MITRA Forum Question Details

A properly formatted ground chosen for the type of media you are applying should not require oiling out. Additionally, a mixture of egg white and oil is not an emulsion that would be considered very stable. There is little in egg white to serve as an emulsifier, unlike egg white which contains large amounts of lecithin, a natural emulsifier. Egg white is primarily protein, which means that it will become rather brittle. The oil would plasticize the film some, but I do not think it is advisable unless there is something special about the mixture.

An important consideration here is whether the painting is executed on canvas or panel and what type of ground was applied. A painting on panel might be fine with this layer while one on canvas may not. I would certainly warn against adding an emulsion like this between oil layers. This sounds somewhat similar to techniques employed by the early 20th c African American Painter Henry Ossawa Tanner. Kristin and I have done a lot of work on Tanner and his paintings using a mixed method like this are often in seriously poor condition.

Under the specific circumstances you mention, and assuming that the ground is chalk-glue/gesso/ or an acrylic dispersion, this would probably pose no issue as long as it is only an initial “oiling out” and not being used as an interlayer between paint applications.

As to Louis Velasquez,  I do not want to character assassinate here, but when one puts oneself into the position of being an expert, despite having no background to support this assumption, one must be willing to take criticism.

Louis Velasquez has no background in codicology, art history, technical art history, organic media analysis, paint technology, flow dynamics, painting conservation, and quite frankly, he clearly has little experience with successful fine art painting based on the evidence shown in the images of his paintings. I do not want to hurt this, clearly earnest, individual's feelings, but I feel that, given the above, one should take his advice with the most minute grain of salt.