Clear oil paint?
- Thread starter Patyrn
- Start date
There are several additives /solvents to thin acrylic paint allowing far better blending timescales than the quick drying times we experience with model acrylics.
Oil paints with their longer drying times are ideal mediums for extended blending.
However be aware that Blending can suppress highlights so that painters have to address the highlights seperately.
Einion
New member
FWIW that is what I thought you meant from the thread title.Patyrn said:
You can do the type of blending you want to do in a number of ways, and you may not actually need any additives or mediums to help*. Have you tried any experiments yet and run into problems, is that why you think you need something like a clear oil paint to help the process?
*Depends a bit on the oil paints you have (both brand and specific colour).
Einion
Einion
New member
A couple of firms do make pigmented mediums which essentially amount to a clear oil paint, but they're intended for a specific type of work that isn't like what you're hoping to do.
The most basic aid for this kind of thing is simply to let down the paint a little with a tiny addition of spirits - the majority of oil paints are more than oily enough to allow easy blending and glazing, it's just their viscosity that's getting in the way if you're using softhair brushes (that's why stiffer brushes are preferred by most painter painters for a lot of oil painting).
Plenty of people do use a medium of some sort to aid with blends and glazes; at the simplest this is just a little additional oil (often with a dab of spirits) but there are a whole rake of mediums, including many commercial types (e.g. Liquin) and numerous homemade concoctions too.
Einion
The most basic aid for this kind of thing is simply to let down the paint a little with a tiny addition of spirits - the majority of oil paints are more than oily enough to allow easy blending and glazing, it's just their viscosity that's getting in the way if you're using softhair brushes (that's why stiffer brushes are preferred by most painter painters for a lot of oil painting).
Plenty of people do use a medium of some sort to aid with blends and glazes; at the simplest this is just a little additional oil (often with a dab of spirits) but there are a whole rake of mediums, including many commercial types (e.g. Liquin) and numerous homemade concoctions too.
Einion
Einion
New member
Well the first thing I'd suggest is just thinning the paint a tad with turps or white spirit/mineral spirits - it's amazing just how much difference this can make in the handling even with the most minute additions.Patyrn said:
You may benefit from working the paint more, initially with a stiffer brush before switching to a softer brush for final smoothing (saves wear on the softer brushes). Traditionally something like mongoose was often used here, but there are synthetic equivalents now. But like I say lots of painters use a medium of some kind to help with this sort of thing - they do literally act like a lubricant. If you happen to have a little bottle of oil that you got with your paints that should work fine, but Liquin or another alkyd medium is a good choice as a true medium and it provides some key advantages, no. 1 of which is speeding drying.
Do be aware using nearly any medium will tend to increase gloss though, sometimes significantly.
I recommend people steer clear of the water-miscible oil paints since the quality is generally not that great (as you can tell from the pricing) and that 'feature' isn't anything like it's cracked up to be. As for the cleanup with soap and water, regular oil paints can too!ERGO FLUX said:
Einion
