How Shall I brighten a painting that’s gone dull

[Barbararose4@dodo]

Hi All… Nice to join you, hope we can share some ideas together.
I have one problem that has me beat, I have an oil painting that I keep on painting over and over again, because at first its glossy and bright but after a few days it goes back to it’s dull stage again and it’s got me baffeled, any suggestions please .? . Regards Barbara: :((

[Anonymous]

what kind of surface are you using and was it preconditioned (oiled/couched) before painting, and what brand and colors of pigments/paints and medium are you using? some mediums like those rich in stand oil, some alkyds, or damar will impart a glossy finish when they dry, some others may dry matte.
after the fact there is only painting over it or maybe varnishing with a glossy retouch and or final varnish.

[Carcharhinus]

Might be cheap paints with a low pigment content (Wintons etc.) Or it could be something like the gesso you’re painting on absorbing the oil. I have a huge problem with that happening when I use cheaper gessos.

Or it could be your actual painting surface absorbing the oil if you haven’t primed it correctly. If you’re using store bought canvas then maybe not enough gesso was applied to it in the factory. I have one canvas here that I didn’t add extra coats of gesso to and it looks awful. Most people here, from what I’ve read, add something extra to commercial canvas to reduce absorbency and increase its archival quality/durability.

[DECiNERGY]

You can:

• ‘oil-out’ softly with a rag – when it’s (touch)”dry”
• or you can use retouch-varnish – when it’s (touch)”dry”
-> or later when complete(!) dry varnishing …

Next time more gesso-layers

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[Antonin2]

Like Sid says Retouch damar varnish after 3 weeks of drying time.

"The freshness of their canvases has invigorated art. After seeing their unpolished canvases, even the carefully finished paintings seemed boring and old." - Ilya Repin
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[kate252]

ive painted many a dull painting and white was always the culprit. did you add white to any colors?

[RockettQueen]

A lot of paintings will have “high” and “low” parts where some is glossy and some is matte. Different pigments and mediums and surfaces. You could change gesso and choose paints and mediums based on how glossy they dry, but rather than worry about trying to make it all equal while painting, I just use retouch varnish to give it an even gloss at the end. I also oil out periodically to check the results before committing to varnish.

~ Kahla
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[Ribera]

Did you lay down deep areas, sans the
addition of extra oil (medium) to maintain the
depth obtained while wet? Of course, the ad-
dition of retouch varnish is a standard solu-
tion to this quandary, or if you object to the
addition of damar resin, simply oil it out, i.e.
brush over the faded areas with some ext-
ra fat medium, afterwards removing all
superfluous medium.
That extra oil ought bring the value back to
it’s full depth; you’re essentially placing
back into the paint surface what’s sunken-
in.
If this oiling-out was insufficient, likely
poor priming or insufficient gesso,
r

[DECiNERGY]

It’s funny – now we have 4 times [or more?!] the same answer, or the same !!!?!!!

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[Anonymous]

so there are numerous factors that can affect surface sheen,

first is the ground. an absorbent ground like acrylic gesso can suck a lot of oil right out of your paint and leave it oil poor and more matte looking. so preconditioning your canvas by oiling it out or coating with a thin oil layer will prevent the oil from being sucked out of your precious paints.

secondly, some pigments have a ratio to oil that is already high like the umbers and will already be more lean and will dry matte, as some say, they sink in. Others have a low pigment to oil ratio and will dry more glossy.

thirdly, there is the addition of mediums which impart glossiness by adding oil and leveling such as what stand oil does. here is a test panel of mine where I painted out three squares each of natural yellow ochre PY43 and natural raw umber PBr7. The squares to the left are diluted with damar/stand/turp medium
the squares in the middle are diluted with stand/oms medium, and the squares to the right are undiluted neat paint from the tubes, they are Winsor Newton Artists paint.

note the dull swatches of undiluted paint next to the ones with medium added.
Here is an angle shot with the panel turned so that the undiluted paint is at the bottom:

look how the color is lost at such an angle in the glare of the glossy swatches compared to the undiluted paints.
Now the downside is that you can get too much gloss and if you paint in layers then you can run into a lot of trouble with beading.
I like things in between where there isn’t a lot of gloss and I do not usually varnish.

[!becca]

Nice study, Sid, I like the squares painted with the medium too…I have one painting i did not using my damar, stand oil, turp med, just used staight from the tube..and though the painting is really fairly well done..at least the same quality as my others, I really prefer the paintings where I have used the medium.

Becca “Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you've imagined.” ........ “Not till we are completely lost or turned around... do we begin to find ourselves.” ........ “All good things are wild and free.” ........ “This world is but a canvas for our imagination.” ...... "Our truest life is when we are in dreams awake.” Henry David Thoreau
Becca's Fine Art

[Anonymous]

how is it that your W&N artist quality yellow is so cloudy?

I have never painted a swatch of yellow that looked like that

a lot of pigment and not enough oil.
it is straight out of the tube and applied to a raw canvas board without preconditioning. you can feel the difference, it feels dry and a little rough compared to the oil rich swatches. as I said about gesso, it can suck the oil out of your paint.
I will paint out the same paint on a preconditioned canvas and let dry to verify this wild claim .

[DECiNERGY]

Thxs Sid, for this wonderful examples & great information !!!
Yes, the W&N products have a very lot of pigment and ‘body’, feel the same … -> this i must ‘always’ make ‘creamier’ – but than SuperB …

-> i think the middle one is ‘SatinMatt’ (whats the english correct word ?! – in german it’s “Seidenmatt” and is between Gloss and Mat … ?!?! ) – i like that too!

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