Painting Best Practices Workout is the latest technical workshop on artists materials and best painting practices. This six-day course provides hands-on learning on preparing supports for painting, making and applying grounds, paint making, pigments, and selecting and applying varnishes. All materials for the Workout are provided with the tuition.

During the first decade of the 20th century a startling phenomenon was witnessed in exhibitions of oil paintings throughout France: “at retrospective exhibitions of art, many modern pictures which on their first appearance were greatly admired for their brilliance and freshness, seemed so darkened and tarnished as to be hardly recognizable.” The reason for this phenomenon is linked by the author to the practice of oiling out and the application of retouch varnish. In his first part article of a five part series, James Robinson, exposes this faulty practice and shows how it developed as a remediation of sinking in from the 18th century to the present.

Making stack process flake white (or lead white made according to the "old Dutch method") is time consuming and prone to variations in the resulting pigment. These variations are not surprising and were well known from literature and historical documents of the process by manufacturers of lead white. It was a major issue of the process that manufacturers dealt with in various ways. In this article we describe reasons for the variations and how these may be useful to artists.

Oil paint is a slow-drying paint consisting of pigment particles suspended in a drying oil, commonly linseed oil. The viscosity of the paint may be modified by the addition of a solvent, such as turpentine or mineral spirits (white spirits), and varnish may be added to increase the glossiness of the dried film. In this article, you will find complete descriptions of oil painting mediums or additives (or as we prefer to call them "amendments") made by Natural Pigments. These amendments are designed to alter the consistency of oil paint in novel ways, different from the varnishes that were introduced into common use during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

In recent years, we have witnessed an increased interest among artists about historical painting techniques and materials. Why this trend is occurring is subject to much speculation, but some may say it is due to the revival in figurative art. I would prefer to say that interest in figurative art never really died out, but rather it has survived abstract art. An important part of this interest in materials is a concern for the longevity of the paintings created by contemporary artists, a care observed by the old masters in their work.

Lead sulfate (British spelling, sulphate), formed the basis of a number of white pigments that were made on a large scale in the 19th and 20th centuries and sold under a variety of names, such as "Patent White Lead," "Non-poisonous White Lead," "Sublimed White Lead," etc. Some of these pigments did not consist entirely of lead sulfate but contained other minerals, such as zinc oxide, barite (barium sulfate), magnesia (magnesium carbonate), etc., in varying quantities.

A comparison of grounds for egg tempera by artist, Koo Schadler. She compares seven different grounds based on six criteria she developed for egg tempera painting. Read this article to see how they measure up.

Support Induced Discoloration (SID) occurs when paint changes color due to pulling up water-soluble substances from the substrate. As the paint dries these particles remain in the paint, discoloring it. Read how to avoid discoloration of paint on wood supports.

It’s not possible to physically blend egg tempera paint once it’s been applied because reworking fresh paint dissolves and lifts underlying layers. Thus whatever tool is used to apply egg tempera leaves behind its mark: A brushstroke stays visibly a brushstroke, sponged on paint carries the imprint of the sponge. This “mark making” tendency means egg tempera is ideal for rendering fine details, crisp textural effects, and other linear elements. The challenge in tempera is to create smooth, mark-free transitions.

Tempera is a method of painting with pigments dispersed in a binder that is miscible with water. Although the term is typically associated with egg yolk as the binder, it is also applied to paints made with casein, gum or animal collagen (hide glue). The method was known from the classical world, and was the principal medium used for panel painting and illuminated manuscripts in the Byzantine world and Medieval and Early Renaissance Europe. This article examines the type of supports used today for tempera and the best practice of preparing them for tempera painting using a new ground, Tempera Ground, made by Natural Pigments.