Page 17 - Artist Materials Advisor

Since the introduction of the collapsible tube over 170 years ago, manufactured artists’ oil paint has changed the way artists work. Artists no longer must laboriously grind pigment in oil to make paint. With this change also came greater uniformity in oil paint. Let’s face it; the composition of oil color is pretty simple. Generally, only three items are used in a modern oil color formula. They are the pigment, the oil, and a stabilizer (typically aluminum stearate). And as more and more pigments manufactured by large industrial companies find their way into artists’ oil colors, the last differences also disappear...

Purifying natural ultramarine requires more operations than grinding, washing and sieving the mineral. Here are several resources on the method described by Cennino Cennini in his famous treatise Il libro dell'arte...

The palette is one of the most essential tools in the history of oil painting, and its effect is one of the most minor studied aspects in art history. Setting the palette has a significant history; its development is relatively easy to trace in pictures of artists at work. The use of a set, limited palette, a portable surface upon which colors are arranged according to their tonal value, and its implications in painting is the subject of a lecture by George O’Hanlon, Technical Director of Natural Pigments. The first part of the lecture is featured in this article...

Rublev Colours Stack Process White Lead is made in small amounts according to the 16th-century Dutch method, differing little from the historical “stack process.” It is a basic carbonate of lead and usually contains about 70% lead carbonate and 30% lead hydroxide. This grade of white lead is composed of the actual flakes that fall off the corroded lead coils of the stack process and the white lead that is mechanically removed. It is washed and ground, ready to be mixed with a paint binder...

Instacoll is a size (adhesive) for high-gloss, weather-resistant exterior, and interior gilding. It can be used on nearly all substrates prepared using standard methods to create weather-resistant surfaces...

Vermilion and cinnabar are historical pigments of red mercuric sulfide (HgS). The former is the artificial mineral pigment, whereas the latter, cinnabar, is the mineral found in nature. Their hues and undertones are unmatched by any modern equivalent pigments, such as cadmium red...

How to make shell gold and apply shell gold to icons and paintings, and its use in icon paintings...

Dammar (or damar) or soft copal varnishes are soft, very flexible, and transparent but dry slowly. These varnishes have a bright appearance and a faint pale yellow color. The color may be varied from golden yellow to yellowish brown by gamboge, dragon's blood, and asphaltum...

An earth color palette, the core palette used by old masters, provides both important limitations and advantages. The most significant limitation is the number of hues available in very light and dark values at a high intensity (chromatic purity). Earth colors, because of their subtle nature and the harmony of their hues and relative values, can be used more spontaneously. Although the limitation mentioned, a great variety of color effects is nonetheless possible; a variety considered more than adequate by many of the greatest old masters, including the most famous colorists of the Renaissance...

This tutorial describes how to prepare and apply a base for gilding and how to apply the gold leaf and burnish the gold. This tutorial includes working with dry powder or cone bole, such as Selhamin Poliment, or wet paste bole, such as Charbonnel Gilder's Clay Base...