Watching paint dry

Norette, if you pursue both versions, you must post them for us to see!

I’m puzzled by this discussion. First of all, my understanding is that water mixable oils have less oil and are cleaned off brushes etc by rinsing in water. They are not meant to be diluted with water as you paint, you use them out of the tube, with special medium or VERY  slightly with a bit of water.  Yes they are stickier but this might vary with brand - mine are Cobra. I do prefer trad oils but water mixable are very useful to take outside to paint. As for fat over lean…I don’t know what I’m doing which is different but my oils are touch dry after 2 or 3 days - this depends on the colours used. Earth colours dry more quickly, whites more slowly. If you’re really in a hurry, buy an alkyd white and when it’s added to any colour ( and white is prevalent in oil painting) it speeds up drying. The downside is that you may not be able to move the paint around the next day - but just add another layer! When I start a painting I block in with paint plus thinner ( lean). As the painting progresses I leave out the thinner. I may use a medium, not often, but usually there is enough oil in the paint not to warrant extra oil ( the “ fat”). The brand of paint sometimes varies in “ stiffness” or workability - most of my paints are Jackson’s professional with occasionally a “ treat”, a Michael Harding.

I think some people believe that you can mix Cobra etc with water, giving a rather different effect I guess, but I never tried that, not even a small amount . I don’t really think about the fat over lean thing, so was just interested in how one would find doing two paintings in WM and Traditional at the same time. I mostly used Cobra and some Artisan, but haven’t touched them for a while.

Norette, if you pursue both versions, you must post them for us to see!

If they are not a total disaster, then I will

Hi Marjorie, I think my problem with miscibles was having no thinner to go with them for my ground, which is still touch wet after 5-6 days.

Norette, you could use trad oils for your ground. Once dry there wouldn’t be a problem continuing with mixables. Could you “tonk” ( blot) your ground so it would dry more quickly?

Thanks Marjorie, had totally forgotten about tonking! and my new traditional ground is already drier than the WM ground I did 3/4 days ago

Giving any advice here is a bit difficult because of the weight of past advice bearing down on all of us.  Still, never mind eh, here goes! Water miscible oils don't contain less oil; they contain a modified oil - modified in ways the makers feel they can't tell us without divulging trade secrets.  For that reason alone, I'd have no trust in them to perform well archivally - but by "archivally", I mean anything up to 500 years.  Not all of my stuff, if I'm being ENTIRELY frank, deserves to last that long anyway.... and I wouldn't hesitate to use water-miscibles if I liked them; but I don't.  I don't really see any advantage to them for outside sketches, either; though yes, they could probably make clean-up a bit quicker ... though you'd still have to squeeze the paint out of your brushes... and if you have a pochade box, you can clean your palette when you get home, not out in the field.   I shall dodge about a bit here, as a point occurs to me (or I can retrieve it): fat over lean - all that means is that if you lay down a layer of paint heavy in oil, and then add paint thinned with solvent on top, it's likely to crack, or just not to "take" in the first place.  It also means that if you lay in a luscious field of cadmium red, and then add a thin (not necessarily thinned) layer of paint on top, you are probably courting problems.  But then - it's so easy to avoid such problems by starting your painting with leaner colours, which are usually the earth colours as Margaret said - Mars colours, Raw Sienna, Raw Umber, Terre Verte, for instance.  Many  portrait painters used Terre Verte, details picked out with real Flake White, then glazed over with richer colours.  (Yellow Ochre, though, can be quite oily.  Mars Yellow would be a good alternative.) Fat over lean doesn't mean using no oil at all in your underpainting - just the very minimum you can get away with - sure, you can also "Tonk" it: Tonks himself used the broadsheet London Times - what would he have done with tabloids, I wonder..?  As Marjorie also said, it's the paint itself which one has to consider in determining fat over lean - using an oily black or, say, Alizarin crimson, in early layers, would therefore be a mistake.  Plus - stretched canvas is FAR more of a problem for fat over lean than a genuinely inflexible surface.   Cleaning up with water: Where does this idea that you can't clean regular oils up with water come from?  If it's so difficult or impossible, how come I've been doing it for 50 years?  Remove the excess paint with a paper towel; squeze out as much as you can; then give the brushes a wash with Murphy's, or any plain household soap.  A bit of shampoo now and then helps, too - especially for sable (with which you must be gentle: but even rough-housing them is better than cleaning them with solvent). Whether we like water-miscibles or not is largely a matter of choice - and they're not all the same.  Between Artisan by W & N, Cobra, and Grumbacher, which are the only w/m paints I have experience of, there are considerable differences in pigment load, tone, saturation and intensity, chroma - some will be better than others: but the price-line indicates that these are not top level paints.  I don't see any single reason to think that they're in any way better than, or as good as, eg Georgian, Winton, or Lucas oil colour.  Those are medium-range paints which fall consderably short of the ideal - though tens of thousands of painters across the globe use them and paint good pictures with them.  I do avoid those with Zinc Oxide in them, but otherwise I can see not one good reason why you should change from e,g, Georgian to a water-miscible alternative UNLESS you thin them with Turps, OMS, Zest-It etc: and if you do, well - don't.  If your paint needs more flow, mash it with a palette knife, and if necessary add a touch of Linseed Oil - i.e. a TOUCH - not a drop more than you need.   Finally (for now) if you don't get on with Linseed Oil - for whatever reason - use it in your mid-layers, then finish off with Walnut Oil - it may have less tendency to yellow, BUT - I don't know that from personal experience; and any suggestions I make here are based on personal experience bolstered by, but not entirely based on, extensive reading: I wouldn't waste your time with theory alone.  Because I'm a kindly old soul.....

Robert, I’m certainly no expert…just describing what works for me. My point about water mixables en plein air is to do with spillage - I don’t fancy dropping thinner on to clothes etc. The nature of en plein air for me is not as easy as “at home”. I’m still at the flummoxed stage at times - where do I put this, where do I balance that? I usually upset something followed by curses! Water doesn’t have the same effect. Don’t mind spilling that. Re using thinner in the early stages helps drying - no, of course you don’t need it but it speeds things up. And yes, thinner plus paint over oily paint is a no no. You are technically expert re composition of paint - I’m not, just want to paint and perhaps reflect a bit on why something hasn’t worked. I certainly accept your expertise but I’m impatient, I’m not one for making colour charts etc. That may reflect in my work😆. What is clear though is that we’re both, as are many others, passionate about making art. Long may that last! Here endeth the sort of sermon!

Well said Marjorie, we all do what we can, to get the picture we want in the conditions we experience. I looked at the various lean paints in Virgil's list, and thought - but I don't want that colour, it's all a little dull, and perhaps his 100% traditional way will turn out a lot of similar works of art.  I want colour at the moment, so I'll take a look at the Scottish colourists to see how they managed it. I expect most of the experts on here started out with the cheaper grade of paint until they felt confident enough to not chuck out what they've just produced. I came across a Michael Harding paint in my online travails yesterday...£149 a tube...Merde!  If I'm successful in my mind at oil, I will graduate beyond Georgian, when my palette is settled. As I explained on another thread, my water mixable excursion is more to do with respect for my fellow painters (mostly watercolourists) than a personal preference (although my mother, a trad oil artist, did contract NHL as did the infamous Bob Ross). I never have the time to explain to my fellow artists that oils don't always equal chemicals these days. Especially since tutors tick the health and safety boxes.  I will compare both types for almost scientific purposes.  However, I expect WM will be a fad as many pigments are missing in the manufacturer's offerings of late. Nonetheless, Robert, your advice is invaluable to all of us. Keep on informing us!

£149?  Gordon Bennett - what were you looking at?  No, I'd never pay that if I could possibly avoid it - and if I couldn't possibly avoid it, I'd avoid oil paint.    Marjorie - point is, you won't need to spill noxious seed upon the ground if you just avoid petroleum-based solvents: I haven't used them for some years now: you can use water with regular oils - it won't get your brushes spotlessly clean when working outside, but then neither will solvent-based thinners: it's not a choice, not an either/or, that you have to make.  If you want to avoid spillage of noxious substances, avoid those noxious substances - I don't know that a spill of turps on the sand-dunes would really be an environmental disaster, but I wouldn't want to do it either: and if we avoid solvents - well, we can't.   Water miscibles oils are not a target on which I've trained my rifle - even though I don't like them and don't see a real need for them.  It's no problem to me if people use them, and if they achieve good results, well I'm happy for them: Murray Ince championed them, Murray was a friend of mine, and he was a good painter.  All I try to do is say that you can do a hell of a lot with regular oils, and don't need to quail before them - they obviate most of the arguments for water-miscible oils; and I don't like to use w/m oils.  But if others do, and get on with them - good!  Murray did - many have - it just doesn't matter that I don't like 'em, if you do.  All I'd ask is that I would hope people examine the reasons for my not liking them -  and then make their own minds up quite freely.   Which I bet you'd do anyway!

Whoo! £143 ! No, haven't spent that much! Can't remember the brand, might have been Jackson's oil,( not going upstairs to check), but I bought a tube of gorgeous turquoise for £36. Worth it for the happiness and joy it gave me - an uplifting colour! Digressing further, I did see a watercolour brush for £250.....