Page 4 - Paints

One of the topics taught at the Painting Best Practices workshops is the optics of paint films. For example, we discuss and demonstrate how light interacts with paint films to create glossy or matte surfaces. Gloss is an observed phenomenon when light is reflected from a surface and thus, to a degree, is a relative effect. When light is reflected in a coherent manner, it creates a specular reflection, which we observe as “gloss”. If the light is scattered it causes diffuse reflection that we observe as “matte”...

Italy is a land of painters and popes, pasta and polenta, and medieval castles and alpine mountains. Most importantly, it is the land of romance. Italy is also a land rich in minerals from which many different colored pigments have historically been used in some of the world’s most important works of art. This article examines a few of the many earth colors available from Italy by Natural Pigments...

Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino, known as Raphael, was an Italian painter and architect of the High Renaissance. His work is admired worldwide for its form, composition, and visual achievement of the Neoplatonic ideal of the human form. This article discusses his painting materials, such as supports, grounds, imprimatura, binders, pigments, and his use of glass powder...

When we think of Mars, we think of the red planet angrily growling at us in the night sky. Its earthy red color is linked to blood and the Greek god of wars. The planet appears distant and non-threatening to us. But Mars is closer than you think. And it is in more colors than red. Mars is a group of synthetic iron oxide colors in a range from orange-red to violet, yellow, brown, and black. The variations of the iron oxide pigments are distinguished by a color descriptor, i.e., ‘Mars red’. Read the article for the complete story of Mars colors...

As a realist painter of long-standing, I’m very happy to now be able to add Mars Brown, Transparent Red Iron Oxide, Transparent Yellow Iron Oxide, and Chromium Oxide Green from Rublev Colours to my Number One Paintbox and my palette. My preference is for oil paints with no stabilizers in them, just linseed oil and pigment, and I know of no other brand that meets those criteria. As Natural Pigments adds more of the colors I need to their Rublev Colours line of oil paints, I will retire those colors I have from other brands and replace them with Rublev Colours...

When making paint, we sometimes encounter surprises. Some are disappointing. Others offer exciting possibilities. This is the latter. Recently a large shipment of lead white pigment arrived at Natural Pigments. We inspected the pigment and accompanying documentation and placed the entire lot in production. That evening production prepared a small batch of lead white number two—our lead white ground in walnut oil. However, the pigment’s color was not white when ground in oil; it was very pale pink...

When purchasing supplies for the winter, I decided to try Rublev Colours’ Zorn Palette, which is composed of only four colors: Lead White, Yellow Ocher, Vermillion, and Bone Black. Named after the Swedish alla prima virtuoso Anders Zorn, this simple selection of colors yields a surprising variety of tones, making it a versatile and practical choice for painters who study from life. This article provides recommendations on using the Zorn palette in painting to work simply within its limitations...

Search the words ‘Zorn Palette’ in Google, and you will find over 604,000 entries. Each discusses the famous four-color palette of Anders Zorn, a Swedish painter adored by thousands worldwide and long hailed as the artist’s artist. Among the many entries in Google are those expressing disbelief about the claim he only had four colors on his palette...

This is a revised table initially published in 2007 with current information on commercial oil colors as of November 1, 2019. The information in this table is compiled from public sources, such as manufacturers’ literature, product labels, and distributors’ websites. The information is subject to change. Please consult with the manufacturer for the latest pigment content of their paint...

Let's toss out the concepts of “fat over lean” and, for that matter, “thick over thin” (or the confused “thick over lean”) while we are at it, and let's consider the physical structure of the paint. To help you to understand the properties of oil paint, it is helpful to understand the relation between the pigment and oil. One way to think about the relationship between pigment and binder is a brick wall. Every mason knows there is an ideal ratio of mortar to brick. Too much mortar, and the wall is weak. Not enough mortar, and the bricks fall apart...

The color of the old masters was more granular and had more body than oil colors today. Anyone who has ever painted with hand-ground colors will recognize the difference...

Dramatic changes in the techniques and materials used by artists began to occur in the latter half of the eighteenth century as the binding media was given much more attention than in previous centuries. This is related to the rising professional status of artists and the formation of academies for training artists, especially in Britain. Rather than using well-tested and reliable methods and materials based on studio practice and apprenticeship, artists began trying out new processes. This, in turn, is related to the vain search for the ‘lost secrets of the masters that led to even more experimentation and scandals, such as that experienced by the Royal Academy of Arts and its president, Benjamin West, at the turn of the nineteenth century...