lead pencil lead oil paint do they marry well?

[WFMartin]

There is another effect that is neither physical migration and neither the paint becoming transparent (in a normal way).

Graphite is a funny material that tends to PULL other carbon chains int he same orientation as the graphite molecules. That can affect the behavior of oil (that is basically carbon chains) where it gets close to the graphite… the result is among other things that the transparency at that point can change.

Wow…..I’d never heard that explanation! Interesting,…and another reason to avoid using graphite pencil as an underdrawing for an oil painting! I HAD heard that it was because of the molecular structure of the graphite that the migration occurred, but I never heard of the transparency of the paint becoming more pronounced.

Thank you for that explanation. True, or untrue, it is not worth the risk to employ graphite under oil paint, in my opinion.

wfmartin. My Blog "Creative Realism"...
https://williamfmartin.blogspot.com

[Delofasht]

There is another effect that is neither physical migration and neither the paint becoming transparent (in a normal way).

Graphite is a funny material that tends to PULL other carbon chains int he same orientation as the graphite molecules. That can affect the behavior of oil (that is basically carbon chains) where it gets close to the graphite… the result is among other things that the transparency at that point can change.

Which in turn goes back to the idea of using an isolation coat if doing a graphite underdrawing. The alternatives that tidal mention are good though, charcoal pencils, hard colored chalks (like hard pastels), or oil based colored pencils all seem better choices than graphite usually.

The effect you describe isn’t so much a migration as a kind polarization of the chains then? That could be a thing, do you happen to have a link to any study done on graphite that references this, I would love to read a bit about the theory further.

- Delo Delofasht

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