret of the old masters", why it is used for this medium so much...

My paintings with this combination have wonderful depth, gloss and a certain scintillation that was lacking previously (although a good stand oil/Venice turps medium comes close, but takes FOREVER to dry). Of course this is not JUST as a result of the medium; the planning and execution of many layers and glazes, and always utilizing light and transparent darks and opaque heavy lights is a huge factor as well (not to mention paying attention to edges...!)

But this last weekend, at the Getty Museum here in L.A., as I stood before Rubens and many of the Flemish masters works (Jan Van Huysen in particular), a certain little bit of the mystery of how they did what they did was suddenly freed in my mind--particularily Rubens who loved to paint alla prima-ish as much as possible, avoiding a heavy layered classical approach.

Although it certainly isn't the safest thing in the world, if your really interested in painting like the great artists of the 16th and 17th centuries, I would recommend you check out Maroger and Black oil mediums, as well as Mastic varnish in a medium combination. There is just something to it that is hard to describe...

Best,
Todd

[Douglas Drenkow]

Todd,

Your enthusiam and professionalism are inspirational!

I