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 - Disadvantages
Some of the disadvantages associated with oil painting should be mentioned here. Some painters require a paint that sets faster than oil paint does because they like to work over a dry underpainting with a rapid sequence of washes or overpaintings. For them the slow drying of oil paint is a disadvantage, and they turn to other media. In other cases, relying on the oil medium's latitude for repainting, an indecisive artist may postpone the solution of major problems in the picture's composition and drawing, causing the work to suffer from a lack of clarity and from insufficient firmness of expression. Similarly the ease with which oil paint can be blended sometimes encourages a soft muddy effect and a lack of clear color and shape definition. Finally, linseed oil paint films do become somewhat yellow and darker as they age, although the use of good materials and sound technique can reduce this darkening to a point at which it is scarcely noticeable. Many oil paintings by the old masters retain a high quality of chromatic and tonal intensity after more than four hundred years. [p. 56]

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











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