Page 22 - Artist Materials Advisor

Many vegetable drying oils have been available to the coatings industry for nearly a century. Still, they have not been made available to artists working on oil painting or, in many cases, are mainly unknown to artists today. This may be due to the lack of information published about these oils in artists' manuals and not taught in art schools. This article introduces the many different drying oils (in this case, these are all derived from flaxseed) available to the industry and now to artists through Natural Pigments.

Here are some gilding tips and tricks that save you lots of time and trouble. Most of these tips apply to gilding on parchment, but many readily apply to gilding on paintings.

Richard Symonds (1617–1660) was an English royalist, antiquary, and amateur artist who is now remembered for his eyewitness diary of events of the First English Civil War. His Italian notebooks are an important resource for painting techniques of the 17th century.

Why hand mull pigments into paint? Two primary reasons for doing so are to break down agglomerates of pigment particles and disperse pigments into the paint evenly. Most artists know the need to mix pigment with a binding medium smoothly. Still, few know how breaking agglomerations of pigment particles can also improve the saturation of the paint color. Fewer still know about the possibilities that grinding pigments afford for altering the visual appearance of pigment in paint.

Silverpoint is rarely used today except by a few persons who take an interest in traditional artists' materials, yet it was a favorite technique of the old masters. The disuse of silverpoint, after graphite sticks came into use during the 17th century, is one of the most curious details of technical art history. It is peculiar that an instrument once used by the most famous artists who ever drew on paper should have come to be neglected and despised by their successors.

The reverse side of the wood and stretched fabric (canvas) supports need protection from moisture and changes in relative humidity. A method described in a Canadian Conservation Institute Note and other conservation articles describes materials that artists can employ to protect their own work.

At least one artists' materials manufacturer uses 'nanospheres' as an ingredient in some of their oil paint. What are these scrumptious-sounding little globes, and what do they do to the paint? The term 'nanospheres' is not typically used in the industry to designate fumed silica but appears to be a term coined by some companies to obscure the actual ingredients. Indeed, the term sounds more enticing than fumed silica and plays well with the idea of the optical properties of paint.

Tempera grassa, which Pietro Annigoni learned from the Russian artist Nikolai Lokoff, is a variation of tempera painting that some believe to have been used by artists in the 16th century, although there is little evidence so far to support this claim.

An interesting reference in a manual regarding the drying properties of oil paint has some application to oil painters. Some of the information is outdated and inaccurate, yet it does provide an easy-to-understand explanation of drying properties. I have edited some of the content to make it more applicable to artists.

Each day we receive many questions about how to make paint. One question that is often asked is regarding a "formula" for making paint.