contact us | about us | privacy | how to draw blog You will need a palette knife for removing paint from your palette as you work. It can also be used to scrape unwanted paint from the surface of the canvas before repainting, and it can supplement a brush in mixing colors.
Medium
A painting medium, or vehicle, is necessary to make the paint workable. I recommend that you buy a prepared copal painting medium and use it at the start. Later on, you may want to prepare your own medium. A good homemade mixture is one-third turpentine, one-third linseed oil, and one-third copal oil varnish. You can vary the effect by using more turpentine in the preliminary stages of a painting, to speed the drying as well as to thin the consistency of the paint. Then, as the painting builds up, cut down on the turpentine and use more linseed oil, painting in a heavier manner.
When you are more experienced, you may want to experiment with other painting mediums. Stand oil, which gives an enamel-like finish, to a painting, is a very heavy oil and should be thinned with turpentine to make it workable. Sun-thickened oil will also add a gloss to your painting and it dries faster than stand oil.
All mediums should be purchased at an art supply shop to insure high quality.
Retouch Varnish
It will not be necessary to carry a bottle of retouch varnish in your paint box, but you should have it on hand in the studio. When a canvas is worked on over a period of time, some color areas go dull as they dry, and brushing or spraying some retouch varnish over the painting brightens the sunken colors. Retouch varnish also helps the adherence of the paint film of subsequent work. Do not overuse this varnish; it will not be needed until the painting is well under way.
Oil Cups
You should have two cups that can be fastened to your palette. One cup is for the medium you are mixing with your colors, the other holds turpentine for cleaning your brush quickly, particularly when working outdoors. Make sure both cups are big enough to take a large brush.
Charcoal Pencils
Always have some fairly soft charcoal pencils or sticks in your paint box. Charcoal allows more flexible handling than an ordinary lead pencil in making the basic sketch on the canvas.
Fixatif
A fixatif is used to keep the charcoal drawing from smudging; it is sprayed on with a small atomizer. This can be omitted when the sketching is done outdoors, and the surplus charcoal can be dusted off the canvas with a rag or a chamois. Dust lightly so that a faint image remains to gui~e you in the later painting.
Paint Rags
Have enough rags in your paint box for wiping your brushes and palette, and for general cleaning up.
The Sketching Stool
If you prefer to sit while working, you will need a sketching stool. Choose one that is light in weight but sturdily constructed and that will fold up and use as little space as possible when you are carrying the rest of your sketching material. Some painters dispense with an easel and instead carry a second stool, on which they set the open paint box with a panel inserted in the lid.
Continue to Oil painting brushes & the home studio
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AN INTRODUCTION TO OIL PAINTING
Material & Equipment for Oil Painting
> Introduction & Colors
> Working with Canvases
> More about Using Canvases
> The Paint Box and Palette
> The Palette Knife and Other Tools
> Oil Painting Brushes & the Home Studio
> Care of Equipment & Brush Handling
> More about Brush Handling
> Arranging Colors on the Palette & Color Mixing
> More About Color Mixing
> Color Mixing Exercises