Home › Forums › Explore Media › Oil Painting › The Technical Forum › WMO Underpainting
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June 22, 2019 at 3:39 am #474781
Hey everyone – I’ve read multiple threads regarding thinning water mixable oil paints but I had fairly specific question I was hoping you guys could help me with.
How much water or artisan thinner can I add to Windsor and Newton WMO as an underpainting before I run into potential problems with under binding?
I plan on painting a thin underpainting followed by subsequent layers of fatter, thicker paint – however I would like to leave some parts of the underpainting exposed for an unfinished look.
Here are a couple paintings from Casey Baugh and Jimmy Law that exemplify the effect I am after.
Any input/ advice on how to achieve this effect would be great! Thank you!
June 22, 2019 at 6:35 am #844591AnonymousHow much water or artisan thinner can I add to Windsor and Newton WMO as an underpainting before I run into potential problems with under binding?
I say this as an opinion, I don’t have hard data to fully back it up.
Specifically regarding layered paintings, I believe that the condition of being underbound, is mainly an issue that pertains to the upper layers.
I think that if very thinned, watery washes are applied first, and then they are covered by subsequent layers of full bodied paint, that the under layer will be saturated, sealed, and sort of locked firmly in place.
I do it all the time and have done it for a long time with no problem.
But if that washy underbound layer is left exposed, and not covered with paint, then I do think that it would be prone to durability problems. unfortunately, this appears to be the effect that you may be going after.
As far as how much can you dilute, I can’t even begin to say exactly where that underbound condition reaches a critical stage.June 22, 2019 at 6:59 am #844589I concur with Sid: Underbound paint will be covered with sufficiently
oiled paint, and’ll inevitably absorb that – so not an issue there.
In your case, though, where you’re, in fact, leaving those regions
untouched, oiling-out always sound policy there. (even if it’s not
sunken-in per se, if just to provide enough “glue”) – That oil-out’ll
provide that oil required.
rJune 22, 2019 at 12:16 pm #844594You can do some testing with the materials you are using to see at what point the paint is not staying in place on the ground.
Paint some test swatches with increasingly greater amounts of water added, then allow them to dry and do a rub test with a clean rag and see how much comes up on the rag. It would be wise to also test over areas that have dried paint on them. Adhesion will be significantly less vs on a clean acrylic gesso ground.
June 22, 2019 at 3:08 pm #844607Thanks a lot for everyone’s input. I did not expect answers so quickly! While I do plan to leave a lot of the underpainting exposed, its nice to know that the portions that aren’t will be safe.
Looks like I will need to do some experimenting with the exposed underpainting before working through the idea on a more serious piece.
Other than the above artists potentially oiling out the paintings in the example photos, would it be safe to assume that left alone, even the paintings in the examples would be prone to durability issues? Or could it be that my assumption that they are using heavily thinned paint is erroneous?
June 22, 2019 at 4:33 pm #844598Maybe you can also try water mixable linseed oil. Mix it with water 1:1 for example. it will not be really oily, but will provide more binding while allowing you to paint something like washes.
I noticed that even when using paints from the same manufacturer, different colors take water differently. The worst is when it gives you flaky liquid. But the same paint thins just fine with modified linseed oil.
Ilya K
C&C always welcomeJune 22, 2019 at 6:52 pm #844590I don’t know the answer, but you might try to contact W&N with your question, if that’s the brand of WMO you plan to use.
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June 22, 2019 at 6:57 pm #844595You wont replicate that effect without using solvent. The combination of solvent and i believe he uses stand oil/damar and rectified turpentine 1:1:5(casey baugh). Hence the mask as that room is flooded with VOC’s. I know because i tried using wmo’s and linseed for the same effect. The painting will be lifeless. He uses the above mediums copiously.
June 22, 2019 at 8:06 pm #844608Thanks ik345 – burnt umber seems to take water pretty well – which will be the color of my underpainting. I was leery of mixing it with linseed oil to avoid prolonging the drying time or possibly breaking the fat over lean rule on my second layer which I plan on using straight from the tube.
Thanks AnnieA, I contacted them but have yet to receive a response.
Raffless, thanks for your reply. Wouldn’t a 1:1:5 ratio still be too thin to leave that underpainting exposed? And thats 1 part solvent, 1 part stand oil/damar and 5 parts turps? Isn’t turps considered a solvent?
Sorry for all the questions guys I’m just really interested in this technique as I love the spontaneity of it and the warmth it brings to the painting.
Also – as a newcomer to this forum it is refreshing to see such quick, detailed responses to a thread as specific as this on a board with so many subforums.
June 23, 2019 at 3:31 am #844599Thanks ik345 – burnt umber seems to take water pretty well – which will be the color of my underpainting. I was leery of mixing it with linseed oil to avoid prolonging the drying time or possibly breaking the fat over lean rule on my second layer which I plan on using straight from the tube.
I have an opposite experience. Burnt umber, Lukas Berlin, goes into flakes, very ugly. Same for primary blue from Daler and Rowney (Georgians). I actually put these two aside when was trying to paint using water only.
But then I tried modified linseed oil from Lukas. First I tried underpainting without oil, to block the areas and mark all colors, then further layers thinned with the oil.
And recently, I tried to mix the that oil with water. It becomes milky, but has no effect on the color. This went just fine for the first layer. And it dried very quickly, to my surprize! It was an attempt of alla prima, and I even found it too dry. Maybe depends on the support and on the room climate too.
Ilya K
C&C always welcomeJune 23, 2019 at 3:41 am #844600kmn, you can also try water mixable medium from Lukas. It is the equivalent of siccatives for traditional oils, made with acrylic resin. I did not try it myself though.
I believe that for alla prima, one can mix all three, the medium, oil and water, in different proportions, to achieve the desired effect.
Ilya K
C&C always welcomeJune 23, 2019 at 4:05 am #844593I believe that for alla prima, one can mix all three, the medium, oil and water, in different proportion.
If the medium made from acrylic, then you can also mix acrylic instead! Not to match tedious fat-over-lean , just for siccative effect.
June 23, 2019 at 8:42 am #844601Maybe. Provided that it is an acrylic transparent medium. But Lukas designs their stuff to be compatible with WMO. Don’t think about acrylic paint just hearing “acrylic”. There must be many materials bearing the name “acrylic”.
Ilya K
C&C always welcomeJune 23, 2019 at 2:57 pm #844602Now I have recalled what is that medium. It is close to the synthetic varnish. So it’s like using dammar mentioned above, but compatible with WMO.
Ilya K
C&C always welcomeJune 23, 2019 at 6:11 pm #844606Again this is an opinion:
1) water: The emulsifiers in the paint can only accommodate so much water added to the mix. W&N does not recommend using water.
2) Artisan thinner: It should mix OK, but you run the risk of diluting the binding agents and the paint will not stick.
3) Artisan medium: You should be able to really thin this mixture out and it should should stick fine since the medium includes binding agents. That’s why you could use straight Artisan medium on the surface and it would stick fine.Regards,
Steve -
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