Painting Mediums and Recipes

[Nickel]

Every once in awhile, I stumble across a web site with information about mediums and medium recipes for painting. I thought it might be helpful to us to keep a thread on links to reference.


If you have any good links on mediums please add to the thread so we have a handy source of referrals.

Here is one site I found today.

How to make:

Sun Thickened Linseed Oil
General all purpose glaze
Fast-drying painting mediums

http://www.michaelharding.co.uk/paintingmed.php



Please remember to practice safe studio habits when making recipes. Know the health hazards of your materials. If your studio is in your home, both you and your family are exposed to solvents and other volatile chemicals.


:wave: Nickel

[rosebard]

Cool link Nickel, Ty. :)

[bjs0704]

Interesting site! Thanks Nickel!

Barb:cat:

[Nickel]

Describes

Oils
Balsam
Varnishes
Driers

http://www.sinopia.com/oilinfo.html

[Nickel]

Painting With Copal Medium

Tools And Tricks of the Trade

http://www.garrettcopal.com/technique.htm

[Nickel]

Historical Oil Painting Varnishes and Mediums

http://www.jamescgroves.com/mediums.htm

[Nickel]

The National Gallery of Art Artists' Roundtable:

The Properties and Techniques of Oil Paint


Online Article~American Artist

http://myamericanartist.com/americanartist/online_exclusive/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1960788&imw=Y

[Nickel]

Covers

Watercolor, Acrylic & Oils

Artist's Little Helpers (http://www.artistsmagazine.com/article.asp?id=2242)

Too wet, too dry, too outlined, too flat. Adding the right medium to your paints can fix such problems before they happen.

By Butch Krieger


Mad About Maroger (http://www.artistsmagazine.com/article.asp?id=2219)

Finding a new alternative for an old medium.

By Mark Gottsegen


Defeating the Dull (http://www.artistsmagazine.com/article.asp?id=2058)

A few ideas to avoid the dreaded "sinking in" with oil paints.

By Mark Gottsegen


Assessing Amber (http://www.artistsmagazine.com/article.asp?id=1704)

The truth about adding amber mediums to your paint.

By Mark Gottsegen


Breathing Life Into Acrylics (http://www.artistsmagazine.com/article.asp?id=1185)

Additives that can add sparkle to your acrylic paintings.

By Earl Grenville Killeen


The secret of gum arabic (http://www.artistsmagazine.com/article.asp?id=2747)

Add gum arabic to your watercolors for a vibrant new look.

By Mark Gottsegen

[Nickel]

HISTORY OF PAINTING MEDIUMS (http://www.realcolorwheel.com/1mediums.htm)...

Glue Paint, Wax Paint, Cera Colla, Mastic, Casein Paint, Fresco, Egg, Oil Paint, Acrylic Paint.

[Nickel]

July 6, 2003: Update on Oil Painting Mediums (http://www.virgilelliott.com/essays.php)

By Virgil Elliott

[Anita Murphy]

Nickel these are great! I have some bookmarked somewhere in my favourites list - I'll try and find them to add to yours.

[Nickel]

Recipes by Sarkana

Glazing medium
Medium #13
Encaustic medium
A word about your health
Glazing medium 2
Beeswax medium

*
http://shop.store.yahoo.com/sarkana/recipes.html

*sorry this link is broken, if you saved this
information, please pm Nickel, I'd like to have these recipes for the
classical forum.

[Nickel]

Venetian turpentine in the 17th century was also called Cyprus or Chios turpentine, and it was obtained from the so-called turpentine tree—Pistacia terebinthus. Because of trade problems, it was replaced more and more with larch turpentine. With the help of historical sources, we also learned that this Venetian turpentine mostly was not used as a balsam but as a resin that was very helpful for drying. Walch-von Miller
http://www.getty.edu/conservation/publications/newsletters/20_1/dialogue.html

Walch-von Miller: An example of how difficult this can be is our research on Venetian turpentine. This term changed during the centuries, and since the second half of the 19th century, it often meant a mixture of larch turpentine and pine resin. That's why you can read in the modern literature on painting techniques that Venetian turpentine has a strong tendency for yellowing and drying badly and so on and that it should not be used for lacquers. Reading historical recipes, I was surprised that Venetian turpentine was recommended so often. With the help of a critical study of printed sources, I learned that Venetian turpentine in the 17th century was also called Cyprus or Chios turpentine, and it was obtained from the so-called turpentine tree—Pistacia terebinthus. Because of trade problems, it was replaced more and more with larch turpentine. With the help of historical sources, we also learned that this Venetian turpentine mostly was not used as a balsam but as a resin that was very helpful for drying. The gas chromatography—mass spectrometry [GC-MS] analysis, which was undertaken in parallel, confirmed the knowledge that we learned from the sources. This was the impressive result of very productive teamwork with conservation scientists Ursula Baumer and Johann Koller, as well as with Dietger Grosser, a biologist, doing research on historical literature.

[Jonathan001]

I just thought I would add a link that I found interesting. The information on the site is about historical painting techniques.
http://www.northernlightstudio.com/

[AustinM]

Would someone be so kind as to lay out (or direct me to...) the recipe for Maroger medium and also spell out the differences between using powdered white lead v litharge, and what the differences in the final versions of each are, as well as the differences in cooking each version if there are any? Also, I notice in Sheppard's book that he says that litharge can be picked up at your local hardware store...is this true? Thanks!!

[bjs0704]

Here's a copy of Maroger's book. It could be in there.

http://carolallisonart.com/SecretFormulaIndex.html

Otherwise, I'd use Sheppard's recipe. I'd look at some of the pigment company such as Rublev, Natural Pigments, Kremer or Sinopia for litharge. I don't think that it's sold in the hardware stores anymore, but I could be wrong.

Barb:cat:

[bjs0704]

More interesting links:
http://www.realcolorwheel.com/mediumtable.htm
http://studioproducts.com/technicl/mastitxt.html

Barb Solomon:cat:

[AustinM]

Barb:

Many thanks for your help! I will look forward to viewing the links.

[jdadson]

Would someone be so kind as to lay out (or direct me to...) the recipe for Maroger medium

Here's my recipe:

1. Send forty bucks to www.oldmastersmaroger.com
2. Wait a few days.

[dbclemons]

Tad Spurgeon has some useful info on his site:
http://www.tadspurgeon.com/cosmos.php?page=formulas

Some info at the Sanders Studios site worth reading too:
http://www.sanders-studios.com/instruction/tutorials/historyanddefinitions/historyofoils.html

[Titanium]

Hey have all the fun experimenting,but remember,

[1]Resin in drying oil is only tolerated.It's an
impurity and only a very small % can be used
safely.
The Sennelier site used to have a figure,something
like 2% or so resin in drying oil.
You read up on this in the Paint Technology Books.

[2]Findings thus far in the National Gallery Technical
Bulletins[London]show only traces of pine resin being
found in the works of Van Dyck,Rubens and other
Old Masters.

It has also been suggested that the traces are nothing
more than trapped and aged turpentine becoming
resinous colophony.Which is what happens naturally
to old,exposed to oxygen/air turps[Fat Oil.]

I do not know how Alkyds factor into the above.
Later.
Titanium

[Sam Cree]

This is a great thread, everyone - thanks for posting it, Nickel. I can't imagine why I never perused it before, now I think I'm going to read every one of these links.

At the moment, my favored medium is simply a small amount of walnut oil, which supposedly does not darken in time, as does linseed oil. I don't use too much medium at all at the moment. I mix a little walnut oil into the stiffest pigment, which is white, and it gets from the white into all the rest; I rarely find a need to add it to the other colors. Of course, the darker colors tend to be more transparent and easier to work without the addition of much medium anyway.

I like the alkyd mediums well enough, and also Gamblin's "neomegylp," which I think is a knock off of maroger? But my problem with those quick dryers is that if there are paint mixtures left over on the palette with quick drying mediums in them, they are gone by the next day. If they have oils they will last a day or so, which is nice.

Anyhow, I am still learning about all this, lots of fun.

[jdadson]

I made some "stand oil mayonnaise" a few nights ago. It is an okay medium to work with, but it did not dry quickly, as was implied. The mayonnaise is good for the wet-look effect where the paint globs are sort of rounded rather than scaly. I get the Rembrandt-scaly look by making a water-in-oil emulsion by pressing a small amount of egg white [sic] into lead white paint. You have to work at it for a while.