MITRA Forum Question Details

EditDeleteI am not sure that the answer is going to be any more exacting than that given on Mark Gottsegen's AMIEN. I do need to ask first, what medium? Anything containing a soft resin should be avoided but if used should be only added in extremely small amounts to minimize paint solubility. The medium recipe would greatly influence how much should be added. A medium containing large amounts of solvent could be added in larger proportions than that containing only oil. Alkyd mediums contain solvents and come in different viscosities. Mixtures of oil and calcite are inherently leaner and could be added in slightly larger amounts. Yellowing and potential wrinkling are related to superfluous oily components. Your procedure does seem like it would minimize the physical amount of glaze on the surface. Certainly the thinner the layer the better and this would go a good way to mitigating negative effects. Minimizing oil is also very important and the crux of your question. I am not sure that you could put an exact percentage on this. There are too many factors. Really, one should use just enough medium to allow one to create the effect one is attempting while also using mechanical means to help thinly distribute the paint. You sound like you are doing this and while I do not know your medium recipe, you appear to be using a sound method. Sorry I could not add anything more precise.

EditDeleteAluminum hydroxide or "alumina" has been used as a thickener and stabilizer in oil paint for very long time. It, like aluminum stearat,e creates a gel when dispersed in oil. A very small amount added to an oil paint helps to keep the oil from separating from the pigment, this has been seen as useful, especially for very heavy pigments that want to fall out of the mixture. An excess (beyond what is required to aid is stability) has always been seen as an adulterant. If you buy those really cheap 200 ml tubes of oil paint that sell for 10$ irrespective of the pigment, you are basically getting a tube of aluminum strearate or aluminum hydroxide gelled oil with enough pigment to provide color. This is why student grade paints have a much lower tinting strength than professional grade paints. Aluminum hydroxide is also the primary material in a tube of alizarin crimson or rose matter (this is the substrate that the dye is coordinated onto). Paint these paints out and you will see that their films are rather rubbery and insubstantial. The medium that you mention would is somewhat similar to those touted quite a bit lately composed of a thickened oil and calcite, although I would personally really prefer the calcite/oil mixture as it forms a firmer film with oil than does alumina. I have a tube of a similar medium made by a US company that is 20 years old or so. The residual medium around the tube opening is just as brown as that seen at the opening of an old bottle of drying oil. Additionally, none of these low refractive index fillers (aluminum salts, calcium fillers) mask the yellowing of the oil in the way that many pigments can. I would treat this medium and those like it as if they were slightly leaner painting mediums and limit the proportion so that you create a solid paint film that does not inordinately yellow.