How much clove oil?

[Mark Sheeky]

My mars black is drying too quickly. I've got some clove leaf oil but am unsure how much to use. My experiments haven't worked! The -control- samples didn't seem to dry half as fast as the paint on my actual paintings and after a week are still wet... that's a concern. On the other hand the samples with the clove oil don't seem to be drying that much slower.

Anyhoo; wikipedia says a drop per paint nut, but I have small nuts and boy do I have a big drop! At the moment I'm using about half part of a drop like 2/3 of a human tear that drips freefall from your face (this is not very scientific!) in about 3ml of paint (based on a teaspoon being 5ml).

Can too much cause problems? Like months/years to dry? Experience of clove disasters and triumphs, please

Mark

[rltromble]

Never tried it with mars black, but with most mixes, 1-2 drops is enough. I rebottled mine in a jar that has an eye dropper in it. Usually a mix will stay wet for about a week or less. I have heard that it is bad to use too much, but have no idea why. But I think it has to do with the paint film.

[1100ww]

There was a thread a while back that discussed some supposed problems with mixing clove oil directly with your paint. I did a quick search, and didn't find it, although someone else may, eventually.

IIRC, it was suspected, but not proven, to cause some discolorations/staining. Don't remember what the verdict was.

[bluespace]

Originally Posted by Mark Sheeky

My mars black is drying too quickly. I've got some clove leaf oil but am unsure how much to use. My experiments haven't worked! The -control- samples didn't seem to dry half as fast as the paint on my actual paintings and after a week are still wet... that's a concern. On the other hand the samples with the clove oil don't seem to be drying that much slower.

Anyhoo; wikipedia says a drop per paint nut, but I have small nuts and boy do I have a big drop! At the moment I'm using about half part of a drop like 2/3 of a human tear that drips freefall from your face (this is not very scientific!) in about 3ml of paint (based on a teaspoon being 5ml).

Can too much cause problems? Like months/years to dry? Experience of clove disasters and triumphs, please



Mark

ivory black is much slower drying
mars black is much better for underpainting and situations where fast drying is needed
clove oil causes darkening over time
if you want dilute with poppy seed oil about one 5-7 ml vial to one 75 ml jar of poppy oil. then add to paint with eye dropper sparingly to get the retarding effect you want .

[Mark Sheeky]

Thanks. It seems to be working. My mars does seem to dry overnight otherwise and now I'm dropping some clove oil on the palette and lifting some with the knife to mix in and it seems to slow the drying, by a few days in those quantities. The oil is a greenish brown colour but in my black I'm not worried much about the discolouration.

I've tried a mix of ivory and mars black which was good but it's an extra chore to mix two blacks every time.

Mark

[sidbledsoe]

Mark, utrecht has ivory/mars tubed already premixed.

[Wassie]

In a workshop I took from Peggy Baumgaertner (http://www.baumportraits.com) she had us put a couple drops of clove oil on a very large palette and rub it in. Then we added paint to our palette and didn't add any more oil or medium. We also used lamp black, not Mars black which is thicker and dries faster.