Old Masters Academy

Posts Tagged "Pigment"

Oil painting materials – Oil Paints

Oil painting materials – Oil Paints

Oil painting materials Oil Paints Oil paint is a mix of a powdered pigment bounded with a medium of drying oil.   Linseed oil is commonly used as a carrier in oil paint. Oil paints can be mixed with linseed oil as a medium to make paints more fluid; this medium also increases glossiness and makes paint more transparent. Linseed oil comes as cold pressed, alkali refined, sun bleached, sun thickened, and polymerised (stand oil). Traditionally, the old masters used to prepare oil paints themselves. Today, ready-made oil paints available in tubes from any art supply shop. It is possible to paint with oils without diluting them with solvents, by using brush pressure to spread the paint out thinly. In…

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Van Gogh’s palette

Van Gogh’s palette Why preserve an artist’s palette? The daubs of raw pigment or the mixes left in position can be an intriguing index to the working method and the mind of the artist. And most, once the status of art had been elevated above the realms of mere craft, would paint themselves palette in hand. Where and how colour is laid can convey emotion, psychology, religious significance. “The whole value of what you are about” wrote John Ruskin in his Elements of Drawing, first published in 1857 “depends on colour. If the colour is wrong, everything is wrong: just as, if you are singing, and sing false notes, it does not matter how true your words are.” In a letter to…

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