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With Sarah, Phil, Ellen, Rose the dentist, and the granddaughter whose name I forget.

Robert Jones, Napa

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For anyone who has ever wondered why their oil paint is slurping horribly down the canvas, I have put a blog post up on the above, rather than clog the forum with it and perhaps answer questions no one has actually asked. Prompted by strange questions and self-inflicted problems posted by various desperate souls on Facebook.

Peter Davison

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Interesting discussion Robert and kindles many memories of horrors encountered by over-using oil, especially linseed oil. I probably paint larger than yourself but I always prepare the surface with one or two coats of white acrylic primer (coloured as required by the addition of a small amount of acrylics usually Ultramarine, Burnt Sienna or Raw Sienna or a combination to give a coloured ground). In this priming mix I add a couple of tablespoons of calcite (chalk, although I know at least one person who uses Polyfilla!) to make the ground more absorbent and this helps with the underpainting in which I use tube paint with a very little turps or OMS. Later layers may have a small amount of medium (usually Liquin) added to aid detailing and speed drying. It seems to work and we all develop by what industry terms Research & Development but is known to the rest of us as Trial & Error.
With Sarah, Phil, Ellen, Rose the dentist, and the granddaughter whose name I forget.

Robert Jones, Napa

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I really wouldn't recommend Polyfilla - but I know some people use it. Can it really be so much cheaper than a product designed for the job? And if it is - do those people also use acrylic house-paint instead of artists' materials? It does seem daft to me, but there we are. Proof of the pudding will be in the cracking..... I'm working on an oil at the moment and haven't added any solvent or oil at all so far - might not need to, I'm some way into it and haven't felt it would achieve anything thus far that the paint won't do all by itself with the oil in which it was ground. My mission in life (at the moment at least) is to help people to not get captivated by mediums to the extent they feel they need to add them for their own sake because they might just produce something magical. There's so much sheer guff out there on the "secrets of the Masters": but the Masters, whose mastery I certainly don't doubt, were working with paint that is so different from the oil paint of today that all the ghastly junk people are persuaded to add to modern paint, from Copal Oil to Oil of Spike, to Litharge, and various oils that will take forever and a day to dry won't have anything like the effect they anticipate or hope for. As for those paint manufacturers who proudly tell you that there's a varnish in their paint, to "enrich" it, and those painters who add dammar varnish to their paint (or worse), has it occurred to them that if the painting needs to be cleaned of its old varnish, the solvents used to do that will also attack the varnish in their paint? Anyway, I put it in the blog so as not to clog up the Forum, and what am I doing now but clogging up the Forum? Still, if it helps to stop just one person from ruining their painting...

Alan Bickley

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An interesting and very comprehensive analysis Robert (I expect no less from you). Over the many years that I have been painting in oils I have probably tried just about everything on the market, as one does... However, for some years now I have settled for just using English distilled turpentine and that's it, nothing else, no oils, no additives and I don't have any problems. I would just add that I do buy decent quality oil paints, my preferred choice being Michael Harding but not his very expensive colours, they are well out of reach.
With Sarah, Phil, Ellen, Rose the dentist, and the granddaughter whose name I forget.

Robert Jones, Napa

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Yes, Alan, I've tried everything out there too - over some 5 decades now: which at least has taught me what needs to be avoided. Some of Michael Harding's colours stretch the wallet beyond endurance, but if you get the chance you must hold on to something, grit your teeth, and get hold of his Cobalt Blue. You'll think you've never painted with Cobalt Blue before if you do.