Here's one for the artists out there!
These are the most common question I get from other artists - always about my glazing. So I thought I'd try to answer here and share what I can.
What medium do you use?
Now, I use water. But I used to use Golden's fluid matte medium, and after that Golden's polymer medium. I would use touches of paint in a pool of medium, mixed with a palette knife. I first used the matte medium because I wanted my paintings to have a matte finish but later read Golden's own advice about it and they said sometimes a lot of layers of matte medium could cause a milky finish. While I hadn't seen that result I knew I was using upwards of 20 layers of medium so decided to switch to their recommendation of polymer medium instead. (At this point I also decided to start varnishing to get my matte finish.)
Advice from other artists: my way isn't the only way, obviously. Many many acrylic artists use glazing mediums in order to produce lots of transparent layers. I don't for two reasons:
- I prefer not to layer medium anymore because it creates a thickness of the surface of the canvas.
- I hate retarder, and most glazing mediums contain this to keep the paint wet longer. (more on that later).
What do you use to water down your paint?Water. :) Sorry, but just had to include this one. Other people thin their paint with various mediums, as above.
How do you stop the paint drying to quickly? Do you use a Stay-Wet palette?I don't. In fact my technique relies on the paint drying very quickly and I even use a hairdryer
while brushing very occasionally. With the way I do very very wet glazes or very very dry brushing I need the paint to dry super fast so I can brush out edges as it's drying.
On that note I also don't use a Stay-Wet palette. I work on a large piece of glass which is fantastic for cleaning up. A razorblade takes everything off. :)
What brushes do you use?Big uns! I like A S Handover varnish brushes, from size 14 upwards. I prefer natural bristle brushes because they are what I'm used to, so I can predict exactly how much water they'll hold and how they'll apply the paint.
Do you use heavy body or fluid acrylics?Heavy body. While it seems counter-intuitive since I work entirely in fluid glazes, I prefer the heavy body. It's because my glazes have very little paint in them, so the fluid acrylics are great if you want highly pigmented fluid glazes. I want lightly pigmented fluid glazes - so watering down the heavy body paints works much better for me.
Do you use mainly transparent pigments for glazing?Nope! I don't pay much attention to the transparency usually, except in later stages of a painting where I might know I absolutely need under layers to show through completely. Where the glaze is literally just a screen of tint to unify or change the entire colour of an area. (so putting blue over yellow to get a green finish, for example)
Because my paint is so thinned down it's rare that using an opaque pigment actually results in an opaque layer. There are a few I'm careful with:
- Titanium white: I almost never use. Ever. Zinc white is my true love!
- Cerulean blue: while I love it it has a strange opaqueness to it so I have to be careful with it in later layers.
- Ochres: no explanation needed really. Very opaque, in later layers I use a yellow iron oxide instead.
How do you know what colours to glaze?Strangely, I've never had a problem "seeing" colours though, imagining how they will layer and combine, or what complements what. So I love colour theory (really I do!) but mainly on a scientific/physiological level - I find I "get" a lot of the practical advice in colour books already.
When I was learning to paint one of my "assignments" was to always look at things outside and think of which colours to mix to paint it. So I might look at a lamppost and think "burnt sienna, a touch of ultramarine blue to tone it down, bit of white to lighten the highlights, and some green in the shadows." If you learn how to physically mix paint you have an advantage in predicting visual colour mixtures from layering in glazes.
Why did you switch from oils to acrylics?My background in oils is why I glaze. I've always worked in a way that builds up the image through successive thin layers of colour. I've always been a glazer; it's the way I was taught. (which is not to say I didn't experiment with impasto and plein air and things along the way!)
So why switch? I had been told by several people I would like acrylics. Mainly because I work fast - so with oils I might have about 10 paintings on the go and move between them during a painting session. Originally my excuse was a snobby one - they weren't as good as oils and I had no interest. But when I applied for a residency in Newfoundland I decided it would be the perfect chance to try acrylics once and for all. So I went for a month and took only acrylic paints.
Switching medium was actually very difficult. It meant first trying to duplicate what I did in oils in acrylic, realising that wouldn't work, then trying to adapt to get the same effect with different materials. Years of frustration!!! I painted in both for a couple years but eventually I fell in love with the colours and flatness of acrylic. It simply suited what I was trying to achieve - a soft, flattened perspective, strictly 2D surface image. This is also reflected in my matte varnishing I think.
I still work in oils sometimes, on small studies on board. But practice makes perfect and to be honest it's hard to work in oil now because I don't do it often enough. Again, frustrating! ;)
But now with acrylics I can work on 3 or so at a time, meaning I can be more deeply involved in my subjects. I still work between a few because even acrylic needs time to dry properly between glazes to prevent lifting of previous layers. (which can happen because I don't use medium)
End tips- Practice practice practice.
If it doesn't work, try again. And again. To be very honest it took me at least a couple of years of trying to glaze in acrylics for it to "click". And even then I felt it wasn't nearly good enough. I'd say it took about 5 years to reach the point where I was sufficiently happy with my glazing to think it was right. Not perfect - it still isn't perfect! - but finally reaching a point of doing what I really wanted it to do.
- Change.
There are as many methods for glazing as artists! Try heavy body paint, try fluid paint, try medium, try water, try a mix of both, try a different medium, try retarder, try dry brushing and scumbling instead. I tend to have 2 main methods - very wet and very dry - and have to remind myself not to get caught up in one or another.
Thanks to Chris Brogan for reminding us that it's the 4th annual Blog Day! A day to share other blogs that our readers might be interested in. Here's my five that you might like:
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