Oil Paint Tech. ?
dyk...@bvu.edu
The suggestion of Charle Eicher to use a green earth wash over the
white canvas has merit. The persistence of all those little white
"stars," resulting from the texture of the canvs can certainly be
annoying. I'd add this caution though. Thinning the oil paint for
the wash is likely to disperse the binding agent so much that the
result will be a "dusty" layer of pigment. You should add some
linseed oil to the turp. so as to administer a healthy layer of paint
to the canvas. You only want to disperse the pigment, not the binding
agent.
I've examined a painting in the collection of a nearby
church which has significant areas of paint that is flaking off the
ground. It's simply because the undertone layer of paint had so
little binding agent in it that it has successfully become a "release"
layer.
Dennis L. Dykema
Charles Eicher
> The suggestion of Charle Eicher to use a green earth wash over the
> white canvas has merit. The persistence of all those little white
> "stars," resulting from the texture of the canvs can certainly be
> annoying. I'd add this caution though. Thinning the oil paint for
> the wash is likely to disperse the binding agent so much that the
> result will be a "dusty" layer of pigment. You should add some
> linseed oil to the turp. so as to administer a healthy layer of paint
> to the canvas. You only want to disperse the pigment, not the binding
> agent.
That is very interesting, I've never heard of that. Most people I know who
use this "imprimatura" technique just thin down some umber, terre vert, etc
with turps, just like you're warning against.. In fact, I thought the whole
idea of using these rapid drying earth pigments is that you can get to work
quickly.. certainly adding oil will retard drying. I've had poor results
with oil-primer (like white lead) because the solvent in your brush tends
to dissolve the primer layer and mix the white lead into the paint. I
wonder what it would be like to paint into an imprimatura done with oil..
Hmm.. I'm mostly working in watercolor lately.. Not much chance for an
expirement any time soon.
Anyway, I don't really mind the "stars" of white poking through, I can
always fix that, and sometimes I like a little white canvas peeking through
the paint.. My understand of imprimatura was that it was mostly for toning
the layers of paint applied over it (which are partly transparent of
course, and show the effect of the underpainting). I have one painting book
somewhere, it actually shows an underpainting in weak colors over a sketch
on the gessoed surface. The underpainting was in complementary colors to
the top layers (i.e. the fleshtones of the painting were underpainted light
green).. I never worked with that method, my paintings aren't planned ahead
that carefully.. And I hate those "step by step" books anyway.. ha..
| Charles Eicher |
| -=- |
| cei...@inav.net |
sch...@lookingglass.net
In article <ceicher-ya0240800...@snews.zippo.com>,
cei...@inav.net (Charles Eicher) wrote:
>>My understand of imprimatura was that it was mostly for toning
the layers of paint applied over it (which are partly transparent of
course, and show the effect of the underpainting).<<
I've often seen these preliminary underpaintings referred
to as "cartoons." I think it all depends on what you are
trying to accomplish by creating the underpainting. Some
of the old masters did indeed use the underpainting as more
than just a guide -- especially when using glazing techniques.
One of the failings of many students is the inability to
use glazes effectively -- painting opaguely and ala prima solely.
Understanding the effect of underpainting on subsequent
glazed layers takes a bit of apprenticeship that most students
today are too impatient to learn. T'bird.
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