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an insomniac misanthrope who enjoys cooking, textile arts, farming and eating delicious food.
Actually I’m just experimenting with this now. Seems to work very well for increasing transparency. Densely pigmented tube colours tend to obliterate everything beneath but cut with putty medium they seems to have a lot more depth and “air”. My understanding is that these putties are naturally lean as not much oil is required to make a workable paint. They are reported to dry well (depending of course on the oil component) and to increase adhesion. Also claimed it makes for a good paint film (especially with a bodied oil component) and more or less non-yellowing. As the chalk basically functions as a filler, the non-yellowing thing if it is true seems a bit hard to explain. The leanness of the putty may be at work here (little oil, little yellowing). So basically it just looks like a big win all around :-) In the few occasions I have seen Rembrants in the flesh, I’ve marvelled at the wonderful transparency, particularly in the darks. This makes a great contrast with his strident white highlights. Very difficult to do with modern tube paint sans using ridiculous volumes of solvents/oils, and impossible whilst retaining body. I’ve read a number of sources that say he used chalk. Simple and effective it seems! Go forth and conquer!
Yes, lots of different effects can happen based on what you want the paint to do. It is a stable way of making modern paint a little more like older paint. As you say, the refinement over time is really fun. A nice place is one where the paint can be changed or moved around with bristle brushes, but then blended or cleaned up with softer brushes.
Well, with my work, I got involved with hand-refined linseed oil, so it all dries overnight. This is not hard to do, happens naturally with the hand-refined oil, but I’m exploring longer open times for layers now too with poppy or walnut oil. Sometimes overnight is too fast! But yes, I have lots of things in progress. I wish they would hurry up. To some extent this is the result of writing a book about the materials, needing to cover all the zigs and zags. But I like that feeling a painting gets when it has emerged from a struggle, too. At first it feels impossible, but then gets solved somehow. It’s always kind of a duh moment too, like I should have known it all along. But still the best part for me.
Thanks for adding to the discussion Tad.
I have used calcite in one form or another in my paintings for the last few years. Pretty much since I started to paint solvent free.
There is a tremendous amount of great information posted by Tad and I can say that his results are confirmed by my own experimental results. It is actually a pity that there is so much miss information out there regarding artists materials. For example Gottensen “the painters handbook” says that washed linseed oil doesn’t dry faster that raw linseed oil. This simply is not true. Water washed cold pressed linseed oil dries (cures) at twice the rate of unrefined oil.
Regarding calcite; it is great that the use of calcite is becoming more respected and know amongst artists. I notice that Gamblin are not at all ashamed of the inclusion of calcite in their student range . And, judging by the handling of the paint, their fastmatte paint also contains calcite. And all power to them, they are nice paints. But the artist can make their own underpainting equivalent by combining a fast drying burnt umber ground in linseed oil e.g Old Holland , and combining that with a combined calcite/ Alkyd-walnut medium (thanks M Graham).
I think that the modern artists owe it to themselves to do at least a little experimentation with calcite. For my part I mostly use a thin couch medium containing calcite. Much like a pigment free paint but oh so much cheaper and in my control. I can blend translucent thin layers into this, where intensity is determined by the amount of pigment not by a blend of pigments. The calcite allows better control of that magic window of not too much oil and not too little.
I think that modern artists should be moving to regain the intellectual property of paint characteristics and behaviour from the paint manufacturers. It has been well lamented that there are not modern schools where painting technique can be learnt. Heck, I spent 3 years at university in fine art but no one taught me how to control paints rheological properties!
Kudos to Tad for providing solid information! Personally I have travelled a similar path and realised that my (expensive) shelf full of resins and mediums is largely unnecessary. Vergil Elliot makes similar comments that have taken me too long to accept. There is magic in dirt ground with linseed oil…..
