Good reference on Oil paints and painting

[kahunakalai]

I have been carving for 20 years using acrylics both with brush and air brush. I am thinking of doing my next bird in oil. I know didly squat about this topic. For example how long do I have to wait before applying the next layer. ie. drying time. Do you thin the paint or use it straight from the tube. In acrylics I use very thin washes. A good book or article will be very helpful.

[markken5889]

there's a good article in the newest issue of wildfowl carving. I'm pretty dedicated to painting with acrylics now, although when I first started carving I used oils. Thin with turpentine, lindseed oil (NOT BLO) or a 50-50 mixture of both. drying time is very slow straight out of the tube and also thinned with lindseed oil. the turp helps with this.

Hope it helps!

Mark

[Larry Marshall]

Warning: I have never painted a bird carving.

With that out of the way, I have painted a lot of cast figures and presuming this experience translates to painting wood carvings, the methods used for oils and acrylics are quite different.

With acrylics, as you suggest, you go shading, etc. by laying down several layers of wash. This is done because 1) you can and it's a great way to do it and 2) the acrylics dry so quickly that there's little time for alternatives

With oils, however, shading is typically done by blending. You lay in a base color and then start adding small amounts of shading colors, blending them with the base coat which is not dry, or not completely dry. The slow drying time not only permits this, it almost insists that you do it this way unless you're going to spend your entire life waiting for previous layers to dry :-)

Hope this helps a bit.

[kahunakalai]

Thanks Larry. It helps a lot. Especially the wet on wet blending. I do not know if I will have the patience to wait for one layer to dry before applying the next.

[wildhare]

I use a lot of acrylics because of the lack of odor. To combat the rapid dry time I add a medium. I like the clear gel mediums best. It slows the dry time so you can treat it more like oils. You can blend it or thin is down to just a stain. As a stain, I use 2/3 gel medium to 1/3 paint. You can adjust it for darker with more paint to medium. You can also lay down the medium first and then paint on top while it is wet.

Wanda