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Rublev Lead Alkyd Ground
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Message
Posted
Yours is a mercurial temperament, Tom; an offer one day, withdrawn the next. You told me that you were having second thoughts about abandoning oils, so I take your decision to keep the primer as a good sign - much better to keep the lead alkyd ground and make use of it than add a mere £30 to your glittering pile of gold.
Rublev paints and grounds are very well worth having - granted, even cheap paint can work wonders in the right hands, a really top quality oil paint is a joy to use; especially on a sympathetic ground. Probably we all get inquiries now and then about the benefits or otherwise of great paint: is it REALLY better than bog-standard Winton or Georgian (with due respect to them, since an awful lot of professional artists use them, not always attributably); the answer is YES; it's expensive, sometimes eye-wateringly so - but once you've used it, you're never going back to student grade paint stuffed with fillers and preservatives.
Posted
Aye, Robert. You're quite right. They say it's a woman's prerogative to change her mind. I'm all for equality(!) Changed m' mind about rabbit skin glue 'n' all. It makes the hardboard bend, and the bend gets worse if you coat the back. Liquitex acrylic gesso doesn't. It's easy to brush on without letting-down and either the Lead Alkyd Ground or the Lead Oil Ground---have both---should adhere to that nicely. As for paints: Have Lead White No. 1, and a small selection of tube colours made by a delightful lady and her colleagues, Isabelle Roelofs, in Belgium, the brand name---Isaro Oil Colours.
Posted
Isaro is only a small company. Their oil colours are bound in refined linseed oil. Many makers of artists' tube oil colours now include oils like poppy and safflower oil. Some---including an outfit called Cranfield---use various combinations of said oils in each different colour without even bothering to inform prospective customers of the exact combinations. One reviewer opines that they're "at least as good as Michael Harding's". They're reasonably priced too.
Posted
Yes, many of Winsor and Newton's oils are now bound in safflower oil (it could be that they always were, but I doubt it ). It's not the worst oil - sunflower oil is probably the winner of that title - but it's not got the heritage or the strength of Linseed, in its various forms. I would never use a paint ground in sunflower oil, and am very cautious with safflower - i.e. won't use it if I can find an alternative.
Isaro, as a small manufacturer, would have a problem sourcing and selling lead white: but there is a (probably niche) demand for it, and it can be made and used safely. The restrictions it has to overcome are bureaucratic and ridiculous, but - it's very easy to frighten bureaucrats and politicians. The industry should have fought harder, and should still seek to do so, even though they've left it very late. I'm an extremely slow painter - i.e. as between paintings - and drawing satisfies me most of the time; so I hope my stock of lead whites will see me out - insecurity will probably prompt me to buy more, if I can find it.