Speed your painting journey by knowing the best techniques. Brad Teare expands and adds to the best of his Thick Paint Blog-a site dedicated to painting with thick texture.
When I started painting I read about a medium that was a mixture of one part turpentine, one part damar varnish, and one part stand oil. It was proffered as a universal and miraculous additive and, if used correctly, would make paintings become uniformly beautiful. Most often the given reason for adding medium was to make the paint buttery or creamy. But why did I want to paint with buttery or creamy paint? But tactile qualities aside, you won't understand how to use mediums until you understand the reason to add medium.
The key to understanding mediums is understanding how oil paint dries and how oil paint forms a stable surface. These two qualities I call structure. Once you understand the structure of oil painting you will understand what medium needs to be added and at what phase. I use medium in two ways: as an additive to paint, to change consistency and the drying time of paint, and to oil up my canvas, that is, to provide a wet surface to paint into. The basic rule is if you are at an early phase of painting use a thin medium and use progressively thicker mediums at later phases, reserving your thickest medium for the last phase.
Additional reasons for adding medium is to get the right consistency for mixing. Especially if you depend on getting broken color directly off the palette you need to have the paint soft enough that it mixes easily but will not overmix (thus losing your broken color). This is true even if you are mixing your color on the canvas. It is a fine balance–soft enough to mix–but stiff enough not to over mix. The exact consistency will vary according to your personal taste and the effect you are trying to acheive.
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