Using alkyd and oil paint together???

[Richard Budig]

It has long been said that alkyd and oil paint can be used together, but can it? In light of an article in the latest issue of The Artist

[Chris Saper]

Mixing alkyds and oil? Burt Silverman does it, only with his whites...alkyd white plus an oil white (my recollection is Titanium) and that's good enough for me.

Why do you want to do this? Flake white dries quickly, and combining paints with (at least, in my extrememly limited experience, a medium like Maroger) sets up virtually everything overnight.

[Marvin Mattelson]

Using flake white and linseed oil will provide you with a paint film which can be covered the following day. Adding other whites to the flake will retard the drying and are probably best added in the upper layers.

Although many champion the use of a wide variety of modern mediums there is no absolute certainty of how they will hold up in the long run. A lot of very good artists are quite vehement in defending what they mix into their paint but In my own experience whatever mediums I've used have never, to my eye, affected the look of my paintings.

It is the continuity of hand to brush that effects what I create on the canvas. Too many are looking for THE easy answer, but unfortunately, mediums can

[Juan Martinez]

Richard,

I'll join in by simply adding my complete agreement to what Chris and Marvin have said.

However, on the issue of Flake White, I realize that W&N's Flake is ground in Safflower Oil, so it may dry more slowly than the same pigments do when ground in Linseed. Moreover, depending on whether you use their Flake No. 1 or No.2, there are different ratios of Lead Carbonate to Zinc between them. The one with more of the Zinc pigment (No. 2, I think -- I can't remember exactly) would dry more slowly. Anyway, the bottom line is, if you want all of your colours to dry relatively uniformly and, particularly, to dry as rapidly as your alkyd colours do, why not add an alkyd medium such as Gamblin's Galkyd to your non-alkyd colours?

If you feel this may make them too medium-rich, then you could drain some of the vehicle (linseed or safflower) out of the paint first by putting the paint blobs onto a piece of absorbent paper for a few minutes. Then, put them onto your palette and mix in the drop(s) of alkyd.

Just some thoughts.

All the best,
Juan

[Khaimraj Seepersad]

You may be asking about delamination. Simply put, if you look up the literature on Alkyds, you will see that unless physically or chemically abraded, an alkyd coat does not always bond well to itself.

Also it is wise to note, that though alkyds can, through the use of driers, be made to dry overnight, the oil in the alkyd still needs time to cure,usually 6 months for linseed oil and 8 months plus for low linolenic oils, such as safflower, walnut and poppy oil. This is for thin coats of paint.

To fully try to understand any of this please look it up. Thank you.

Titanium White is very opaque when compared to Lead White and, Titanium White should remain so down through the centuries, it's inert in drying oils. There is a chart available on-line at TiPure Dupont where you see this expressed as a numerical
value.

[Michele Rushworth]

I've been staying away from anything with alkyd in it since I had some serious de-lamination with Liquin (also an alkyd) a year or two ago.

[Timothy C. Tyler]

This may be one of those deals like; "never use blah, blah, blah". Several very successful artists use and have used alkyd mixed with oils. Maybe "mixed" is the key. If one uses most of our materials wrongly you can get bad results.

I could give you a pretty impressive list of names using some alkyd, the new-clean-with-water oils or tempera underpainting etc. sometimes, in some circumstances.

I still think we need to worry as much about making good work as long lasting work. If it's not good no one will care if it lasts.