Preparing a canvas/board the Rembrandt way. Good idea?

[Carcharhinus]

Hi.

Thus far I have been applying a few good coats of gesso to everything that I paint on. I'm using W&N's standard white gesso which I imagine is as good as the price it costs; Acceptable but not great. I'm painting in a sort of rough layered style but the first layer is always hard to work with on the canvas. I think it may be being partially absorbed by the gesso. I toned the canvas with a mix of olive and magenta liquitex acrylics and water which helped on one painting. But the surface still wasn't as accommodating as I would have liked. And I don't know if this is good practice anyway, it was just an experiment.

I just read about a technique that Rembrandt apparently used to prep his panel surfaces in an old, old thread on here. Apparently he used to pour all the crap out of his brush cleaning jar, which would be a mix of pigment suspended in oil, on to the surface and let it dry. I have no idea what this would do aside from toning the surface with the pigment but I'm going to take a wild guess that it would seal the surface and give a more natural base for the oils to adhere to. In fact I don't even know that Rembrandt knew what he was doing, perhaps he just did what felt right.

Anyway, I have a nice jar of refined linseed oil filled with venetian red, yellow ochre, naples yellow, raw umber and titanium white pigment. Could I pour this on to quite a large canvas on top of a few layers of gesso to tone it and let it dry? Would it benefit my first layer of paint or would it just give my subsequent layers problems. I don't tend to use much oil in the later layers because I'm enjoying impasto. I only really use oil to make the paint go further in large areas like backgrounds. My layers are really just alla prima layered on top of one another, starting with rough and generally getting more detailed and thicker as I build the painting up.

Any help you could give me would be great.

Thanks,

Sam.

[Trond]

I don't think Rembrandt would literally pour it on. Probably he drained off some of the excess oil first. Rembrandt used a lot of earth pigments, which would have made the pigment mix dry a bit faster. I think your mix sounds good for this too.

I would pour off some of the oil and go for the pigment at the bottom with a brush. Then, I would spread it on the canvas, and finally rub it a bit with a rag. The last rubbing is important: it helps to avoid a thick layer of oil, and it makes the imprimatura (that's what this is) a bit transparent.

The gesso Rembrandt used would have been a stiff old-fashioned chalk-glue mix by the way.

[Keith Russell]

From the description of your paint application, it sounds like you work fairly "lean". Pouring a quantity of paint suspended in oil onto a gessoed surface would result in a very "fat" layer, so you'd end up painting "lean over fat"--not a good idea, IMO.

Yes, basically what it seems your after is an imprimatura--a toned ground (in this case, a toned oil [paint] ground).

Why Rembrandt probably used the paint from the bottom of his brush-cleaning jar, was that it yielded a rich grey, a good tone against which he could build up the colours in his painting.

You could get the same results, and in a "lean" fashion more compatible with your painting methods, by mixing several (seven, eight, or more) colours together to obtain a good "grey"--or start with Gamblin's Torrit Grey (available right now for a limited time at most better art-supply stores, free with--usually--a $25.00 purchase of Gamblin products...)

[Freesail]

I am trying to figure out how you got a jar of refined linseed oil filled with venetian red, yellow ochre, naples yellow, raw umber and titanium white pigment in the first place.

I have a jar of OMS with paint in it from cleaning my brush but not linseed oil.

[Trond]

Originally Posted by Freesail

I am trying to figure out how you got a jar of refined linseed oil filled with venetian red, yellow ochre, naples yellow, raw umber and titanium white pigment in the first place.

I have a jar of OMS with paint in it from cleaning my brush but not linseed oil.

My guess is that he uses the oil the same way as you use the OMS. It works fine. Or maybe he made the mix for this experiment (except for the titanium white they are all colors that could be used in a Rembrandt-ish palette).

[dirtysteev]

Probably not a good idea, as was pointed out, you will be starting with a very fat layer. If you are having problems with your paint sinking in (gesso absorbing oil), 1. switch to a PVA based primer, or 2. switch to a GAC-type primer that has a higher ratio of acrylic base to it.
It if fine to tone your canvas, or use a tinted base layer, just don't use significantly more oil than you may use in the following layers.