Natural Pigments

Creating Impastos in Your Paintings

Tue, 18 Jun 2013 15:05:00 -0400

The simplest way to create an impasto surface is to apply paint in large amounts, usually with either a brush or palette knife. Commercial oil colors have a heavy consistency, so this can be achieved by working directly from the tube applying the colors in thick layers. Opacity and built-up texture are usually interrelated, with much of the thickest impasto consisting of solid and opaque pigments, such as lead white or titanium white. Passages of thickly applied paint can also be translucent, so extender pigments are chosen that supply both bulk and transparency.

Extender pigments, often called fillers, as powders appear white or cream-colored, when mixed with oil are virtually transparent, making them suitable as a modifying agent for

The Impasto Technique of Rembrandt

Tue, 18 Jun 2013 03:21:00 -0400

Impasto is paint laid on a canvas or panel in quantities that make it stand out from the surface and is usually thick enough that brush or palette knife strokes are visible. The first known use of the word was in 1784, from Italian impasto, the noun of the verb impastare �to put in paste.� [1]

The heavy viscosity and slow drying time of oil paint makes it a suitable medium for impasto painting technique. Watercolor and tempera paint are not satisfactory for this technique because they lack these properties and do not form continuous films surrounding pigment particles.

Thick passages of paint can serve a number of functions in paintings. First, the relief of impastos can intensify

Color Notes: Ultramarine Blue (Green Shade)

Sun, 09 Jun 2013 13:53:00 -0400

Rublev Colours Ultramarine Blue (Greenish Shade) is an intense deep greenish-shade blue oil paint made from an inorganic pigment (ultramarine) of sodium aluminum silicate composition. It is a transparent, fine grained color with high tinting strength.

Most commercial ultramarine oil paint is ground in safflower, poppy or linseed oil. Ultramarine has poor �wetting� characteristics in vegetable oils, especially alkali-refined linseed oil. Poor �wetting� means it does not easily

Ultramarine: From the Most Precious and Rare to the Prosaic

Thu, 06 Jun 2013 23:46:00 -0400

Ultramarine is a blue pigment consisting primarily of a zeolite-based mineral containing small amounts of sulfur. Ultramarine is one of the most complex of the mineral pigments, composed of the blue mineral lazurite, which is the major component of the rare and semi-precious stone lapis lazuli.[1] The mineral occurs in nature as a product of limestone metamorphism and typically is associated with calcite, pyrite, diopside, humite, forsterite, hauyne and muscovite minerals, and is sometimes found in lava as a by-product of volcanic eruptions.[2]

Clove Oil in Oil Paint

Mon, 20 May 2013 22:41:00 -0400

We are often asked about the use of clove oil to retard the drying of oil paint. Like many others, you may have heard that it darkens upon exposure to light. The source of this information appears to be from Marion Boddy-Evans at About.com�Painting. Here is the link to her post:
http://painting.about.com/b/2010/01/...der-or-not.htm

Marion posed the question to an expert, Paul Robinson, Technical Advisor at Winsor & Newton, who said:
"Clove oil works well as a retarder but there is a note of caution: over time (a long time) it does actually darken as it dries. It starts off

Dinatopia Author and Illustrator, James Gurney, and Rublev Colours Watercolors Set

Tue, 30 Apr 2013 01:00:00 -0400

We recently met James Gurney and his wife, Jeanette, at the Plein Air Convention in Monterey, California. James is the author and illustrator of the book series Dinatopia. This highly imaginative series of books detail the world of dinosaurs in a utopian setting, hence the name.