All About Oil

Van Eyck Oil Painting possibly a Self Portrait

Oil Painting - possibly a Self-portrait - by Jan Van Eyck, one of the foremost pioneers of painting with oils

Oil Paint was already a popular medium by the end of the 14th Century and has remained so because of its versatility, longevity and beauty. Because of its slow drying times, it is easy to mix, apply, blend, build up and, should corrections be necessary, wipe off and start again! It can be used straight from the tube for thick impasto texture, it can be thinned to create luminous glazes that can be built up to achieve stunning depth, it can be applied with brushes, painting knives, rags and anything else that comes to hand, can be painted on canvas, wood, metal and millboard and can be painted over and scrapped into.

With the correct solvents and bearing in mind a couple of basic rules, artwork in oil can endure for centuries. Its main problem is cracking but this can be minimized by using solvents that create a bond between the surface and pigments. Turpentine, distilled from pine resin, is the ideal natural substance to thin the paint whilst ensuring that this bond is maintained and there are various oils that can be used to create glazes without breaking down the paint. See our section on Solvents further down the page for more details.

When thinned paint is applied to layers of thick paint, the top layer will crack as the lower layers continue to dry. To avoid this, the ‘fat over lean’ rule should be considered. This involves ensuring that the first layers applied consist of paint thinned with turpentine and that subsequent layers have more oil and paint content than turps. Oil Paint has a richness of colour, lustre, luminosity and luscious consistency that no other medium can replicate and the results that can be achieved with it are diverse and very pleasing to the eye.

Oil Paint on a Palette

Oil Paint It is basically dry pigment held in a vegetable oil, usually either linseed, poppy or safflower oil. As with watercolours and acrylics, there are Artist ranges and student ranges. The cost of the artists’ colours are split into ‘series’ reflecting the cost of the pigments used to make each colour and the price of a student range is set at one low cost across all the colours. The best Artist’s Oil is simply high quality pigment in oil whilst student versions may have driers and other substances bulking out the paint alongside cheaper pigments. The student ranges will also have far fewer colours because many of the Artists’ colours can not be replicated at the lower cost. Where an alternative or synthetic pigment has been used in any oil colour, it will be referred to as a ‘hue’.

Artists’ Oils

Artists or Professional Quality Oil Paint

Every Artist’s oil paint is all about the pigment. In order to achieve the highest quality colours that are resistant to colour shift, unwanted chemical reactions with other pigments, fading, muddying and lack of vitality, the very purest pigments are used. They are tested thoroughly to ensure they are stable, bright and clean to help you produce fantastic artwork that will endure. The main thing to note about Artists’ oils is that some pigments cost more to extract and process and so the colour they produce will cost more. As a result, Artists’ colours are ordered in ‘series’ with series 1 being the cheapest of the colours and the higher series costing more. Earth tones tend to be among the series 1s, whilst the higher series are made up of the cadmiums, cobalts and madders. As with student oil, there will be slight differences between the pigments in relation to drying times, surface sheen and transparency.