Notebook

Notebook, 1993-

MATERIALS & METHODS - Painting - Oil Painting

Characteristics - Painting Methods & Techniques - Materials and Equipment - Work Space & Storage - Manufacture of Pigments - Protection of the Picture

Oil Painting - Film Quality


The film flexibility of oil paint has several consequences. Oil paint can be used on flexible supports such as canvas, whereas the more brittle films of the older paints require a rigid support, such as a wood panel or a plaster wall. As canvas can be manufactured in larger sizes than wood panels, it became possible to produce oil paintings in larger formats than those that had been usual when tempera or encaustic was employed.

Because of the oil's flexibility, heavier applications of oil paint do not crack, as do egg tempera or distemper colors. Therefore a greater range of textural effects, from thick to thin and from rough to smooth, becomes possible in the oil technique.

The film flexibility of oil paint allows the building up of layers of paint, one over the other, permitting the artist to paint over parts of the picture, adding further subtlety or unifying the disparate elements in the painting. Oil paintings can become more complex than can pictures painted in older techniques, as the artist adds layer on layer of compositional modification.

Oil paint dries to a tougher, more scratch-resistant film than does egg tempera, distemper, or encaustic, and it is less likely to be damaged by water or moisture than is egg tempera, distemper painting, watercolor, or pastel. [p. 55]

[Kay, Reed. The Painter's Guide to Studio Methods and Materials. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1983.]






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