Zinc white is extremely transparent and titanium is extremely opaque.

So it depends on what you are doing. I personally don’t use much zinc at all and prefer Titanium for most work. There are also mixes of the two, and lead-based white.

Zinc is a fast dryer and prone to cracking when used by its self.

Prone to cracking due to its fast-drying nature, or is the cracking due to some other inherent characteristic of zinc? In other words, any more prone to cracking than other fast-drying colors?

Titanium is slow drying and can make some colors chalky.

Do you mean chalky in texture/sheen (like matte)…..or chalky as far as lack of brilliance/vividness, a pastel look?

For example, do you mean chalky sheen that could be evened out by a final varnish……or chalky as far as never being able to mix a hue accurately?

For the heck of it I pulled out “The Artist Hand book of Materials and techniques”, and this is what he said. According to him its a slow drier, so I may be off on that count. :rolleyes: Usually I don’t use it with out mixing it with titanium. But apparently its the nature of the zinc its self that causes it to crack.

Zinc white is a reactive pigment in oil, and unites with it but not in the same way as flake white does. It tends to make a brittle, hard film in comparison with the tough, flexible film of white lead. Its film has none of the desirable paint qualities described under flake white, it brushes out poorly, and it is an exceptionally bad dryer. Its particle structure is rather finer than that of the average pigment. Poppy-oil films are definitely less permanent than with flake white.
P.95 The Artist Hand book of Materials and techniques 6ed 1985

The chalky nature of titanium white is well document, but it only seems to become an issue when large amounts are used. Its can be best described like some one spread chalk dust all over the paint. Whats interesting is that this effect only seem to happens with certain paints. As for the varnish, I don’t know.

That’s interesting 1100ww. I have had that occur too, but I primarily use Flake white on most of my paintings. I have found success in resolving this with a bit of turps or more paint.

Dylbud, if you made areas dark that you want light, apply full-strength white and let it thoroughly dry. Then you can use a translucent tint on that surface without it mixing with the white. You will definitely lose much of your translucency if you mix it with any kind of white. Even a white with the least tinting power will affect the translucency.

Nancy http://nancyparkfineart.com
All human beings are dream beings. Dreaming ties all mankind together. - Jack Kerouac

Given the choice between Zinc White, and Titanium White, my choice would be Titanium White.

My favorite glazing white is a mix that I make myself, using approximately equal parts of both Old Holland Titanium White, and Old Holland Cremnitz White (lead carbonate). This mix seems to employ the advantages of each, with very few of the disadvantages.

I usually avoid using Zinc White by itself, but I do use Martin F. Weber’s Permalba White, which is a mix of both Zinc and Titanium Whites, as I understand. Permalba often seems to get a bad rap, but I have found it to be quite a good white. I use that for simple layering of my painting.

[B]NancyMP[/B], thanks for the reply. I suspected as much, but I wanted to get some others’ perspective. The tube of zinc white that I have says “a semi-transparent white unsurpassed for glazing and scumbling.” That sounded a little weird to me because I thought glazing and scumbling were two opposite applications, one done with transparents and the other done with opaques. I don’t see how a single color could be “unsurpassed” for both applications.

I find that Zinc is the best mixer because it imparts no hue variation to your tints. Flake white pulls mixes to the warm side whereas Titanium trends toward the cool. These effects are subtle but none the less real.