Home Forums The Learning Center Color Theory and Mixing Oil Paint Viscosity

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  • #473590
    DamenFaltor
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        If this is in the wrong place, please let me know and I will move it – I just couldn’t find a forum that seemed correct for this.

        I’m REALLY struggling with getting the viscosity of my paint right for the wet on wet style of painting. Generally, during the block in stage, I thin my paint down with turps. This gets good canvas coverage and it seems to dry rather quickly. But after that, things go wrong.

        When I watch painters online, it seems like they squeeze the paint from the tube onto their palette and then just dip straight into that. But that paint is really thick and the best I can get is 1 – 2 brush strokes out before I have to dip into the paint – and subsequent layers don’t want to stick to that.

        Then I heard about mediums – liquin and galkyd (I went with Galkyd since it was available). This is a real challenge for me to get right with the wet on wet method. I’m not sure the best way to use it – keep it in a little cup and dip into it on each stroke? Pour a small drop on to the palette and mix the paint and medium into a soupy-ish smear right there?

        And then the big question is how much to use… The more galkyd I use, the “fatter” it gets, right? but also the thinner the viscosity. Trying to put paint from the tube over paint that was thinned with medium is a real nightmare. But trying to put thinned paint over thinned paint tends to just blend them. ARGH! Perhaps it just takes practice of knowing how much medium to add to each layer, but I don’t know what direction I should be going in – adding more medium with each layer or adding less medium with each layer until I get to paint straight from the tube?

        I really like the wet on wet method, but it’s becoming so frustrating that I have been letting things dry and then go back to them.

        Any advice/guidance here would be very much appreciated.

        #831603

        Probably the dedicated Oil subforums a bit below in the list of forums would get you answers faster (since about 1/3 here are Acrylic or Watercolor folks like me)

        "no no! You are doing it all wrong, in the internet we are supposed to be stubborn, inflexible and arrogant. One cannot simply be suddenly reasonable and reflexive in the internet, that breaks years of internet tradition as a medium of anger, arrogance, bigotry and self entitlement. Damm these internet newcomers being nice to to others!!!"

        "If brute force does not solve your problem, then you are not using enough!"

        #831601
        Patrick1
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            Which online painter(s) are you trying to emulate? Different artists use different working methods & materials, and getting good results in their style might require doing things their way. You can always do things your own way, which most people do, which incurs trial & error.

            #831605
            DamenFaltor
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                Which online painter(s) are you trying to emulate? Different artists use different working methods & materials, and getting good results [I]in their style[/I] might require doing things their way. You can always do things your own way, which most people do, which incurs trial & error.

                I’ve been watching Kevin Hill (from PaintWithKevin) and Michael James Smith and Chuck Black. I have noticed that they occasionally they will get to a certain point and let the previous layers dry – but they do have full wet on wet painting sessions where they complete the whole painting in one session, and I am thinking to myself “how in the heck did they do that upper layer of fine grass detail without blending that brush stroke into the wet background colors?!?”

                #831606
                DamenFaltor
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                    I think I finally found the right forum to post this in – I posted this same question there. But I can’t seem to delete move or edit this post – Can a moderator help me out so I don’t spam the boards to death?

                    Thanks!

                    #831602
                    Patrick1
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                        ”how in the heck did they do that upper layer of fine grass detail without blending that brush stroke into the wet background colors?!?”

                        The background colors don’t have to be actually dry, but thin & dry enough, scrubbed in using lots of pressure. Using the paint straight from the tube might work best (what I usually do). For the subsequent layers, load the brush with lots of paint so that it applies with a light touch, and reload often. Avoid brushing over and over…this will get unwanted mixing with the colors underneath…often the cause of ‘mud’.

                        #831604
                        Pinguino
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                            Not answering the question, but relevant: Wet-on-wet is a very difficult technique for beginning painters. Unfortunately, since it can be done rather quickly, it is often shown in videos and on television. The presence of so many wet-on-wet artists creates the impression that it is the dominant method, or that it is easier to learn.

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