Oil Painting: How And When To Use Medium 

Lol

Not sure if anyone gives a shit but if you're bored like me atm you can watch all the latest series on Instaflixxer. Have been watching with my brother lately =)

@Waylon Bruno Yup, I've been using instaflixxer for months myself :)

What a sweet sentiment. You can do it! 🦋

@@sharkchisha Thanks 👍 xxx

Happy to help!

Glad it was helpful!

No problem 😊

@@paintcoach u are the best 😍

Great! Good luck!

My first set of oil paints was given to me by my grandmother over seventy years ago! STILL PAINTING!!😊❤

Try Odorless mineral spirits. They’re still toxic, just like your paints, but they don’t have a strong smell like paint thinner, even though it is used to thin your paint.

haha I don't. Patreon handles that

I love disposable pallet paper! I wipe it clean and keep using it over and over, until it's destroyed. If you have painted with acrylics or water, you will love to paint in oil glazes! You will have much better control with drying time and repair! You will have to experiment with mediums and thinners, as they all seem to be different. You have a very good background to work from! Stay with it , and you will be richly rewarded!

I'm from the "old" school! Since they seemed to have outlaw turpentine, many people are selling substitute thinners! Can't stand many of them, because of the effects. How do you choose? I mainly paint glazes like the old masters! SAVES a ton of money! Makes for easier repairs and quick drying time?! Especially if I use a cobalt thinner! To get a "impasto" look I use à putty mixture underneath my oil painting, for a "raised on the surface" look. Similar to embossing or sculpture, give it a wonderful 3-D look with more depth! My other gripe is the outlawing of flake white! The toxic issue is way over hyped. Cadiums and cobolts are much worse! I've been painting for over seventy years now, with no bad side effects! PAINTING IS A WONDERFUL INTEREST AND CHALLENGE WHEN YOU GET OLDER! It's been a challenge trying to figure what medium to use now! Especially drying time! Sometimes I don't like the "plowed" look that oils make. The great thing is that their is so many ways of applying paint ! Especially with the modern tools we have today! You can have an endless supply of options!

No. If it's already primed you should be good to go

Paint Coach thank you. I started using after hearing you recommended. I love it!

Will do!

That is not fat over lean! There is nothing wrong with putting oil on oil! It will still be strong for many years!

My first paintings as a child was on cardboard! It did soak up a lot of paint and and bleed thru! Most of my life was painting on canvas! Not any more! I now paint on sealed ,one eighth inch plywood! Cheaper and stronger then canvas! Can be hung without a frame! The Mona Lisa was painted on wood and it's more than 400 years old!

I think it all comes down to preference. I use a knife when I'm mixing alot of paint but for small amounts ill mix right on the brush. Brush mixing can also hold some unique mixtures that would be near impossible to replicate.

It's probably a personal preference. I like using a palette knife to mix my main colours and then I tweak them with my paintbrush as I go along. My advice would be to try both and see which method you prefer.

@@SmillyDonut 👌

How do you live as a painter without a pallet knife? I found that mixing paints with a brush, really destroys the brush! Far as cleaning my brushes I use a cleaner- thinner , found at Ace hardware. It's really weird and hard to get along with as it doesn't "thin" the paint! But my brushes thank me by lasting longer and better! The paint that gets stuck next to the ferrule is the biggest problem..

Please don't be afraid to try oil paints - they are so much fun and very safe if you use a little common sense! Your friend is correct that linseed oil is combustible, but it is very easy to prevent fires if you handle it correctly. The reason it can cause a fire is that linseed oil oxidizes rather than dries. That means that unlike water-based paints where the paint attaches to the surface as the water in it evaporates, oil paints attach permanently to the surface by the molecules bonding together in a chemical reaction. This chemical reaction produces a small amount of heat. The problem happens when people put a large amount of oil on a surface that can catch fire and then ball it up. In that case, the heat gets trapped and builds up, potentially causing a fire. Practically speaking, oil painters don't typically use enough oil to allow this to happen - it's more common when people are using linseed oil to finish the floors or siding of a house. If you allow any rags with oil on them to dry flat, they can't catch fire. If you don't have time to allow them to dry flat, you can also use a metal bin designed for oily rags or use old cans/jars filled with water and keep the rags submerged in the water. To answer your other questions - turpentine is a type of paint thinner. Many people prefer safer thinners like Gamsol because they don't smell, but turpentine is fine if you use it in a well ventilated area. To clean up the colours and mediums, you should try to only take what you will use out of the container. Many people like to keep their mediums in a small dropper bottle so that they can squeeze out a couple drops as they need them. The leftover paint can be scraped into one big pile and mixed together to make a grey/brown colour. You then use this to paint over your next canvas before starting as many artists prefer to paint on a canvas that isn't white. Your paint thinner should be kept in a jar with a tight-fitting lid and you keep reusing it from painting to painting. When it starts to become full of paint, let it sit for a couple days and the paint will fall to the bottom and you can pour the good thinner on top into a new container and keep using it. The leftover paint at the bottom of the old jar can be made into a new grey paint. Green for oil is the specific brand of less harmful mediums made by Sennelier. Many brands now have similar products. I personally prefer the ones made by Gamblin, but you might like different things depending on your style. The most important thing with green for oil products is to use very small amounts of them or it will affect the quality of the paint and make it hard to work with. I hope that helps!

You have been reading the wrong stuff?¡ oil paints are very safe! The oxidation of linseed oil in large quantities can heat heat up and possibly start a fire! But is highly unlikely?¡ keep paints with linseed oil scattered and not piled up, with plenty of ventilation. AS FAR AS TOXICITY IS CONCERNED, IT'S SUPER OVER HYPED TO SELL CHEAPER PRODUCTS!!!!

Very informative and clear! THAÑK YOU!!

@@robertchilders8698 so you mean it is more likely that cheaper products are more toxic?

My mom said the same thing! To bad she didn't think the same thing about me!

Chelsea Studios sells some good non toxic thinner

@@paintcoach appreciate your reply. Thank you.

Have fun, experiment, and keep on painting.

Gamsol…zero smell

I've had the same problem when I first started to paint in oils! I try to keep my brushes clean at all times, añd dip only the tips of my brushes in paint. Over painting with wet paint is a NO-NO for me unlike Bob Ross! However there is a time to do it. I like to paint over "glazes" , like thick over thin! Painting over dry paint is best. However you must control your drying time, choosing the right medium makes a lot of difference, to speed up drying time I use a cobolt solution . A weaker version can be found in hardware stores.!! 8:3 8:33 Comes with trailer and 4hp Tohatsu outboard. Multiple main sails multiple Jibs 2 Spinnakers. Fresh bottom paint less than 2 months ago. If interested please message with additional questions

I don't know where the boating thing came from! A glitch in transmission?

@@jimcortez3293 thanks a lot. When you say too much is not good, what do you mean? I tried it out yesterday, and kinda like the feel of it. What are the disadvantages of using straight stand oil? I've scoured the whole internet and can't find *any* information on it.

Stand oil is tricky to use! It does take longer to dry, more gloss? Most of the time I use regular linseed oil. It can be used by itself.

A good varnish will fix this problem. Make sure your painting is dry " 6 months minimum " and then apply a varnish. it will brighten up your colors and bring a new life to the painting.

@@davidgetchell630 Thanks! I will try it out.

madhava thyagaraj I use Gamvar, a retouch varnish, to check out the color on a specific area that gets dull before I’m done with the painting. After it’s dry to the touch, you can use this over the whole painting. It beats waiting 6months to a year.

@@karenfrary7218 Thanks for the info about Gamvar.

@@jimcortez3293 Thanks for the detailed reply. I have heard of 'oiling out'. Yet to try it.

A Marin I love a glass palette and scrape it clean with a razor blade and a tiny bit of thinner on a paper towel.

I scrape of the dried paint with a glass scraper and remove any remaining residue with a cloth or paper towel and a tip of Rubbing Alcohol.

@@karenfrary7218 thinner...ugh. Trying to ignore harsh solvents

A Marin I hear you! I use just a tiny bit and only buy odorless thinner. The razor blade removes almost all of the paint. How do you clean your brushes?

@@amarin8600 Rubbing Alcohol works just as well. Just don't let it mix in with your oil paint.

the truth is there are many ways to oil paint. I've seen many great painters all paint completely differently. Fat over lean mainly comes into play when you are working on a painting for a long time and layers are drying between sessions. Yes you want to start with thin paint and add more medium as you go to prevent cracking. Honestly I rarely work on a painting that takes long enough to have this come into play.

@@paintcoach thank you for answering! So if you do the painting all in one day, even if you don't do fat over lean it won't crack when it dries?

You have got it all backwards! The thinnest paint goes on first! Finishing with highlights I use UN THINNED paint!

​@@BethanieBaileyThe thicker the paint, the more it will crack over time! The top layer drys faster than the bottom layers!

Especially liquin original

Have you tried odorless mineral spirits?

@@jimcortez3293 thank u , nowadays I use recipe of 1 drop of linseed and 2 drops of turpentine

No.

Irene McNamara that sounds like a "YOU" problem

Get some cheap paint and experiment. You will get better over time and just have fun. For every good painting I make there's a really bad one no one sees.

It can, it's a 1 on the flammability chart. Gamblin has the SDS for refined linseed oil if you want the specifics on its health/hazard notices. Highly recommend checking it out

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thepowderriverfarrier unrelenting? Like your terrible attitude ?