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Message
Posted
I'm also stuck in the middle of an oil painting that I REALLY want to crack on with, but I know I shall be on a hiding to nothing if I try rushing it before my previous layer has got tacky enough to add more paint. Frustrating, in't it?
Yes, well - you know now that solvent will certainly play merry hell with any coloured pencil; you might have got away with it had you just used Linseed Oil, but I'm by no means sure you would have done. It would have been a better idea to use charcoal, blow the excess away leaving yourself with a ghost image, and then go over that with dilute oil paint, which will dry overnight whether you use Turps or Linseed. Could you still do that now?
Posted
Robert, thanks very much for the suggestion. Get very frustrated with oils not drying quickly like acrylic but on the other hand it's that aspect that is so much better for blending between colours. Might take a previous suggestion of Anth and treat myself to some Pebeo oils which he says dry much quicker and certainly he is able to produce great paintings with them. Don't actually have any charcoal at the moment but I'll see if I can get some and give it a try.
Edited
by Steve Andrews
Posted
Yes, a thin stick of charcoal will do the job, that’s what I generally use if I’m scaling up a painting.
As Robert has mentioned, you must blow or dust it off before adding oil paints over it. Problem here though is the relatively small size that you’re working on, not to mention the detail on this subject - charcoal is not the stuff of detail... even the thinnest stick will leave a broad line.
Pigment quality is everything when it comes to oil paint. Cheaper oils don’t have the same intensity or quality of pure pigment, and are padded out with fillers! Believe me, there is a huge difference between artist and student quality paints, I’m sure that Robert will agree with me here, and he’s far more of an expert on the subject!
I know that we both agree that Michael Harding oil paints are the best out there, excellent to paint with although quality always comes with a price!
You could use an Alkyd medium to speed up drying, I don’t particularly like adding stuff to my oils but it does work.
Anyway, you’ve made an impressive start Steve... patience is the word with oils.
Posted
There is indeed a big difference between student paints and professional quality paints - the saving grace there, though, is that a good artist can paint with poor paint and still amaze us; but we all need the extra help which a great paint will give. It's frustrating having to battle with layer on layer of paint, trying to get the pigment strength you need, when you know that if you'd bought a better quality paint, you'd need just the one layer and could move on. (I have a classic test here: take a student grade Cobalt Blue, paint out a swatch, then paint a swatch of Michael Harding's Cobalt Blue next to it; repeat with student grade Ultramarine, and Harding's; do the same with any yellow of your choice, then a red; even Burnt Umber! The student paint will be full of fillers and stabilizers; the Harding will be pure pigment - and it'll show.)
Brings me to the budget paint that is Pebeo - I didn't know it dried faster than other oils; that's interesting, and I wonder why it does. I would say of it though that it's a paint you could certainly use for illustrations - paintings of cars, or in your case aeroplanes; with a careful drawing underneath it, it'll do the job. The problems arise with landscapes and portraiture, where you need a range of subtle colours, or very strong colours that can be mixed and blended. Again - it can be done; but who's got the patience? Not I .... I don't want to have to fight with my paint.
Pastel pencil under oil..... lightly done? Well, don't take me as the gospel, but I foresee no problems with that - the granular pastel will mix with the paint with no problem. I'd be less keen, by a fairly long way, on using oil pastel under oil paint - it CAN work, but oil pastel, despite its name, isn't oil at all: if you were to use that, it's one of the relatively few occasions on which I'd recommend using Turps, to thin it right out.
I've nearly finished that oil painting I was struggling with, by the way! You swear (literally, usually) that this isn't going to come right, what the hell can I do with it, then you look away, look back, and realize - you're nearly there.
Posted
Thanks for all the advice and suggestions. Plodding on with the oils I have at the moment after the overpainting has dried. I know many car artists use gouache which is probably similar to acrylic. But really I should be able to achieve something satisfactory with what I have rather than blaming my "tools"!
