The ART of THICK PAINT

19. Using Thick Paint

THICK OILS (AND THE USE OF PUTTY)

Recently I've been intrigued with the idea of using putty as white. Putty lends a sparkle and luster to lighter values whereas adding white paint (such as Titanium White) tends to neutralize color. Using putty as white is vastly superior to using Zinc White if you are using Zinc White as a low tinting pigment. Some studies suggest that Zinc White will cause paint to crack even if added in small amounts. Of course, putty also adds texture, a quality that is most becoming in areas saturated with light. Tad Spurgeon offers so many variations of putty I confess that I haven't tried them all. I declined experimenting with some recipes because the effect was not what I needed but others promise to solve several problems. My favorite recipe (of my own making) is simply Gamblin's G-Gel mixed with chalk from Natural Pigments. I also occasionally use Natural Pigment's Venetian medium as a couch (a layer of medium I brush onto a dry layer of paint in order to paint as if painting wet-into-wet. See entry 17).

It takes some practice to fully understand the usefulness of putty as a white additive and using putty as a couch. Initially I struggled quite a bit even though I could clearly see putty's value in expanding the painting process beyond one session of alla prima virtuosity. Although I have yet to find the perfect putty (it would be perfectly transparent yet thicker than paint from a tube) I continue to experiment with this fascinating and useful medium.

DRYING THICK PAINT

SINCE I paint alla prima I usually let my paint dry naturally without any additives. More often I will add walnut oil to slow drying if I need a two day painting session with a large painting. But occasionally I still have need to add dryers when I'm preparing for a show and I need to make a few last-minute adjustments. One such occasion was this week when I needed to adjust some paintings for an upcoming exhibit.

I had three paintings that needed modification (see video entry 32). In the first one I used a putty using Galkyd and chalk. I added a few drops of cobalt dryer to this medium as well as a few drops to each bit of color.

In my second painting I glazed the light parts of the painting using G-gel from Gamblin paints. I added G-gel to my paint as well.

In my third painting I made a putty using walnut alkyd medium made by M. Graham & Company to which I added quite a bit of chalk to thicken it up. In all three cases when I needed white I used a fast drying alkyd titanium white.

The mixture that dried the fastest was the first one, the medium with the cobalt dryer. It dried in one day. This didn't surprise me as cobalt dryer is a powerful additive. Normally I only use it in extreme cases because it is prone to crack and yellow. I might use it occasionally to add to a signature or last-minute preparation for a show. The other two mixtures dried in two days.

So while I try not to make using dryers a habit I do use them in the preparation of some of my putties, especially my mixture of Gamblin G-gel and chalk which I think is a perfectly acceptable, archival addition to my painting methods.

CORRECTING A FAILED PAINTING

Although I love thick paint one of the disadvantages is that once the paint is dry it is quite difficult to make changes. I've struggled with a variety of techniques and all of them fall short of painting a scene right in the first place. But if the painting has enough virtues you owe it to your work to learn to salvage a weak painting as best you can.

I have tried many times to simply paint over the roughly painted texture. But I've found this to be nearly impossible. If you try to paint right over a highly textured area the corrected area will have a dry, leathery, chalky quality. So I have to scrape the dried paint until it is reasonably smooth. But you don't need to scrape down to the canvas. A slight texture is not altogether undesirable. In fact, if you scrape too much you will get a surface that is too smooth.

To scrape the canvas I use a variety of ceramic tools. They are too dull right out of the package but I sharpen them with a common sharpening stone. I then strop them by applying a drop of chromium oxide green oil paint onto an old piece of leather. Make sure it is real chromium green oil paint and not a hue. The chromium oxide in the paint is identical to stropping compound and you can get a finely honed edge which will give you the control you need to very carefully scrape dried paint from the canvas. Be careful though, by using the chromium oxide green as a stropping compound the ceramic tool will be sharper than you might expect.

After the canvas is scraped smooth I brush a thick, transparent medium onto the canvas. Some artists call this oiling up or painting into a couch (a French word that is pronounced KOOSH).

I then paint into this layer of oil using paint that I have slightly diluted with a small amount linseed oil or walnut oil. This additional oil helps the paint to go on with smooth, facile strokes. Otherwise the paint can be too sticky and simply push the layer of oil around on the canvas. After you get a certain amount of paint built up into this layer of oil you can begin to add as much textured paint as you desire.

Although this technique seems ideal it has its problems and I have never been fully satisfied and try to keep its use to minimum. It has however saved many paintings that otherwise would be suitable only for the trash heap. When it is well executed it is almost impossible to detect its implementation.