Hello Everybody,
Thank you all for the very kind and encouraging words and comments. As always, they definitely help keep me motivating in between postings!
However, JH left the following comment, and I think the subject warrants it's own post because I'm asked this fairly often - it's probably the most asked question I get (both here and elsewhere)... here's the comment:
Hi phil,
any suggestion on a matt varnish that could be applied with brush after a few days of drying time?
Btw, for some reason Abteilung oil black is still somewhat wet after 5 days although it was applied with thin coats... any idea on the reason? Note: I haven't used any kind of thinner in the process, I only let the excess oil out from the tube then applied the paint on my palette.
The subject, of course being the drying time and finish (matte, sating, gloss, etc.) of oil paints. I'm also not even sure if this is the proper place to post this, but here goes...
Finish
Let's get the easy and quick one out of the way. If I need a more matte finish to what I'm painting, after everything is dried thoroughly, I use this:
Artist's Matt Varnish from Winsor & Newton. I can't say whether it's better or not than other brands, but it's meant to sit on top of and work with oil colors (unlike a lot of hobby brand varnishes).
In terms of application, I make sure I shake it very (
very) well. Once shaken, I then put some on my palette with the help of an old brush. Once it's on the palette, I then go ahead and load my brush, wipe off any excess (using the palette for this - not a paper towel), and then lightly brush the surface that I want to be matte. Two things to keep in mind:
- If you want, you can dilute this varnish with white spirit to thin it down a little bit. I would suggest only adding a very small amount though
- If the area isn't matte enough for your tastes after the first pass, you can always add another layer after it's dried. The varnish dries pretty quickly, and adding another layer is simple enough. I think I've only really needed to do this once in several years though. (But how matte something should be is highly subjective)
Aside from varnish, there are two other important things that can affect the finish of the oil paint:
- Pigment. Some pigments naturally dry more matte or glossier than others. With oils earth tones and mars pigments in general dry much more matte than other types of pigments. Two examples of this would be Burnt Umber (an earth tone) and the color Melanie brought up in her comment, Mars Black. Both these colors dry very matte, and would never really need to be covered with matte varnish. Of course this is also dependent on if they've been mixed into other colors and so on, but by themselves used in pure form, they both dry to a very matte finish. As you get familiar with different kinds of pigments, you can quickly learn where they fall into the matte <-> glossy spectrum.
- Thin/thickness of layer. Based on my own experience, I've found that the thinner the layer is, the tendency is to get closer to a matte finish. This usually is the result of once having applied a particular paint onto a specific element on the model/figure, and then going back and wiping the excess of with a clean and dry brush. I've noticed if I do this several times to an area, the finished area tends to dry in a much more matte fashion.
One thing I'm personally not fond of is using a piece of cardboard or other type of surface to drain the excess oil out of paint. I know it's very popular (especially in the scale model community), but I tend to avoid it. Most high quality oil paints really only consist of two elements - a binder such as Linseed, Safflower, Poppy, or Walnut oil and the pigment. I've found that by essentially removing some of the binding agent, weird stuff can happen to the paint(cracking, adhesion issues, etc.) My understanding of why this approach is popular is because it can help make oils more matte and help them dry faster - while this might be true, there are ways to do both that don't affect the paint in negative ways. A similar analogy with acrylics would be putting them through a process to remove the "extra water" in them before using them to paint
.
There are many other factors that can influence finish with oils as well - the type of surface their being painted onto (is it directly over the plastic/resin/metal? a base of acrylic? or directly over acrylic primer or gesso?), solvents (white spirit can tend to matte oils as well) or additives used, and so on. This is not meant to be comprehensive or definitive; it's just some observations based on my own experiences. I'll also be mentioning an additive in the next section that can also help matte down our oils.
Let's move onto drying times now.
Drying Time
As with finish, there are many factors that can affect drying times of oil paints. Before we get into additives, etc. Let's focus on the two biggest properties of oil paint that determine drying time from straight out of the tube - pigment and binding agent...
Just as a specific pigment can affect the finish, so can it affect the drying time as well. Oddly enough, the pigments mentioned that tend to dry to a matte finish - earth tones and mars pigments, are also examples of pigments that tend to dry quicker on their own than other types of pigments. However with oils, drying times are all relative, so I think it's important to set a baseline. Here are relative drying times of oils straight out of the tube with some common colors/examples in each category:
- Fast (1-2 days)
- Most Mars pigments
- Oxides (red, brown, etc.)
- Many earth tones: Burnt/Raw Umber, Burnt/Raw Sienna
- Medium (2-7 days)
- Cadmium pigments (red, orange, yellow)
- Naples Yellow
- Yellow Ochre
- Ultramarine Blue/Cobalt Blue
- Slow (5 - 14 days)
- Most Quinacridone pigments (Magenta, Red, Violet)
- Phthalo Blue
- Lamp Black
- Titanium White
- Very Slow (10-21+ days)
- Alizarin Crimson
- Dioxizine Violet
- Indian Yellow
- Zinc White
(Thanks to Williamsburg, Old Holland, and Michael Harding for some of the info above).
The point is that with oils, even when talking about
quick drying we're still talking in terms of how many
days. Also, some paints can take
weeks to dry! Granted our drying times will always be a little faster than the times shown above, because we're painting with much thinner layers, but the list is a good example of relative drying times right out of the tube.
Aside from Pigment, the binding agent used can also affect drying times right out of the tube as well. (Although not quite as much as pigments). The standard binding agent in most oils paints is Linseed oil. However, two popular alternatives to linseed oil are Poppy Seed oil and Safflower oil (among others). Both of these tend to dry
slower than Linseed oil. So, if you're using a paint brand that uses one of these alternative oils (such as Blockx), then your drying times can on average be slower. It's also worth noting that even brands/lines of paints that use Linseed oil for most colors, can also use Safflower oil for specific colors (you normally see this with lighter colors such as white or yellow due to Safflower oil's tendency to darken/yellow less than Linseed oil).
So we can see that right out of the tube there are some important qualities that can affect the drying times of our oils. For miniature painters however, the typical drying times of oils is not optimal, and we'd like a way to speed them up. To increase our drying times further, we need to turn to either additives or solvents.
There are many, many different kinds of things we can add to our oil paints to make them dry quicker. I'm not going to cover every one of them, but I will go into details about the some I have direct experience with and how they can potentially help with drying times.
I'll break them down by category.
Solvent-based
Solvent-based dryers are based on oil paint solvents such as turpentine, white spirit, or other modern day substitutes for them (such as terpene or spike lavender oil). A great example of this kind of dryer is this:
This is Rapid Medium from Schmincke. I've used it on several projects and it works great. Another great benefit is that it can also help matte down our oil colors as well. One thing though, that I don't like about it (and all solvent-based thinners) is that you need to be careful how much you mix into your paint; it is a solvent and if you mix too much in, your binder will be eaten away and weird things will happen - and by weird, I mean
not good. In terms of drying times, most colors will dry within a day or two, with only a very few taking more than that to dry. It also makes your paint more fluid and it'll help thin it out if you think it's too thick.
Drying Oils
Unlike the solvents above, drying oils use drying additives to regular Linseed oil to help promote quicker drying. Here are some examples:
These are both the same thing from two different brands. On the left we have drying oil from Winsor & Newton, and on the right from Rublev. What I love about these types of dryers, is that since they use just plain old linseed oil, unlike the solvents, you can add as much as you want to your paints, and you're not degrading them in any way. This means that you can really, really thin your paints down with them or make them very transparent. I use these quite a bit when I need to make glazes or very transparent layers. Also unlike solvent-based driers, they don't change or alter the finish of the paint. However, if you add a lot of these to your paints, they can get a little glossier. They also make the paint more fluid and easier to work with. In terms of drying times, I notice that after 24 hours most colors are dried or pretty darn close. There are a few that might take some more time, but these guys are pretty effective drying agents. Also, I think they're faster and more consistent in their drying times than the solvent based driers.
Alkyds
An alkyd is specific resin that is a very common additive to oil paints (there are actually entire lines of oil paints that have this in them). Alkyds can dry fast... I mean
very fast... like
hours . Here are some examples:
On the left we probably have the most popular alkyd of all - Liquin from Winsor & Newton. Specifically, this is their "fine-detail" version, which also makes the paint much more fluid and easier to work with (hence the "fine-detail" moniker). Aside from drying times WN makes several versions of Liquin that all have slightly differing properties. I think for figure painters, the fine detail version is the most appropriate. The bottle on the right is Galkyd from Gamblin, and probably outside of WN, is the next most popular. They are very, very similar. Aside from drying quickly (faster than all other discussed so far), they will definitely add gloss to your paint - which isn't great. They will also make the paint more transparent (outside of a base layer, this is something that I find to be a positive trait). In many ways, these are the workhorses of driers. They're the most popular and effective. I used them exclusively for years.
However, if you've noticed, all of the above depending on your needs have what could be pros or cons. With that said, last year I found my holy grail of driers and it's this:
This is a paste-based alkyd called Transparent Base from Rublev. For me this is THE ONE
. It's by far the fastest drying medium I've ever added to an oil paint. If you mix in enough into your paints they'll be dry on the palette in a matter of hours - it's pretty crazy! Another great property of this is that it dries to a matte finish - its cut out my matte varnish use by at least 90%. The only potential drawback is that it will make your paints more transparent. (But again, I find this to be a plus). The transparency is tied into how much you add to the paint, and you can add enough to get the benefits of the increased drying time without noticeably increasing the transparency. This really has been a game changer for me...
With that small survey of driers out of the way, I'll talk about how I use these products when working on projects. It's pretty simple:
- Skin or horses - I'll use a drop to add just 1 or 2 drops of the Pale Drying Linseed oil from Rublev into my paint mixes.
- Glazes - I'll keep adding drops of the Pale Drying Linseed oil from Rublev until I get to the transparency I want and then go from there.
- Washes - Add a little bit of the Transparent Base from Rublev and then add white spirit until "wash consistency" is achieved.
- Everything else - I add a small amount of Rublev's Transparent base to the paint, or more if I need more transparency or need things to dry really, really quickly (for whatever reason). (I add and mix this in using small palette knife)
That's it.
As I mentioned when discussing finish, this is absolutely not meant to be taken as a comprehensive or definitive guide to this stuff. (There a ton of other drying products out there) Again, it's just some things I've learned based on my own experiences with products I've personally used. I would definitely encourage trying some of these products out and experimenting with them, and seeing what works for you.
Finally, JH - if you're still reading... It would be hard for me to say why your black hasn't dried yet, but if it's not dry in another couple of days, then I would definitely think it's a problem with the paint, and avoid using it. While I know of that brand, I've never used them before, so I'm not familiar with a their properties or what pigments they're using. Looking into one of these driers might also be quite helpful as well.
I hope this was helpful and thanks for reading!
Next post is will be covering the base and groundwork for our figure.
Regards,
Phil
