Page 5 - Artist Materials Advisor

Although wax has been used for centuries as a wood finish and sometimes as a finish for pictures, wax does not provide the same protection as a varnish. However, wax has been used on top of varnishes to reduce surface gloss and protect the varnish from dirt. It is also useful as a protective coating on paintings that are not typically varnished, such as tempera or watercolor...

Natural Pigments introduces an oil painting medium called Italian Varnish. Italian Varnish was first mentioned by Jean-François-Léonor Mérimée in his 1839 book, The art of painting in oil and in fresco, as a “strong oil prepared in Italy from a very remote period, and which possesses the double-advantage of drying well, and preventing the flowing about of the most liquid glazing.”...

This live episode of Art Materials Advisor features exclusive interviews by George O’Hanlon and Tatiana Zaytseva with silverpoint artists Koo Schadler, Lauren Redding, Erin Kono, and Michael Paul. Learn all about these artists and how they created the remarkable artwork they’ve achieved with the ancient drawing medium of silverpoint...

Cadmium sulfide compounds form a significant group of yellow to red pigments. The discovery of cadmium began with the medicinal use of another element, zinc. The very property that led to the condemnation of zinc white, which ultimately brought about the discovery of cadmium, is the yellow color, now most frequently used in paint, ceramics, glass, and plastics...

Malachite, a mineral of copper, is one of the most beautiful minerals known. In the natural state, this relatively soft mineral usually shows various tints of green, varying from dark, rich green to bright Kelly green. Since the earliest civilizations, it has been carved into art forms, semiprecious jewelry, or ground into a fine powder for use as an artist’s pigment...

Azurite is composed of mineral basic carbonate of copper, found in many parts of the world in the upper oxidized portions of copper ore deposits. Azurite varies in masstone color from deep blue to pale blue with a greenish undertone depending on such factors as the purity of the mineral and the grade (particle size) of the pigment. Azurite was the most important blue pigment in European painting throughout the middle ages and Renaissance...

One way Venetian artists developed color in their paintings was to apply multiple thin, translucent layers that blend color in luminous, vibrant ways. Lomazzo described it in his treatise as painting “transparently.” This method of color mixing, known today as glazing, relies on being able to paint translucently, smoothly, and thinly. Glazes rely on achieving transparency which is antithetical to the opacity or hiding power of pigments. Venetian artists’ innovative use of materials aloe them to create remarkable glazes that are more complex than previously supposed by art historians...

This guide examines oil painting mediums made by Natural Pigments. These paint mediums are designed to alter the consistency of oil paint in novel ways, different from the varnishes that were in common use since the nineteenth century and alkyd mediums today. Painting mediums change the handling properties of paint, such as flow out and leveling; increase or decrease tackiness and drag; hasten or retard drying time, increase or decrease gloss; increase transparency, and other physical properties of oil paint...

White is the lightest color and is achromatic (having no hue). White reflects all the colors of the visible light spectrum to the eyes. But in a technical sense, white is not a color like black; it is a shade. Black and white augment colors. White is not simply white. Each different white oil paint has a hue bias, often called ‘temperature’ by artists. Each white oil paint also has other properties, such as hiding power or opacity and tinting strength and how it flows or behaves under the brush or palette knife, known as rheology. This guide to white oil paint for artists can help you select the right white for your painting...

Orpiment is a rich lemon or canary yellow with fair covering power and good chemical stability as a pigment. It is designated as brilliant yellow in Munsell notation 4.4Y 8.7/8.9. It is an arsenic sulfide mineral that occurs naturally in small deposits as a product of hydrothermal veins, hot spring deposits, and volcanic sublimation, although nowadays, it can be easily obtained artificially. The arsenic content makes it toxic, although it was also used in medicine, cosmetics, and as a biocide in ancient times...