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Practice

In: Paints

Turpentine Oil vs. Mineral Spirit

When using oil colors for painting, it is common to thin the paint for more precise application, glazing, or improved blending. While linseed oil (or another drying oil) can be used for this purpose, the addition of oils and gums in painting can extend the drying time, which may be inconvenient for many artists. Personally, I do not mind waiting, but not everyone are like that.

Typically, artists use turpentine oil or solvent as thinners for their paints. Both substances have a strong odor and can be toxic if used without adequate ventilation. Even if the odor is masked, the toxins remain present due to their intended purpose of quick evaporation to expedite the drying time of the painting. However, for the purpose of this discussion, I will focus on the physical effects on oil painting rather than the toxicity aspect (assuming you are already aware of and accept the risks). 

What is turpentine oil?

Turpentine, known by various names such as spirit of turpentine, oil of turpentine, or wood turpentine, is a liquid derived through the distillation of resin extracted from live trees, primarily pines. Technically, it’s a natural product.

When reviewing product labels, it’s important not to confuse turpentine oil with turpentine gum. Turpentine oil is a liquid with a strong (toxic) odor and is used as a thinner, whereas turpentine gum is a solid pine sap. The gum can be transformed into a honey-like consistency by heating and mixing it with oil (such as linseed oil) or by dissolving it in solvents.

In oil painting, turpentine oil serves as a thinner without acting as a solvent that disrupts the bond between the oil and pigment. Turpentine oil, classified as a volatile oil, evaporates quickly, hastening the drying process and facilitating paint blending without compromising the bond. However, overuse of this thinner can weaken the underpainting layer and elevate the risk of peeling, as it diminishes the adhesion between the paint and canvas. It is advisable not to exceed a 50% ratio of turpentine oil to your chosen painting oil (such as linseed or walnut oil) for optimal results.

Pure turpentine oil, without added solvents, should be stored in a dark place (such as a light-protected container) and used within one year from the date of manufacture. Such restrictions and also costs of production led manufacturers to substitute turpentine oil with solvents.

What is solvent?

Mineral spirits are derived from petroleum. They have gained popularity among artists due to their lower cost (compared to turpentine oil), reduced odour, and easier storage requirements. With the introduction of odourless solvents, manufacturers even eliminated the “skull and bones” label to indicate non-toxicity. However, subsequent research revealed that even in the absence of odor, the product remains highly toxic. Anyway, I promised, not to dig here.

Apart from turpentine oil, mineral spirits, or solvents, break the bond between the oil and pigment. This was the original purpose of these products – to effectively clean grease, oil, and other substances from surfaces. 

When used with care, solvents appear to function similarly to thinners by accelerating drying time and thinning the paint. However, if solvents are applied in the same manner as turpentine oil, the paint application may become uneven, the painting layer can become excessively fragile, leading to potential cracking, and the adhesion between the paint and the canvas may decrease. Additionally, solvents can impact previously applied layers by removing and slightly damaging them.

So, turpentine oil and solvents are not the same or even similar products. Turpentine oil is a thinner, while mineral spirit is a cleanser.

In: Paints

Acrylic vs. Oil: Conservation Properties

Many artists dream about having their work exhibited in museums that would preserve art for generations. Even if your painting is not going to get there the question about the archival properties of your work is still important. Some art can show signs of deterioration, such as:

1. Fading or discoloration. Over time, exposure to light and environmental factors can cause colours to fade or change. This is particularly noticeable in artworks created with pigments with poor lightfastness.

2. Cracking or flaking. Paintings, especially those done on canvas, may develop cracks or flakes due to aging, changes in humidity, or improper handling/storage. This can result in the loss of paint layers or sections of the artwork.

3. Yellowing or darkening of varnish. Varnish applied to protect and enhance the appearance of a painting can yellow or darken over time, altering the original colours and clarity of the artwork.

4. Mold or mildew growth.

5. Loss of adhesion. In some cases, the layers of paint or other materials may detach or lose adhesion to the support, leading to flaking or detachment of sections of the artwork.

Let’s take a look at these aspects of oil and acrylic paintings.

Fading or discolouration

In oil, it can come from two aspects: wrong pigment use or wrong conditions of paint application. If we compare oil to acrylic, pigment use will be about the same. As both refer to opaque mediums, pigments are supposed to have similar lightfastness at use. However, oil drying processes are much more complex and longer than for acrylics, so fading can occur if drying is happening at lower temperatures and unstable or high humidity. 

For acrylics, during the water evaporation process, discolouration may be noticeable much faster. It’s not an actual colour loss, but rather the effect of wet colour vs. dry colour (similar to a wet and dry rock). Also, generally speaking, professional oil paints have a higher pigment load in the tube than acrylics and fewer fillers and thickeners that help keep colour almost unchanged from application to the end of the visible drying process (provided that storage conditions are met). Excessive fillers may make paints “milky” and less vibrant after full drying, especially in acrylics.

Cracking or flaking

Oil paints, generally speaking, potentially develop more cracking than acrylics. Especially, if an artist didn’t follow the “fat over lean” rule. Fat over lean refers to the principle in oil painting of applying paint with a higher oil-to-pigment ratio (‘fat’) over paint with a lower oil-to-pigment ratio (‘lean’) to ensure that the film is flexible and durable. 

The Canadian Conservation Institute (CCI) points out that oil paintings are particularly vulnerable to low relative humidity (RH) conditions, which are very common indoors during Canadian winters. 

In low RH conditions, the size, ground and paint layers become more brittle and higher stress within the layers can develop. Below 35% RH, they are more likely to develop cracks, which in turn can lead to lifting paint and paint loss. Also, RH fluctuation of more than 10% can contribute to cracking, especially for impasto paintings. In other words, storage conditions are very important to prolong an oil painting’s life.

What about acrylic paint, there is currently extensive research being undertaken to increase our understanding of the composition and properties of modern paints. Even though acrylic paints form a more flexible film than oil paints and seem less prone to cracking, we don’t have statistical data enough to determine if similar defects develop with natural aging. 

What we know is that acrylic paint becomes more vulnerable to cracking at moderately low temperatures. It increases dramatically in stiffness at temperatures of +5 …10 °C, which is not too low considering Canadian winters. The potential for cracking at these temperatures makes handling and transporting paintings questionable in Canadian winter conditions. 

Yellowing or darkening of varnish

Usually, this is attributed to oil paintings, especially quite old ones. To protect the painting surface, we use damar varnish that tends to yellow and darken with time as it absorbs dust and some humidity from the environment. The good news is that it’s fixable. There are tons of successful restoration works performed over time when the old varnish was cleaned or/and re-applied. Painting layers themselves were not affected.

Even though acrylic varnish doesn’t yellow with time, it doesn’t provide proper protection for the artwork. According to CCI, acrylic paints tend to attract and absorb dirt at ambient or high temperatures making it impossible to clean the surface of acrylic painting without affecting and damaging the paying layer. Because of these, the CCI suggests protecting acrylic paintings with glass. 

Mold or mildew growth

High humidity or improper storage conditions can lead to the growth of mould or mildew on artworks, particularly on wood or canvas materials. Both acrylic and oil paintings may be affected by this equally.

Loss of adhesion

Here, we should go deep inside the polymerization process. In chemistry, monomers are molecules that can react with each other to form a larger polymer chain or three-dimensional network. This process is called polymerization and it goes differently for acrylic and oils.

Oil creates a durable bond with most of the surfaces, including metals, forming a flexible film. If the surface is porous, the bond will be even stronger. Acrylic polymerization takes place within itself and the only thing that holds the paint is its penetration to a porous surface normally provided by acrylic primer. That explains why acrylic paints are so easy to peel off from your plastic, glass, or even wooden palette. And, of course, the same thing may happen to your painting.

Retouching Medium in Use
In: Practice

RUSART Retouching Medium in Use

What is a purpose of retouching medium for oil paintings?

Sometimes you need to have a break from your arts, but oil paintings do not like when you abandon them. After 2 weeks a layer may become completely dry and fully cured. That means a painting layer will not bind well and eventually will peel off or show scratches after mechanical (physical) contact. To prevent this apply retouching mediums between the layers.

What is it made of?

Retouching medium may have different ingredients, and may be toxic or non-toxic. Usually, it has the following key components:

  • Oil. Normally, linseed or walnut oil
  • Gums and resins based on tree saps. Normally, dammar and/or turpentine gums.
  • Spreading and dissolving agents. Gums have to be turned into water-free liquid form. Natural resins and gums can be “liquified” by heating in oil or dissolving in solvents, such as turpentine.

To make our RUSART Naturals Retouching Oil Medium  we melt dammar resin and turpentine gum in linseed oil at certain temperature for prolonged time. Then, we add essential oils to increase spreading properties and replace toxic solvents. Our medium has simple and natural ingredients:

  • Polymerized linseed oil creates adhesion, brightens dull areas and prevents sinking.
  • Turpentine gum improves adhesion and adds flexibility to layers.
  • Damar resin increases durability of a film.
  • Lavender and Rosemary essential oils increase spreading and replace toxic solvents.

How to use retouching medium?

Apply retouching medium with a wide medium-soft synthetic brush. Then, let it sit for at least 1-2 hours to be absorbed by dry layer and to create proper adhesion. After that, remove excess of the medium with a soft cloth (if needed) and paint as normal. You may need shorter or longer wait time, depending on  techniques you used and time passed since you touched your work last time.

Retouching medium usually increases drying time of a new layer.

How to use watercolour medium
In: Practice

How To Use Watercolour Medium?

If for oil or acrylic painting we have many mediums to choose from that serve in a different way, watercolour medium sounds a little bit weird: why watercolour needs a medium? There is no texture to build, there is no need to increase or decrease drying time? Why do I need medium for watercolours?

In fact, most watercolorists paint without any mediums added. However, there are some situations when medium helps us improve painting performance.

What is watercolour medium?

Generally speaking, watercolour medium has arabic gum as a main component. Traditionally, all watercolours had arabic gum as a binder. However, with time in mass production arabic gums was partially replaced with other sugar-based ingredients (such as dextrin) to reduce costs.

Arabic gum is a natural sap from certain kinds of Acacia trees. It’s used a lot in baking and RUSART, for example, buys food-grade arabic gum from grocery vendors to make sure high safety standards. Bakers add arabic gum to icings, chewing gums, fillings etc. as it acts as stabilizer preventing sugar from crystallizing, as well as emulsifier, providing even and smooth consistency of products.

For artist’s purposes, we use arabic gum solution with some additives. For our RUSART Naturals watercolour medium we use a small amount of honey and glycerin as plasticizers and essential oils as preservatives. 

We performed a few tests  with RUSART Naturals watercolour medium and, now, sharing the results with you.

Watercolour medium separates painting zones

 We applied watered down watercolour medium first on one half of the paper sheet and let it dry. Then we applied paint in wet technique on bare paper and on top of medium applied.

As you can see, watercolour medium prevents paint from bleeding, creating quite obvious borders between the colours.

Why? Arabic gum works like glue and holding agent, not for watercolours only. For example, for hot enamelling techniques, when artists spread glass powder on metal surfaces, they use arabic gum based holding agent, if they desire to affix enamel to certain areas.

Watercolour medium helps with washing out lines

We gave experimental pieces sometime to dry and then we used just water and squirrel imitation brush to wash out paint.

Paint came off effortlessly from the paper WITH medium, leaving behind completely white lines. Without medium paint didn’t come off in full. 

Why? Watercolour medium created a fine film between paints and paper that prevent paints from being absorbed by cotton fibre. SO, if you’re planning to correct your painting a lot, or you’re working with synthetic organic pigments (hanza yellow, naphthol red, pyrrole red, Phthalo blue or green etc.) use watercolour medium to be able to correct your lines after application. All synthetic organic pigments have stronger staining properties than mineral pigments. 

Mineral pigments don’t show that dramatic difference. Also, if your paper contains less cotton, watercolour medium’s effect will be less intense.

Watercolour medium makes some colours look brighter

As you see from the picture, colours at the top half look more intense than at the lower part of the paper. Also, you can notice beautiful flow patterns that medium helps create. However, there is a reverse side of that. Excessive use of arabic gum leaves shine and slightly tacky finish.

Why? Arabic gum is technically sap, and medium made with this gum can be considered as water-based varnish, that changes optical properties of the painting layer.

Watercolour medium helps covering oily surface 

Watercolours are water-based and grease or oil on paper surface repel watercolours. Do you remember kindergarten experiments with painting in watercolours on top of lines made with wax/oil crayons? 

Unfortunately, when we touch paper with hands, some grease from finger tips can stay on paper and affect painting outcome in unexpected way.

Arabic gum helps make your work smoother. We made an experiment. First, we drew some lines and smudged them with soft pastel. And even soft pastels can contain oils or waxes. Then we used watercolour medium and spread pastel powder with a brush. Left side doesn’t have any medium applied, and you can see that spreading is not that smooth, as well as some oily spots show off.

The right side looks softer and has no visible oil stains.

Why? Arabic gum here works as the finest film, covering oil and everything else, taking only smallest particles into the layer.

 

Make your own experiments and open new opportunities with arabic gum medium! But use it wisely. As you see, it may have some “side effects”.

(c) RUSART

How to use tinting pastes
In: Practice

How to use tinting pastes?

Tinting pastes have very wide range of use and will bring more ideas to creative artists. However, there are only few artists who ever tried them. Here we’ll try to break barriers between creativity and tints.

What are tinting pastes?

Tinting pastes are technically water-based colour concentrates. ‘Water-based’ means they can me used with any water-based paints and mediums: acrylic, watercolour, gouache, plaster, concrete, alcohol ink, PVAc tempera, gesso, acrylic textured pastes, latex paint etc. This also means DO NOT use with oil-based paints and mediums, they are not going to work.

‘Colour concentrates’ means it has pigment or dye (for RUSART Deco tints we offer pigment-based pastes only) dissolved or suspended in water. To keep this solution and mixture  even and prevent from mold growth, tinting pastes also include organic acids (CH-based), pH-neutralizing agent and preservatives. 

Ways to use tinting pastes

There are many ways how to use them. 

  1. Adding colour into a primer for pastel. So, you can make your own colour and texture with less money spent.
  2. Adding colour into a primer, gesso or textured pastes for acrylic painting. It’s less expensive and creating surface with paints and it’s also creates soft underpainting.
  3. Adding some new colours into alcohol inks.
  4. Tinting your concrete, plaster or clay for your creative projects, such as sculptures, moldings, pottery etc. 
  5. Add some colour into epoxy resin creations.
  6. Enhancing gouache, acrylic paints, or watercolours.
  7. Dying textile.
  8. Painting on plaster, like in fresco techniques.

The list can be longer and longer and it’s limited just your imagination and creativity. 

Some tips

There are some tricks on how to make your experiences with tints more predictable and enjoyable.

  1. Mix desired colour from concentrate BEFORE applying to your medium and try promotions in a small amount first. Colours have different staining properties as well as different opacity and strength. As always, yellow colours tend to be weaker than blues or greens.
  2. Mix your colour thoroughly before adding it into a medium, so your colour will be even.
  3. Cement, gesso, gouache, plaster contain chalk and/or other components that affect the resulting colour. They work as white paint in mixing, so test the colour first.
  4. Work in well-ventilated area. Even though VOC is quite low for tinting pastes, they contain acids and may cause some irritation or allergic reactions. Normally, if you’re not sensitive to ordinary acrylic paints, you’ll be fine with the tints. They have the same components as preservatives and stabilizers.
  5. If you use gesso, plaster, gouache, cement as a medium for tints, after drying colour may look lighter than in a wet form due to chalk that those mediums contain. Tinting pastes don’t contain chalk.
  6. Tints are very concentrated and a bottle can last quite long.

Enjoy your creative time!

How to prime your canvas
In: Practice

How to choose right canvas: Part III, Sizing and Priming

How to choose the right canvas and why they are different – are most common questions in any art shop. We’ve already talked about stretching options as well as choice of fabric for your canvas. This time we’ll discuss the final step before your art appears on canvas – sizing and priming.

Canvas, when it’s raw, is just piece of fabric, meaning it absorbs moist and dyes before, during and after painting process. These mean if you paint on untreated canvas:

  • paint colours will look much different from what you have on your palette while you’re mixing colours
  • your painting will change with time and keep changing in unpredictable way

Also, as bare fabric is soft, makes folds and wrinkles fast that means any paint that forms a film (such as acrylic or oil) after drying may crack and fall off. 

That’s why sizing and priming are very important. 

Sizing For Canvas 

Before any primer or paint layer applied on canvas the fabric has to be sized. Sometimes we can skip priming, but sizing is a must. Why?

Canvas is a piece of fabric, which has threads weaved along and across each other. All this weaving process leaves micro-holes between the treads, creating air circulation and exposing your painting to humidity and other weathering from inside. Also, unsized canvas works like a strainer allowing micro leakage of the paint through it. Sizing is aimed to seal the gaps between treads and create one solid base for your painting.

Size is technically glue that covers all holes and gaps. Historically, artists were using glue made from natural materials. The most popular one was rabbit hide glue as well as bone glue that provides jello-kind substance and dries forming smooth and relatively stable film. 

Normally, artists were applying one layer with high-concentrated glue that looks like jelly and then, after full curing, they applied another 2 or 3 coats of glue that was much thinner and smoother.

I have to say, this kind of glue smells terribly and needs immediate application before it gets bad. RUSART Naturals offers sizing for canvas in 2 steps based on this old recipes. We added some essential oils into it to prevent from mold growing and eliminate bad smell.

Later, artists began using gelatine instead of bone or skin glue that offers similar properties. 

Nowadays, most manufacturers use synthetic sizing for canvas, such as Poly Vinyl Acetate or acrylic resin. As primer usually is also acrylic based, usually cheap canvas doesn’t have any sizing and has only primer, which makes canvas not suitable for oil painting and barely stable for acrylic painting. 

When buying a canvas, just look through it against the light: if you see light coming through gaps between the treads, stay away from this canvas (unless you want just to play around and show it away after short use). Good canvas always blocks the light well.

Primer For Canvas

Priming is important in making decision how to choose a right canvas. It’s technically the first layer that provides adhesion with canvas. Bad adhesion leads to peeling of painting layers and early damage.

However, priming is not always necessary. For example, a lot impressionists such as Claude Monet and many others worked on sized canvas without any primer applies and such technique also provides some interesting effects.  

Primer can have different kids of base: oil or emulsion. 

Oil-based primer consists of linseed oil mixed with chalk and white pigment. Historically, this kind of primer was used for oil painting as it provided a better adhesion between oil painting and canvas.

Before oil painting was developed in 16th century, artists used primers based on egg-yolk, casein (milk), rabbit skin glue or other kids of stable glues. This primer was mostly used for wood.

Then, artists were mixing oil and glue-based primers and created emulsion primers. Chalk and white pigment serve as hard particles suspending in flexible oil-water emulsion. Such primers reduce risks of cracking and shrinking.

There are many kinds of emulsion-based primers, including casein, polyvinyl acetate, acrylic and others. Well-primed canvas normally has 3 layers of primer before art work begins. 

Another thing that is very important to know when choosing a canvas is how much chalk was used in your primer. If for acrylic or tempera painting this factor doesn’t play the main role, for oil painting it’s crucial. Chalk is a very porous material and absorbs a lot of binder. This may cause a lot of problems for oil painters:

  • Uneven drying
  • Fading of colours
  • Cracking of painting layer

Only trusted canvas should be used for most important artworks.

(c) RUSART

How to Clean Brushes from oil paints
In: Practice

How to Clean Brushes From Oil Painting?

Here we’ve collected many ways how to clean brushes after oil painting and prolong their life.

What artists really don’t like about oil painting is that it’s messy. Cleaning brushes, maintaining workspace neat takes much more efforts than when you work with watercolours or acrylics.

Rinsing in turpentine or white spirit, or mixture of both

Turpentine and white spirit are  quite different, when we’re talking about painting. However, when it’s about brush cleaning, we can treat them as the same substances. Technically, they just break up oil and that’s how your brush comes out clean and neat. As both turpentine or white spirit are toxic, never pour liquid into toilet bowl or sink. Recycle properly, when possible. If special disposal or recycling is not available, just pour liquid into a jar, fill it with paper towels or cloth enough to absorb most of the content, close your jar tightly and dispose.

Pro’s:

  • easy to get and use
  • cheap
  • can be used during painting process, as well as for final brush cleaning after use

Con’s:

  • very toxic
  • can be smelly
  • requires special disposal
  • can damage delicate hair (kolinsky or other soft hair)

Rinsing in vegetable oil

If you’re lazy and paint frequently, you can use just regular vegetable oil for cleaning your brushes. Fill a glass jar with with 2 inches of oil and simply rinse your brushes there. Remove paint residue with paper towel. To prevent brushes from hardening, keep your brushes immersed in oil until the next use. Oil can be reused as paint will simply settle down on the bottom of the jar. Make sure that your brushes are suspended and don’t touch the bottom of the jar with oil to prevent brush damage.

Pro’s:

  • easy to get and use
  • cheap
  • can be used during painting process, as well as for final brush cleaning after use
  • non-toxic

Con’s:

  • doesn’t clean your brush in full, so you should keep your brush soaked in oil all the time

Rinsing in vegetable oil and freezing

If you’re planning to make a long break between oil painting, or don’t want to keep your paintbrushes soaked in oil all the time, after rinsing your brushes in oil you can wrap them with a plastic bag and place in a freezer. 

Pro’s:

  • easy to get and use
  • cheap
  • can be used during painting process, as well as for final brush cleaning after use
  • non-toxic

Con’s:

  • doesn’t clean your brush in full, so you should keep an eye on your brushes

Cleaning with dish soap

As dish soap is a good degreaser, you can simple wash your brushes in it. After full cleaning, leave your brushes horizontally to dry completely before the next use.

Pro’s:

  • easy to get and use
  • cheap
  • non-toxic

Con’s:

  • can be used only after painting session
  • requires long time for full drying before the next use
  • doesn’t work for delicate brushes (kolinsky etc.)

Dry cleaning with paper towels

Some artists use just paper towels and wipe the brushes until they get completely dry and paint removed.

Pro’s:

  • non-toxic
  • can be used during painting process, as well as for final brush cleaning after use

Con’s:

  • requires a lot of paper towels, so this method is not environment friendly
  • doesn’t work for delicate brushes

 Different  manufactured brush cleansers

Please refer to their instructions for pro’s and con’s.

RUSART Naturals Oil Brush Cleanser

If you really care about your brushes, try RUSART Naturals this easy-to-use cleanser for oil paint brushes. This all natural medium cleans your oil brushes in seconds and keeps them soft, flexible, as if they are brand new. It’s a cleanser and conditioner at the same time.

How to use Rusart Naturals Oil-Based Brush Cleanser:

  • Wipe paint residue from your brush with a paper towel or cloth
  • Shake a jar well before every use
  • Wash your brush in this solution for 5-10 seconds or until clean
  • Remove product leftovers with a paper towel or cloth

The solution can be reasonably reused even if looks soiled. Don’t forget to shake a jar before every use.

Pro’s:

  • non-toxic
  • cleans in seconds
  • works even for delicate brushes
  • brushes can be stored for a long time after use

Con’s:

  • price
  • intended to use after work, not as a cleanser during painting.

(c) RUSART

In: Manufacturing

How to choose right canvas for your goals – Part II (Support)

Support for your canvas is another important “ingredient” of a successful painting. Your canvas can be stretched on wooden bars or glued to a cardboard or wood, or can be used as canvas paper. Let’s take a look for these options and see how they work.

Stretched canvas

Stretched canvas has many benefits before other kinds of support:

  • Framing is not required for such paintings
  • Paintings look more presentable and expensive
  • Restoration gets easer

In general, I prefer stretch canvas over other options. However, not all stretchers are the same. There is something we can choose and something we can’t test when purchasing.

As artists, we can choose depth of canvas: is it gallery or regular. I’d suggest for canvasses longer than 24 in gallery stretchers, because narrower canvas can show signs of deformation with time. Large canvasses (over 60 in) should have extra supporters, that keep corners strait.

Also, a good support literally stretches the entire canvas, meaning the stretching bars are not completely flat and have sort of ledge (see pic.) 

All these are things we can choose and check before buying.

However, there is something we can’t check before making a purchase – that’s quality of wood itself. Quality stretching bars should be made of hard wood, such as oak, fir, birch, beech or harder sorts of pine. Most Canadian-made stretching bars are made of pine. Also, good stretcher should be fully kiln dried and have relative humidity between 8% and 15%.

Cheaper canvasses are made of softer wood and normally not fully dried. With changing environment (temperatures and humidity indoors), these bars change their shapes, get crooked and can show cracks. That’s the main problem of cheap wood. 

Sometime ago I got very expensive paintings of Russian Avant-Garde that were not treated respectfully by a previous owner and were stretched on wood plank from a construction store. As a result, frames got crooked and even caused damage of painting layer. So, now I have to restore them.

Stretched cavas in general is more expensive option than any other kinds of support for canvas. Especially after 2021, then lumber prices jumped up incredibly. For that reason artists look at other alternatives.

Canvas on Board

Canvas on cardboard is another option for artists. However, it can hold only small sizes (up to 16 in) otherwise painting will cause cardboard deformation. Canvas on cardboard also requires framing that adds extra costs and may eliminate and savings against buying stretched canvas.

If for acrylic painting canvas on board can be a good alternative to more expensive canvas, for oil painting this option is unlikely to work well. The problem is in polymerization of oil in the binder.

Cardboard is a very absorbing material and literally drains oil from your painting causing colour fading, unpredictable and uneven drying time as well as faster aging.

Canvas Paper

Canvas paper is an option to test colours or to make sketches on the go, but, unfortunately, for more valuable works it’s not an option at all. Usually, canvas paper is more fragile than normal canvas, has acrylic emulsion  primer rich in chalk to create a thicker look. All these makes further stretching impossible without damage to a painting layer.

In addition to that, for oil painting we have all the problems with uneven drying, faster aging and fading, because chalk is very porous and absorbs oil.

How to choose right canvas
In: Practice

How to choose right canvas for your goals – Part I (Canvas)

When you paint on canvas, the canvas itself is the first thing to take care of. There is no one best canvas for all the goals as all they have different properties and price, but you can always choose something that fits your goals and budget. 

First of all, canvas itself as a fabric. Here we have different options: linen, cotton, polyester and different blends.

Choice here is not straight forward, as always, but generally speaking, the thicker the fabric the more weight it can hold, meaning the more paint and medium you can apply without risk of deformation.

Polyester canvas – when to use?

Polyester or cotton-polyester blends are the cheapest options that you can find even in dollar stores. They are very thin and usually have bigger gaps between threads leading in quality loss. Polyester is technically plastic and can’t absorb anything, meaning sizing and primer may not get a proper binding with the fabric. On top of that this canvas is usually very fragile and rips off easily. So, this kind of canvas is a good choice for children’s paintings, playing with paints or doing exercises and practicing some fast techniques. This kind of canvas is not working for any painting that you want to keep for a longer time.

Cotton or linen canvas?

Cotton and linen canvasses normally is a good choice for professional paintings, provided canvas is thick and properly treated before and after stretching. We’ll talk about that in separate topics. Generally speaking, we’re looking for thick canvas preferably with double thread. That’s something you can check on the back of the canvas (see the pic.).

Double-thread canvas is kind of weaving where one or two threads are doubled. For painting the best option when longitudinal thread is thick and single and weft thread is thin and double. This kind of weaving provides the strongest support, is thick and have smallest gaps between the threads. 

Normally linen canvas is thicker than cotton one, and that’s why more expensive. Not all artists can afford painting on linen. But it’s also not always necessary.

If you’re painting in layering techniques and not using heavy paints, a proper-quality cotton canvas is a very good choice. However, for heavy impasto painting linen canvas will provide a better solution as it’s stronger and more durable.

How to choose right canvasFine grained or coarse grained canvas?

There is no one universal recipe here either. Choice of texture depends on your techniques. If you’re working in fine layering and glazing techniques, the smoother the surface the better. Especially that’s very important for portrait painting. So, fine grain and even extra priming would be the right option here.  

For impasto techniques as well as working the involves different pastes, and textures as well as for palette knife painting coarser surface will fit better. The smooth finish is incapable to hold a large amount of paint.

Although, many mediums now can be applied on canvas, we’ll take a closer look at acrylic and oil paint application as the most traditional ones nowadays.

Choosing canvas for acrylic painting

Acrylic paint is quite universal and easy-going, so most of the canvas will work well for acrylic. Choose the material, finish, size and priming that fits your goals for this or that particular painting and enjoy your creative process. Acrylic forms one non-separable layer with primer on canvas, which makes painting process seamless.

Choosing canvas for oil painting

Oil is the most complex medium and requires more skills, knowledge and experience. Here the way how the canvas was treated and primed matters a lot. We’ll have a separate article on this matter too, but for now let’s assume that the canvas is well sized and primed.

Here we have two different kinds of primers that can be used: acrylic or oil. Acrylic primer is universal and can be used for both acrylic and oil. However, to create a better binding with canvas and to prolong the life of finished oil painting (increase time of polymerization) in this case we’d suggest to start the first layer with underpainting that will create a shield between canvas and your actual paintwork.

Acrylic primer normally contains a lot of chalk inside, which is very porous and “drains” oil from painting layer. To prevent this we should create a layer that links acrylic and oil. It should be a painting layer containing  gums inside, that “seals” the pores and crates the perfect adhesion for oil paints.

However, based on my experience, the best primer for oil paints is oil primer. As oil priming doesn’t work for acrylic and also takes much longer time for canvas preparation at manufacturers’ side, less and less of them offer this option. Oil primed canvas has a lot of misuse that also forces manufacturers stop making them.

Oil primed canvas should be treated as an oil painting that is standing alone for a long time. That means if you choose oil primed canvas, treat it with retouching medium first for a proper adhesion.

That’s a very basic information regarding choosing canvas for your painting. In Part II we’ll pay attention to other aspects of canvas, such as support for it. You’ll get answers on the following questions: What is the difference in use of stretched canvas and canvas on board? How do proper stretchers look like?

(c) RUSART

How To Read Paint Labels
In: Paints

How To Read Paint Labels

That’s very important to know what you’re buying and some information about your paints is available on labels:

  • paint name
  • grade
  • pigment used
  • binder
  • lightfastness
  • transparency
  • safety note

Paint name

Although there are many common names for paints we used to see around, there is no standard on how to name a colour. The spectrum contains millions of colours and all they can be named differently. 

Some manufacturers use traditional and most common names, such as cadmium red medium, cobalt blue, ultramarine blue etc. These names stand for pigments used and it’s easy to understand what is inside the tube.

Some names can be unique due to marketing goals or multiple pigment used. For example, Australian Grey or Australian Leaf Light by Art Spectrum or Portland Grays by Gamblin or Raw Umber Leningrad by Nevskaya Palitra. 

Also, the same pigment treated differently can provide a wide verity of hues, shades and transparency level. One of champions in that is PY42 Iron Oxide Yellow ,which has about 100 different names.

Paint grade

Paint grade is also a very questionable category as there is no standards of marking paints student or artist grade. For RUSART, we split paints into 4 categories: children, student, artist and professional. Most manufactures offer 2 categories: student and artist grade.

The main difference in paint grading is pigment load, quality of pigments used as well as fillers and mediums added.

  1. Children grade. We have a special article about art supplies for children. Generally speaking, the main criterium here is safety. Pigments used here are non-toxic and must have certain certification and labelling. Normally we talk about watercolours here and they contain a lot of dextrin (sugar) and starch instead of more expensive components.
  2. Student grade. Safety is not the main criteria here. Usually these paints lower budget for everyday use and practice. Pigment load normally lays between 3 and 20%. All the rest are fillers and binders. Cobalts and cadmiums are normally hues here, which means not real. Although professional artists prefer to use higher quality brands, student paints are still very helpful for underpainting and sketching due to there lower price.
  3. Artist and professional grade. That’s the main target for professional artists. Binders and pigment load vary, but most paints still contain fillers. If earlier information on pigment load was available in safety data sheets, for now it’s hard to find real numbers. According to our experience, pigment load in artist grade paints is between 15-70%. We will talk about pigment load in a special article.

Pigment used

One of the most important information for colour choice. Paint tube will indicate colour index (CI) that stands for chemical characteristics of pigment used. CI will start with N or P. ’N’ stands for ‘Natural’ and ‘P’ stands for ‘Pigment’. Then a colour identification comes: 

  • Y – Yellow
  • W – White
  • B – Blue
  • Br – Brown
  • Bl – Black
  • R – Red
  • V – violet
  • G – green
  • O – Orange

Index doesn’t show exactly the colour or a colour wheel. For example, PR101 is rather red-brown than bright red or PY42 is ochre but still refers to yellow colours.

Then index itself comes. It’s just a number. You can check pigment index names and their technical characteristics here >>

Transparency

This normally has 3 categories: transparent, semi-transparent and opaque. Usually manufacturers include a symbol – a square. If the square is empty the paint is transparent, if it’s half-filled – semitransparent and if the square is black the paint refers to opaque category.

Lightfastness

Nowadays that term is getting replaced with weather resistance, meaning how much paint will change its colours with time under different conditions: exposure to light, UV, moisture, temperature etc.

Safety note

Working with some pigments may involve some risks. For example, cadmiums and cobalts are known to contribute into cancer development. Emerald green (PG21) is extremely toxic and poisonous. Once used as a rat poison and to preserve wood. It was called a trendy color that killed many in victorian society. 

Some other pigments, such as zinc white, can be harmful for environment and are not supposed to be disposed into water or soil. Paints intended for sale in the USA should have safety warning for such pigments. In Canada paints may or may not contain such warnings.

And some other things that you should keep in mind:

  1. Not all ingredients used in paints will be on the label
  2. Term ‘acrylic emulsion’ or ‘acrylic dispersion’ combines many chemical ingredients, including ammonia and solvents and these ingredients will not be listed separately
  3. Oil paints may contain lead or barium sulphate fillers that will not be shown on the labels either
  4. Manufacturing date is normally absent on paint labels

As you can see, labels can give a lot of information on what’s inside. However, some very important things can be still omitted.

Oil Painting Essentials how to choose oil painting supplies
In: Practice

Oil Painting Essentials

All oil painters have their own lists of oil painting essentials for everyday work. There are many tools, mediums, brushes and many colours available so it’s very easy to get lost. Especially, for beginners. 

On top of that oil paints are quite expensive and not everyone can afford buying more supplies than really needed. Let’s see what you’ll really need to start and what can wait till a better moment. Below you can find some recommendations based on our practice and experience. It may be different from what other artists think and use as all artists are different and have heir own preferences.

Different techniques require different brands of oil paints

  1. Alla Prima. Technique implying working wet-on-wet and finishing a painting during one approach. Most impressionists and a lot of contemporary artists use this technique. For this technique you need good selection of basic colours, especially reds and yellows. Student grade colours have lower pigment load as well as may have some white inside those colours that can “melt” and provide some muddy look. Your choice should be focused on opaque paints that provide pure colours. So, you’ll need artist and professional brands of oil paints, such as (from our shop) Gamblin, Master Class, Old Holland, Dartecor, Art Spectrum and other brands.
  2. Flat technique doesn’t require too much paint to use and you can make few layers one on top another to enhance the colours. You’ll need to mix colours though, but not in big quantities. So, for underpainting casual brands (Ladoga, Rosa Gallery etc.) would work well, and for top layers – professional ones (MasterClass, Gamblin, Art Spectrum etc.). 
  3. Impasto. Here you’ll need thick paints and probably you’d be interested in saving 🙂 The thickest but still not too expensive brand is Art Spectrum. The other brand with very high viscosity is Old Holland, but it may be too pricey for bulk use. One of the options is using wax-based medium that created texture, but wax has it’s own drawbacks that will be discussed in other articles.
  4. Glazing and multi-layering. Here you need minimum fillers and maximum pigment load, so use professional brands only, such as Old Holland or Dartecor.

Different techniques require different oil colours choice

  1. Old Masters’ techniques imply a lot of glazing and working with transparent, but still intense, colours. They usually used monochrome underpainting in combination of white and earthy colours and then many glazing layers with transparent paints. That’s how their painting shine and make an impression of glass between two realities. So, here you’ll need titanium white, burnt and raw sienna, raw umber, ochres, and transparent yellows (hanza yellow, Indian yellow etc.), reds (alizarin crimson, pyrrole red etc.), blues (ultramarine and maybe some phthalo shades), greens (nicosia green, phthalo green), and earthy kids of mars. 
  2. Landscapes. Opaque colours are important here, so choose red, yellow, and orange cadmiums, oxide chromium for green, blue and turquoise cobalts, titanium white, and a variety of earthy colours. It’s also good to have good purple, such as cadmium purple, for accents and shadows.
  3. Portrait. Your choice will be pretty much the same as the Old Master’s techniques plus some opaque colours, depending on your style.
  4. Still lives and flowers. Bright and opaque colours are must have. You’ll need more kids of yellow (cadmium yellow lemon, medium and deep, Indian yellow, hanza yellow), reds (cadmium red, alizarin crimson, quinacridones), pink and magenta colours (quinacridone rose, magenta, cadmium purple), good blues (ultramarine, phthalo, cobalts), green (chromium oxide, phthalo, cobalt), and purple (ultramarine violet, cadmium purple). You’ll also need titanium white and good selection on earthy colours (yellow and golden ochre, burnt sienna, burnt or raw umber etc.). 
  5. Abstract. Here everything depends on the style, but definitely a lot of titanium white and opaque colours we discussed above.

Different techniques require different brush choice

  1. Impasto. For this technique you’ll need a brush that holds a lot of paint. Natural hog bristle brushes preferably with shorter hair for more controllable application would work the best.
  2. Glazing. Your focus will be soft brushes. Everything depends on particular technique, but most likely you’ll need to have a couple of kolinsky sable brushes in your collection. 
  3. Flat. Synthetic brushes would work best of all. Some of them are softer, while the others stiffer – choose what matches your hands. Hog bristle may be too stiff and kolinsky or squirrel may seem too soft. 

Do I need palette knife?

You may or may not use palette knives for painting, but we still recommend to have one medium size metal palette knife for mixing colours and cleaning your palette or scraping paints from your painting in case of failure.

What kind of palette to choose?

For oil painting you’ll need a flat palette. Everything else is a matter of taste: oval, rectangular, plywood, wooden, glass, plastic, wax paper or foil… Many choices are available now.

Do I need oil mediums?

You’ll definitely need painting oil (linseed or another one depending on properties you want to achieve). All other mediums are extra. Read more about different mediums in our knowledge base.

How to choose support?

We always recommend to begin with primed and stretched canvas for oil painting. However other options are always possible. We’ll explain the difference between different types of canvas and how to choose a good one in our articles.

What is a budget?

It’s possible to make a very small trial set for oil painting under $100, but if you want full size tubes and brushes that last longer, your budget for basic kit will be between $150-200. It can go higher, of course, if you buy top-quality paints and larger size of canvas. For some brands, a brush can cost you $70+ or a tube of paints – $100+ (such as Lapis Lazuli). 

(c) RUSART

How to use copal medium in oil painting
In: Practice

Copal in oil painting

There are many different kinds of additives and enhancers exist for oil painting (including copal resin) and all they have their own use. In general, we can identify 6 kinds of materials that can be added to oil paints. All they have different purposes and use.

Oil paint main chemicals:

  • different kinds of oil (linseed, walnut, poppyseed etc.)
  • Natural resins, rosins and gums (turpentine gum, ambers, copal, dammar etc.)
  • Synthetic resins (alkyd)
  • Solvents (white spirit, turpentine oil etc.)
  • Waxes 
  • Essential oils

Let’s talk about copal resin and medium based on this gum. Based on our researches, old masters, including Leonardo, were using a lot of different mediums, experimenting with oil paints. One of them was amber. 

Amber varnish for painting

Amber varnish is one of the oldest ones. People from Ancient Egypt used it for tombs. They preheated amber composite with torches or iron and then polished to desired shine and transparency. In Renaissance times amber varnish were also in a wide use to add some strength to painting film. With the time heating got replaced with chemicals and instead of melting gums, manufacturers started dissolving it with white spirits and turpentine oil.

However, amber is quite expensive ingredient. You can tell it looking at prices of jewelry that contains amber. So, artists were in search of a less expensive substitution to amber and found some other resins that work similar. And one of the was copal. 

Copal as an amber substitute

Copal is resin extracted from trees in the Burseraceae family, that provide many other kinds of intense resins, such as frankincense or myrrh. Polymerized, these resins provide qualities close to amber. 

Copal, apart from other resins used for oil painting, penetrates inside painting layers and forms one substance with it. This property makes oil film (after drying) stronger and more resistant to chemicals, moist and other environmental influences. Also, it brings more elasticity to a layer making it resistant to physical damage. Just add some of copal medium to your paints.

Leonardo da Vinci used copal gum mixed with sunlight bleached walnut oil as a painting medium, in search of perpetual varnish. And RUSART recreated one of his recipes of copal oil medium based on manuscripts found.

You can also use copal medium as varnish, when applied on top of your painting. However, restorers don’t like that as copal varnish is not removable and seals your painting for good. So, if any restoration will be needed, it cannot been performed. So, use copal as a painting agent, but avoid using it for top layers to prolong time of your artwork.

(c) Elena Nahum Leroy

Choose your perfect oil for painting
In: Paints

How to choose linseed oil for painting?

How to choose oil for painting is the most common question for artists, both beginners and professionals. Trying and choosing right materials determine how long your painting is going to “live” and your painting experience.

What artists are looking for in oil?

When I start talking about oil as a binder for arts, I’m getting many questions from why not to use cooking oil for painting to why oil costs so different in stores. That’s a very broad questions and I’ll give all the answers in this and other articles. But let’s begin with the beginning – what are we looking for in “ideal oil”. This concept will help us choose the best oil for painting.

What would be an “ideal” best oil for painting?

  1. Ideal oil should dry fast – you want to continue layering as soon as possible while your inspiration is still with you. You don’t want to wait for a week or longer
  2. Ideal oil should be thin – you’re using oil as a thinner for your paints. If you need to change oil texture in any other ways, there are other mediums for that.
  3. Perfect oil doesn’t yellow with time – you want to make sure that your work will remain as you painted as long as possible.
  4. The best oil for painting is not reversible – that means that after drying it’s stable and permanent and will not melt and turn back to a semi-liquid form under different temperature or humidity conditions.
  5. Ideal oil provides good adhesion – layers of paint should stick to canvas or other support and to previous layers without a risk of peeling off.
  6. Perfect oil for painting doesn’t form cracking – of course, you don’t want your painting to get cracklings. If you want this “antiqued look”, there are some special mediums for that.
  7. Ideal oil has matte finish – that’s not about tastes, that’s about practical aspect. Glossy finish is fine when you work in “alla prima” techniques, i.e. paint wet-on-wet with 1 single layer. In this case selection of mediums may be broader. However, if you work in multi-layering technique, only final layer should have gloss as glossy layers do not “glue” to each other. In other words, whatever we paint on top of glossy layer sooner or later will peel off. And “later” here is less than 5 years.
  8. Ideal oil doesn’t contain toxic chemicals – if you’re sensitive to solvents and other chemicals or work in a small space with poor ventilation, you may prefer a safer options.

We hope all these help you choose the best oil for painting. Of course, “ideal oil” doesn’t exist, but we can try to get closer to this ambitious goal.

Why refined, bleached and thickened linseed oil?

Why I chose linseed oil for painting you can read in our other articles. They explain benefits of each kinds of oil. Let’s assume that we’ve chosen linseed oil and let’s find out the processing methods that make the goals of “ideal oil” real.

  1. Drying time

    Initially, extracted oil has many components inside, from different acids and vitamins to proteins. All they are good for our health when consumed, but do not work well for painting. Some raw oil components make oil sticky, increase drying time and show low transparency. That’s why cooking oil doesn’t work for painting. It simply has a goal to provide our body with nutritions, which should be removed in painting purposes. So, the first thing to choose in oil for painting is the indication “refined”.

  2. Consistence

    Most oils that just extracted have thicker texture than desired for painting. That’s why oil needs to be refined.

  3. Yellowing / non-yellowing

    Most oils for painting have yellow colour and due to some acids that linseed oil contains this kind of oil yellows with time on your painting. That’s why bleaching is a necessary process, which can be done naturally or chemically.

  4.  Adhesion

    For a better adhesion linseed oil should be thickened. In can be done in different ways or their combinations. Normally, this includes temperature and air or vacuum conditions.

  5. Ideal oil is not reversible

    The best oil for painting should stay stable and permanent after drying, meaning the oil will not melt and turn back to a semi-liquid form under different temperature or humidity conditions.

  6. Matt finish and permanency

    Due to linseed oil key characteristics, if it’s not stand oil or if there are no resins added, linseed oil provides matte finish and non-reversible.

  7. Toxicity

    Refining, thickening and bleaching takes long time. And, of course, manufacturers want to speed up to gain greater profits. And there are many technical and chemical methods to do so. Some producers are “cheating” adding solvents or turpentine in oil to make it look more transparent and reduce drying time. However, some chemicals may cause headaches and other health issues for sensitive people. Also, turpentine and white spirits, for example, require a good ventilation to use.

How Elena’s Signature oil made?

Elena Nahum Leroy (Perelman), the only owner of RUSART, recreated naturally treated linseed oil recipes that artists were using in Russia throughout generations, until the new mass-production era began. Read what she’s saying about oils.

Elena used traditional recipes that artists were using for most precious works in Russia. Yes, it took almost a year to produce a batch, but it definitely worth it.

  1. Raw cold-pressed linseed oil was naturally refined 3-5 times with water to remove protein and slime. We have to say, it took 2-3 weeks depending on quality of initial oil. And we drained about 20% of oil by volume. It’s not because the oil was “bad”, it’s because the oil has tons of stuff good as food or for wood-working purposes, but not for painting.
  2. Then we slowly heated the oil for 15-20 hours to remove water residue, polymerize and thicken. It’s a very delicate process as if a temperature is too low nothing is going to happen, and if it’s too high, oil will boil and obtain amber colour.
  3. Then we filtered the oil  2-3 times to finish refining and remove residue of sediments.
  4. And the last step – we exposed the oil to the sun for 9-12 months for bleaching.

So, we used no harsh chemicals, just power or water and the sun. That is a traditional Russian recipe of oil preparation for painting used for hundreds years.

Buy Elena’s Signature Linseed Oil >>

watercolour sticks by Daniel Smith buy online in Canada
In: Practice

How To Use Watercolours in Sticks

Watercolours as any other medium have pigment and binder inside. Pigment is what brings colours, normally, in a powder from. And binder is kind of “glue” that holds pigment particles together. Of course, there many other additives that paints may contain, but we’ll talk about the key ingredients.

When it’s about professional watercolors, we have gum arabic as a binder. Generally speaking, there are several forms for the watercolour paints.

Forms of watercolours:

  • Tubes. Most popular form for North America due to convenience of use and storage. Have more water and plasticizers than any other form of watercolours. Tubes are perfect for wet techniques and washes.
  • Pans. More traditional semi-dry form, but requires more complicated manufacturing procedures  and takes longer loner time to make than tubes. Have higher pigment load and work better for dry techniques.
  • Gouache. It’s opaque watercolour that have a sour cream texture. Very appreciated by designers.
  • Pencils. They look like any other pencil but different in use. A lead may contain some waxes and a lot of fillers, such as clays and others. Perfect for details, for combining graphic and painting techniques as well as for outdoor use. Less messy than any other form of watercolours.
  • Sticks. Have the highest pigment load among all the forms. Let’s take a look what we can do with them.

How to use watercolour sticks

As watercolours in pans

You can simply use the sticks as watercolours in pans with higher pigment load. That means take some paint with a wet brush, and mix colours on your palette. When happy with the result, paint in dry or wet techniques.

As watercolour pencils

Draw on dry paper as if it’s a regular pencil. Add lines of different quality and manipulate the intensity of colour by pressure. Use a sharp edge for finer lines. Blend colours together right on the paper and soften with water. If needed, you can “sharpen” the sticks, collect the shavings and use them as watercolour in pans.

As crayons

Use the wide side of a stick and apply on rough paper. Then add water with a brush or splatter water drops for more creative look.

Dry on wet

Generously water your paper and add some touch with the sticks. With different amount of water used you can achieve incredible and unique look

And the last thing – based on price and signet load ratio, watercolour sticks are champions. In other words, for the same about of money paid you’re getting more valuable pigment per application than any other form of watercolours.

Buy watercolor sticks by Daniel Smith>>

In: News

MasterClass oil paints in use

Our valued customer Nicholas Bott, residing in BC, is sharing his experience of MasterClass and Maimeri Classico oil paint use.

Thank you for using our paints in your masterpieces!

 

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