Stanley Grimm ROI, RP, 1891 - 1966, was born in London and was a descendant of the brothers Grimm of fairy tale reknown. He was orphaned at an early age.

He was brought to Russia by his father’s family and he studied painting at Riga Art School from 1910-13. He then continued his studies in Munich from 1913-14 this was at the time of the Blaue Reiter period which was of considerable influence to him.

After many adventures including being conscripted by the Bolsheviks to paint propaganda posters in Russia, from which he was reputed to have escaped in a smuggler’s boat. After World War I he settled in London and continued to paint here until his death.

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'There is one important matter I would like to mention about certain oil colours,' says Stanley Grimm. 'Some paints, such as madders, greens, sienna’s, and cobalt blues, contain too much oil, and oil (apart from badly primed grounds) is the main cause of deterioration. It penetrates to the top layer and yellows, thus affecting the whites and blues. It is difficult to put such a fault right again, and bleaching, by exposing the picture to a light blue sky, is only a temporary remedy. Therefore, precaution should be taken by extracting the surplus oil on blotting paper. The less oil in the pigment the better and here a sound medium comes to the assistance of the painter.'

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Oil painting mediums

The most used medium is, of course, turpentine, which should be the diluent in any underpainting, but the best distilled turpentine should be used.

Spirits of turpentine (or high quality petroleum) is a volatile oil and should leave no trace when put on blotting-paper. It should be perfectly distilled, as it possesses greasy matters that never dry. Turpentine should be kept in a hermetically closed bottle, as it becomes resinous when in contact with air.

For the main painting process there are many mediums on the market and the student, in the course of time, will have to find out which of them suits him best. I personally have used for more than thirty years copal oil medium. It prevents ‘sinking in’ and gives certain crispness, and freshens the brush work. It also binds to the ground the linseed or poppy oils contained in the colours, thus preventing cracking and cleavages between the layers and the support, whether canvas or boards.

Copal medium contains copal varnish, linseed oil, and turpentine in equal volume. It is to some degree a dryer and, if the student to slow down the process, poppy oil can be used instead of Linseed as it takes longer to oxidise.

Linseed oil and poppy oil dry without evaporating. Linseed oil is nowadays more in use, but should be well bleached in the sun, and it should be used sparingly, as it is apt to turn acid more easy that poppy oil.

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Surfaces

Canvases and boards

Good canvas is nowadays difficult to obtain, but Winsor & Newton have on the market a standard canvas that is as good as their ‘Winton’ or ‘B.S.P.’ and is excellent for flower painting. it has sufficient ‘tooth’ to give quality to the paint, which is important for rapid painting: there must be no unnecessary delays as the petals and colours of flowers change so quickly and wait for no man.

Preparation

For quick work I recommend that the student should rub the canvas with a very thin preparation of turpentine and raw umber to kill the whiteness of the canvas.

The colour should be wiped off with a rag so that only the stain remains; otherwise it might work itself through the top layer of the colour and darken the tone of the finished picture.

Oil colour should always be put on a ground that is slightly absorbent, so that it does not flake or peel off.

Additional priming

Sometimes it may be desirable, for some luscious colour or glaze, to have a smooth double-primed surface, which can be achieved by putting another priming on the canvas, or a thin layer of lead or foundation white.

A good recipe for priming, which can be used on canvas, sail-cloth, plywood, or board (especially ‘Masonite’ type of board) is:

Size (7 per cent), one volume part; white (zinc preferably), one volume part; whitening, one volume part; and artist’s bleach linseed oil, half volume part.

The absorbency of a canvas, etc., can be adjusted by thinly sizing the surface first and rubbing a thin layer of copal varnish diluted with turpentine over each layer. Two layers are preferable and each layer should be sandpapered first.

The maturing time should be at least two months. A casein ground gives a beautiful velvety surface, but it is somewhat more absorbent. A good prescription is as follows:

Use casein 1 ounce (avoirdupois) and 8 fluid ounces water. Stir well for 10-20 minutes to eliminate lumps, add, slowly, strong ammonia (0.880) about 2 teaspoonsful till a thick, creamy constancy is obtained, and add a volume of whitening. This priming should be made in a double saucepan over a light heat and rubbed through a scrim cloth to ensure uniformity, and should be applied in a warm condition.

Maturing time is about a month, and one coat only, as otherwise it may be brittle (in which case a little glycerine may be added to the mixture).

Gelatine or ordinary size will do for a good close-work canvas.

If the size is pure it will be non-injurious to the colours. it is essential to use either gelatine or size and priming , as oil pigments on an unsized canvas would burn the fibre and eventually destroy it, and it is necessary to protect the canvas from the outside influences such as dampness, impure air, gasses, and so on.

If an additional coat of lead or foundation white is used as a further protection, the maturing time should be several months, so as to let the oil come to the surface to harden before the paint is laid on.

The elasticity of the size will prevent it from cracking and gelatine is, perhaps, an even better medium so far as cracking is concerned. It is purified glue and dissolves easily in hot, but not boiling, water. Ten sheets to a pint of water make a good consistency.

A slightly absorbent canvas has the advantage that the underpainting, instead of working itself through to the coat of paint, absorbs the colour of the overpainting and draws so much oil that the pigment dries with a dull surface of its original brilliancy – no oil to darken or to yellow the colour. Mastic varnish will give a luminous effect if so desired, or a matt varnish will protect it from oxidation, gasses, and dirt.

Wood panels

Wood panels are a tricky business, but with a good priming of a ‘gesso’ surface are pleasant to paint on.

Gesso is more impervious to climatic conditions and dampness, but the panels are cumbersome and expensive, and I hardly recommend them to a student. However gesso is easily obtained from the artist’s colourman and can be mixed in a few minutes by adding cold water to the consistency of a smooth, thick cream.

The important thing to remember is not to use any resinous pine or fir panels. Whitewood panels warp badly but five ply board or mahogany and chestnut are good – though expensive. Nevertheless, they should be coated on both sides because, however dry they are, they are affected by the weather, shrinking in dry air and expanding in moisture, even splitting sometimes.

They are really never safe unless kept under ideal conditions and there is additional danger from work ravages. A panel needs at least two coatings of gesso or other priming, and the seconds should not be applied before the first is stone dry.

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Brushes

Brushes should be nursed and handled like one’s own children.

They should be kept perfectly clean and neat. After use the paint should be squeezed out, the brushes dipped into turpentine or paraffin and washed in soft soap or with a bar of ordinary kitchen soap in warm water. They must then be well rinsed in cold water so that no turpentine or paint is left in them.

The brushes chiefly used for flower painting should be of hog’s hair and square in shape.

‘Filbert’ brushes are excellent. They are a combination of the square and the round brushes. The square brush gives a clear cut edge and the ‘Filbert’ is most suitable for rubbing in the paint.

A selection of about a dozen or more from a small size to bout an inch wide should be enough for the beginning. The student will soon find out which are the most suitable for his personal technique.

A few small sable brushes come in useful for fine lines or detail work, but the student would be well advised to be careful not to lose touch with a free and broad handling, and should try to avoid unnecessary and disturbing finicky details.

The student should learn the appreciation of the essentials and their representation in a sketch-generalising way.

The rough sketching is the first foundation to a drawing, and is of such importance that one often archives more thought than one can carry through with great labour afterwards.

Rembrandt was a great exponent of this, though he was a slow and pondering worker. He used a combination of pen and brush work. Sometimes, in order to obtain an elaborate pictorial effect, he used chalk combined with pen and brush in bistre, Indian ink and even oil colours. He used a reed, a quill pen, or a brush.

The flexible quill pen, with his rapid and thought-out loops and curves, was most suitable to his baroque drawings. The reed pen, with it brittle character, he used for straight lines either sharp along the edge or broad along the shaft. The reed absorbed the ink and the half-dry pen yielded strokes of a fluid iridescence with a vibrancy and transparency and fluorescence surpassed by no other artist. I mentioned this because the art student should learn to sketch in oil paint and endeavour only gradually to amplify his sketches with more details.

I deliberately mention the various pens Rembrandt used as I want the pupil to acquire the knowledge of how the use of his various brushes or even stumps may help him in his technique, and, if he acquires freedom of handling his colours, he may perhaps attain the vibrancy and fluorescence of a master.

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Light and Colour Vibration

Light and colour vibration are all helped by easy brush work. Light and colour vibrate and change quickly, and once the student has laid down his colour scheme and his watched carefully his tone values, and has his composition well planned, he should endeavour not to alter or repaint it but to build up on his original foundation, relying on his memory inventions here and there, and letting his fantasy help him to improve the pattern, the colour, and his handwriting (brush strokes), so as to make his technique look lively. The onlooker should see only the joy of the painting, and not the anguish and struggle of the artist in trying to deliver his message.

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Finishing, varnishing, and painting

Finishing the picture simply means checking all the details and, if necessary, cutting away with a knife superfluous unwanted edges and lumps, and generally improving the surface.

When this is all done try the picture in a frame first without and then add the glass, and be your own judge. if no improvement is at first visible, put it with its face to the wall for a few days and forget all about it.

After a while you come back with a fresh vision and your judgement will be much sounder. If a slight oiling is wanted, after the top layer is fairly dry, and will not run, do not overdo it.

A ‘Retouché’ varnish can be applied or a tin coating of dammar in petroleum, if the picture should be finished a few days before being exhibited. But the effect will wear away fairly soon and no trace of it will be seen in a year’s time – which is the right time to give it a mastic varnish or a wax varnish protection.

Framing is of importance, not only for the general appearance – a frame can make or break a picture – but also because it is important for its preservation.

In London, where the air is impure, a glass is essential and generally is to be recommended. It generally ‘pulls’ the picture together and gives a certain depth.

Only rare and fine pastel shades are likely to suffer badly under glass, but with these the inevitable slight tint of the glass may disturb or alter some of the very effects. In any case in which these very pale shades are dominant, the picture has to be carefully looked after and kept free of dirt without glass: a coat of matt varnish is generally advisable for such pictures.

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