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Advice on glazing
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Posted
Could someone clear up something I’ve been wondering about? Advice on oil painting is always "fat over lean", but how does glazing over thick paint with a thin transparent paint work? Are you supposed to use a medium to do it, or is there some trick to it? Or do you just have to wait until the thick layer is completely dry? I have no formal art training, and not much experience with oils, so welcome any advice.
Posted
You need a glazing medium Emma, there’s plenty of choice, W&N glazing medium is a good starting point.
Don’t try and glaze with linseed oil or stand oil, they’re too thick and not suitable. You can mix your own but I’ll have to look that up, turpentine is one additive.
The base layer needs to be dry to glaze, you don’t want any wet paint picking up. Dry to the touch is fine generally.
Glazing gives you a wonderful optical variation of colour that you can’t mix on your palette, apply it in several layers until you achieve the desired result.
Use a soft brush and work on selected areas of your painting, it’s a fairly simple process that’s easily mastered!
Posted
You need a glazing medium Emma, there’s plenty of choice, W&N glazing medium is a good starting point. Don’t try and glaze with linseed oil or stand oil, they’re too thick and not suitable. You can mix your own but I’ll have to look that up, turpentine is one additive. The base layer needs to be dry to glaze, you don’t want any wet paint picking up. Dry to the touch is fine generally. Glazing gives you a wonderful optical variation of colour that you can’t mix on your palette, apply it in several layers until you achieve the desired result. Use a soft brush and work on selected areas of your painting, it’s a fairly simple process that’s easily mastered!Thank you Alan, I'll give it a try!
Posted
Just a thought on the W&N Blending & Glazing medium, the tops are a devil to get off once they get opened and used a few times - I’ve started to avoid all their mediums because of this bad design and so have a few others on here.
There’s plenty of other options, Zest it or I’ve tried Jackson’s own make in the past which is fine.
Posted
I have been reading about glazes but it's still not really registering with me exactly why they are used. I have read how to make a glaze but how does it transform the painting. when would I use it in a painting, at what stage would it be appropriate to use a glaze. I will figure it out but if I ask something simple because of no prior knowledge, if someone answers, the penny might drop much more quickly. I learned today you have to wait 6 months to varnish an oil painting from the other post. I mean, I am going to have to go in to my inventors mode and develop something that is much faster acting. In my dreams of course.
Posted
Just a thought on the W&N Blending & Glazing medium, the tops are a devil to get off once they get opened and used a few times - I’ve started to avoid all their mediums because of this bad design and so have a few others on here. There’s plenty of other options, Zest it or I’ve tried Jackson’s own make in the past which is fine.
Posted
You can use Liquin - there's more than one formulation (although the tops are just as hard to remove on W & N's ridiculous bottles). Contra Alan, I HAVE used Stand Oil,* but I agree it was a faff. Or you can try using no medium at all - wiping off with a paper towel (not one that disintegrates) or cloth until you get the coverage required - another rather messy procedure, but all part of the fun...
Leaving aside the sheer practical difficulty of glazing with Linseed Oil - the more oil you add, the yellower the painting is going to get in time. Another good reason not to use it for glazing, although in practice it's so difficult to get the paint to behave, or adhere, spread evenly, that most of us will give up on it quite speedily.
For more information - there was something on Michael Harding's website about glazing (might not be there now) and Virgil Elliott writes about it in his book Traditional Oil Painting - available from Echo Point Books in the USA.
*Not so sure it WAS strictly speaking Stand Oil - more likely to have been a sun-thickened oil I'd prepared myself, rather than bought; it had the consistency of honey, and was difficult to manipulate, but seemed to work.
Posted
I have been reading about glazes but it's still not really registering with me exactly why they are used. I have read how to make a glaze but how does it transform the painting. when would I use it in a painting, at what stage would it be appropriate to use a glaze. I will figure it out but if I ask something simple because of no prior knowledge, if someone answers, the penny might drop much more quickly. I learned today you have to wait 6 months to varnish an oil painting from the other post. I mean, I am going to have to go in to my inventors mode and develop something that is much faster acting. In my dreams of course.Painful Painter on 15/12/2020 22:19:50 WHY glaze - well, you don't have to - probably the Impressionists didn't employ it much; direct painting tends to be exactly that. But glazing can enrich the surface of the paint and give it depth, because you'll generally be using a transparent colour over opaque paint; and, if you have the time and inclination, you can add glaze upon glaze, the snag with that being that you will reach a point where things begin to get too dark - but glazes can add great subtlety. You can also employ optical mixing - but use lightfast colours. There's a well-known painting in which large foreground plants appear blue - because the yellow laid over them to make green has faded over time. It does illustrate the principle very well, though.
Posted
Thank you Robert, it makes a bit of sense now. If it gives depth, it's something I will look to try and have a go at once I have some experience with oils. I like the sound of glazing and the effects on a painting. I will read much more about glazing so I'll know what I'm doing when I have the experience I feel I need. Much appreciated.
Posted
I can't add much of value to Alan and Robert's sound advice (save to echo their comments about W&N bottle tops - I thought it was just me!). However a piece of useful advice I came across some time ago was the comment that Turner 'glazed with steam'. in other words not too much pigment in the glaze and repeat to increase depth. It certainly worked for Turner and sometimes it works for me!
Posted
That’s an interesting one Peter.
An example of Turner at his best in regards to glazing, is the sunset in possibly his most well known painting The Fighting Temeraire.
Consecutive use of glazing and scumbling was employed to produce that stunning and vibrant sunset, you could never achieve this by simply mixing colours on a palette.