Palette of fast-drying colors?

[1100ww]

If you wanted to create a palette of only fast-drying colors, from which you could reasonably mix any color….what would be some suggestions? Lightfastness is important, too.

Just curious. Thanks.

[gunzorro]

Why not just add a drop of lead napthanate to each “normal” color on you palette? Use the highest quality paints available, then you’ll have a wonderful, high quality palette of fast drying paints!

[Anonymous]

I think you won’t be able to pick a palette that can be mixed to “any color” with only naturally fast dryers which are basically these from a W&N list
Fast Drying [around two days]:
Permanent Mauve [manganese], Cobalt Blues, Prussian Blue, Raw Sienna, Umbers, Flake, Foundation and Cremnitz Whites [lead].
That won’t get you any color. I agree with what Jim said as an alternative. I have been using an earth based palette and am very pleased with the faster drying and no problem with lightfastness there, when I do need a higher chroma added then I just add some liquin.
Of course that is the idea of their griffin alkyd line.

[rltromble]

Hum well umber, both Prussian blue and phalo blue dry fast, cremnitz white, the non-carbon blacks (or at least normal drying time). Both ivory, lamp and carbon black take forever to dry. W&N permanent Alizarin Crimson drys fast too, but I think the permanents are diffrent from brand to brand. Also the thing is that some paint manufactures will adjust the drying time of some of their pigments. But I agree with Jim and Sid, just use a fast drying medium.

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]

[1100ww]

Hmmm. I guess I’ve always just painted paying minimal attention to the drying rates of various colors, besides the earth pigments….and assumed that, for every different basic color, there was probably a faster/slower drying pigment. Thought I could brush up on that subject. Interesting about the blues mentioned, and I have always heard that lead white dries relatively fast. Food for thought…

Does Raw Sienna really dry significantly faster than Burnt Sienna…and if so, why?

[1100ww]

Didn’t see your post as I was typing that, rltromble; thanks for your input there. I definitely had noticed Pthalo drying out quickly on the ol’ palette…

[rltromble]

Checking Mayer he has that the other way around.
Hum sounds like test time.
But anyway I spread phalo turquoise ( no medium)on my pallet this after noon and it is already dry. But it was spread glaze thin.

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]

[Mark Sheeky]

This can depend on brand because manufacturers can add dryers themselves and different binding oils and pigment loads will also affect drying time. I find the W/N list a bit wrong too! But generally earth cols are the fastest and organic/synthetic cols the slowest. The slowest I’ve got is Old Holland Dioxazine followed by W/N Olive Green, and the fastest for me is Mars Black, Venetian Red or any of those iron oxides. You’ll struggle to fine intense colours that dry quickly but the titanium and nickel yellows might make a good substitute for cadmiums for example, if you don’t mind sacrificing some chromanance points.

Mark

Website: www.marksheeky.com
Twitter: @marksheeky

[Anonymous]

Yes, those are an example from winsor newton’s list specific to their colors, they will vary widely among different manufacturers as you have noticed some burnt siennas dry very fast yet they list theirs as a medium drying pr101, others like pbr7 burnt sienna containing more manganese may dry faster. Lukas adds three driers to their paints to speed up some of the slow ones, mussini uses damar to even things up. The main reason some dry faster is primarily due to their content of catalytic components like manganese, cobalt, and lead which are the same ones in many siccatives. So like Jim said you can just add them to the slow ones like cad yellow, ivory black, etc. Then you can select the brand and color you want rather than hunt down various makers colors that may or may not suit you.

[Bright Eyes]

I use the Chroma Archival Oils, they all dry fast. Unless I add a lot of fat medium to the paint or paint heavily my paintings will dry in a day or two. And when using a fast drying medium my paints will start drying on the pallet.

www.KimberlyBustillos.com

[gunzorro]

Generally speaking, the bright cadmiums (yellow through red) dry very slowly. Same goes for Lamp (also called “carbon”) Black and Ivory Black.

Most transparent colors dry slowly due to high oil content.

The fastest drying pigments are the natural umbers containing manganese. Manganese Blue and Purple are generally faster driers than other similar colors.

Cobalt is relatively fast drying as well.

Cremnitz (lead) should not be drying fast, unless it has driers added.

Siennas should be “normal” drier times, perhaps slightly fast, but not like umbers.

[Anonymous]

A pretty good article about this subject:http://www.trueart.info/drying_rates.htm
I am glad you brought this subject up Chris. I have been paying more attention to it myself because I think it is just as important an aspect of best practices as fat over lean concerns.

[Anonymous]

I am interested in making things more balanced also. I think I am settled on my palette and I intend to test the relative drying times of the paints then maybe adjust them by doing such things as selecting a burnt umber that is made in a slower drying binding oil like poppy, or adding clove oil to slow it. And adding a drier to the slower ones. I envision taking notes and testing the standard amounts needed to do this such as adding 1 drop of japan drier per 1 inch of cad yellow just as an example. The idea being that I would have a palette of colors that dry relatively fast and even. This is basically what carder does with his limited palette.

[Chestnut Tree Cafe]

Interesting.

I’d say if you want all your colours to dry faster then try alkyds (or using an alkyd medium). If you want them to dry really fast, try acrylics.

I wanted to try using lead white (both as a primer and in the painting). I’m finding it difficult to source some – I usually buy W&N, but can’t find a shop that sells their lead white. However I have come across the Michael Harding lead whites. Has anyone tried his linseed cremnitz or walnut cremnitz (sounds interesting) – grateful for description of what they are like/what they would be used for from anyone with personal experience?

Chris

[gunzorro]

CTC: Harding paints are excellent. I’ve used quite a few, but not the Cremnitz in Walnut (should dry a little more slowly than linseed).

A note on pigment load: alkyd oils have significantly less capability for holding pigment than traditional oils (linseed, walnut, safflower and poppy). This means the pigment is diluted compared to normal oil paint. Acrylic paint is even less capable of supporting pigment load, with approximately 1/2 the pigment of oil paint. This helps explain why these paints are less expensive than oil paints.

For maximum rich color that is fast drying, nothing can beat oil paints with a small amount of siccative.

[Author]

Posts