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At last!
First painting since November '18.
Never, in your old age (relatively speaking) take on a voluntary job. I did this one 30 years ago, and thought I could do it again - well, I probably can. But what I forgot was that I don't have the energy I had 30 years ago. And so I had painted nothing - other than a bit of touching up and the occasional birthday card - since November '18.
I took August, more or less, off. It's the 24th today, so in over three weeks I still painted nothing, because I just needed to sleep, take it easy, and - I couldn't think what to paint.
This is in so many ways absurd, because I'm surrounded by countryside, coastline, downs, and I have a vast collection of sketches, small watercolours, and photographs. Too much - couldn't choose. I have taken myself firmly in hand however, and have more or less finished an oil painting (which I'll post eventually). It isn't a great painting, but I just needed to get my hand in again - and never again allow myself to let other work stop me getting at my easel!
In re-discovering oil paint, I have discovered or remembered a few things which I should like to pass on to eager readers struggling with the medium. I used a somewhat unpromising palette - lead white, a spot of Titanium White, Mars Yellow, Burnt Sienna, Cadmium Yellow, Viridian, and Prussian Blue - quite a way away from my usual palette, but I wanted to keep it simple. But it's what I didn't use that I wish to share.
For many years, I used a solvent with oil paint - usually double-distilled Turpentine, occasionally Low Odour Thinners/Sansodor, Liquin (which isn't a solvent), and Linseed Oil (also - not a solvent). I diluted the paint this way because all the books I had read said that you had to. And at times, I have a quite literal mind. I don't like solvents much - they're all hazardous, and after I had bronchitis a couple of times, I began to realize it was either them or me..... I like the smell of real Turps, but it wasn't doing me a lot of good; and I loathe the smell of Liquin (although it's not a bad medium).
I tried water-miscible oils - but have no confidence in their longevity; and while plenty of artists produce great work with them, I found them under-pigmented, and oddly sticky in use. I'm not about to crusade against them, but - I didn't find the experience in any way comparable to using 'real' oil paints (I know some painters in water-miscibles get irked by terms like 'real oil paint', but it's the only way I can think of to describe my lack of satisfaction with Artisan, Holbein Duo, Grumbacher, and the other manufacturers' products).
So I was faced with the choice of giving up oil paint altogether, or giving up solvents. I love acrylics, and watercolour - and if I'd never painted with oil, perhaps I wouldn't miss it. But I have, and I did. 'Twas then I discovered the Painting Best Practice Facebook page, and the Natural Pigments website, which told me that - in so many words - all you really need is a little oil; solvents aren't necessary. I found this hard to believe at first - remembering all the warnings about 'fat over lean' and the dangers of cracking. But the point is - a little oil. Many paints flow quite satisfactorily straight out of the tube; if they don't, a small quantity of Linseed oil is enough to move them about, enabling you to employ the rigger to achieve detail, or spread the chunkier pigments more thinly.
I've now - over an overly-long period, admittedly - painted three or four oils with no Turps at all; no LOTS, certainly no White Spirit: not even for cleaning the brushes and palette. Because all you actually need to do with your brushes is squeeze the excess paint out on a kitchen towel, and wash them with soap and cool water. It's no messier or more difficult than using Turps - if anything, it's easier.
I also assumed that Turps was necessary if you wanted your paint to dry in a reasonable time. Again - not true. Linseed oil is a drying oil - I don't find that my oil paints dry any more slowly just using that than they ever did. And because I use lead white whenever I can get it, the notoriously slow-drying Titanium is far less of a problem: granted, its opacity is extremely useful, it's probably better for highlights than lead white, if a bit cold, but keep its use to a minimum and the painting will dry quite satisfactorily: especially if you don't use Cadmium pigments (though I do).
When I get around to updating my little e-book Oil Paint Basics - which still sells - I'll amend the section on oils and mediums. Not that it's wrong, but it's not the only way to paint. A lot of people have had bad reactions to Turps in its many forms, and some have given up oils entirely, or moved to water-miscible paint. I'm here to tell you that you don't have to - unless you have a reaction to the oil itself, of course.
So far as I'm concerned, this means that much of the rationale for using water-miscible oil paint has gone.
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