Fat over lean

This is an oil painting concept that basically prescribes slower drying paints (fat) over quicker drying paints (lean). This is not about thick paint versus thin paint. Lean oil paint is paint mixed with fast-drying oil and/or turpentine. Fat oil paint comes straight out of the tube or has additional oil added. Upper layers of paint shouldn’t dry faster than lower ones. The more oil the slower, the drying time.

Following the practice of “fat over lean” reduces the risk of an oil painting cracking.

More of our oil paint artists are:

Child Portraiture – Bob Byerley
Modern Urbanscape – Peggy Nichols
Still Life and Landscape – Chuck Rosenthal Read more!

Blocking in

One technique some artists use is to “block in” the colors of their painting. This can be a loose painting of the dominant colors in the areas of the canvas where those colors will be. Or it may be the background colors in each appropriate section for a painting.

Here are several examples of what it looks like:

This article and photos by Marion Boddy-Evans is broken down into steps, with steps 1 and 2 being about blocking in: “Landscape Painting: Quiver Tree Step by Step.”

And this watercolor demonstration by Roger Simpson is quite interesting.

Here are a few of our artists, who do oil painting.

Jean Miller Harding – still life paintings

Yuri Klapoukh – portraiture and landscape paintings

Renee DiNapoli – floral paintings Read more!

Underpainting the Canvas

Before an artist starts the actual painting, he may underpaint or tone the canvas. Think of spreading a light color (thinned paint) over the canvas, not evenly, but just to soften the harsh whiteness of the canvas. Some artists, do a sketch or charcoal or thin paint outline of the figure they plan to paint. This may be on top of an underpainting or an artist might not use underpainting at all.

Resources

Underpainting the Canvas – a How To
"Art Glossary: Underpainting" – a definition
“Palettes and Techniques of the Old Masters: Leonardo da Vinci” – discusses how he used underpainting. Read more!

Priming a canvas

Last week I talked about stretching canvases and that they are primed. It’s a lot like priming bare drywall before you paint the actual desired wall color. Priming puts down a surface that takes the final paint well. On canvas, priming can protect the cloth and make it last longer as well.

There are basically two types of priming: acrylic gessos and oil priming materials which include oil gesso, rabbit skin glue, oil painting ground. Acrylic gessoed canvas is more flexible than oil gessoed canvas. These usually result in a white surface.

Here’s an article on the subject: “How To Prime a Canvas For Acrylics or Oils” Read more!