A Comparison of Whites

I've collected a bunch of white oil paints over the years, and recently I read that certain whites dry more slowly than others. Apparently titanium white is one of the slowest-drying whites. So I made a little chart of the whites that I have and dated them to see how long they really do take to dry. The results were pretty shocking.

Winsor & Newton's Foundation White is made of lead carbonate and zinc white. Needless to say, I don't use this paint on model horses. I bought it just to see what it was like because it's supposed to be the most stable and reliable white for underpainting on canvas. It's very heavy in the tube and very, very warm, almost yellow. It has very weak tinting strength. But boy, does it dry fast! Within hours. It's very dry to the touch within a day. Too bad it's poisonous, because this would be ideal for mixing colors on a model.

W&N's Flake White Hue and Titanium White took over a month to dry. They both have nice, creamy consistencies, but the dry time is completely unacceptable.

Gamblin Tit/Zinc White is the white that I use when painting my flat artwork. I love the consistency of it. It took almost as long to dry as the two listed above, though.

Rembrandt Titanium White is what I have been using for my model horses, and I was disappointed to find that it took almost a month to dry, also. I don't paint my final white markings with oils, but I do use white when mixing and during initial lay-in, so I thought I'd look for something else.

I think I have finally found an acceptable white, Winsor & Newton Underpainting White. It's Titanium White with a small amount of zinc, and the tech at W&N told me that there is a slight grain added for better adhesion, and a metallic drier added to make it dry faster. They will never tell me the exact ingredients or proportions of anything, but this is what the tech recommended to me after I explained the way that I paint.

Underpainting White has kind of a weird consistency to it (probably the grain that the tech mentioned) that took a little getting used to, but it does indeed dry much faster than regular Titanium White. On my sample, it was dry within a couple of days, much better than a month! It is a little more gray than the other whites, but that's no problem for me because I always mix different colors into my white anyway, and like I said I don't use it as the final coat. So hopefully this will speed up my painting process a little more.

I hope this was helpful!

Lots of Photos

Lajjina's dapples are still evolving.

I recently finished this Finn commission. I hope to have more pictures of him posted on my website and Facebook soon.

This Fenwick is close to being finished, I have some minor details to do. He's got some shiny spots that haven't been sprayed yet.

I think I'm going to start in with oils on Alvaro next. This is all airbrushed. I like this color right now, he looks like a red dun to me (not what color he's going to be).

And I've put another coat of paint on the Patty Reiner. He's going to be a darker bay than he looks like here.

Whew! I've been spending a lot of time painting in the studio. Ravenhill is still being detailed so I won't show him until he's done, probably.

Have a great week!

Weekly Update

I hope everyone is enjoying NAN! I was watching the results but unfortunately the photos haven't been posted yet. I love to see what won, and I also like looking at how the judges placed their pieces and how different the placings can be.

Okay, on to some progress pictures.

Alvaro got another airbrush coat on him. I actually had to go backwards with him because I found a couple spots that needed to be filled. I will probably do one more airbrush coat on him and then start on the oils.

The Patty reiner is looking rather hideous. It's painful for me to look at pieces when they are at this point, knowing that I have to wait for the paint to dry before I can do more to it.
I'm going to spray Finn tomorrow, and I'm hoping that he will be done and that I can show a final picture of him next week.

And here's a Jezebel that I've been working on. I can't remember if I've shown a picture of her before. My goal was to re-do the tail so that it was shorter, but still had the same "style" as the original. I really struggled with this and frankly I'm not happy with it, especially the tips of her tail. This is the second version. I'm embarrassed to say that I've spent 20 hours sculpting this. At this point I just want to chuck the whole thing! I didn't want to re-sculpt the mane, but I will probably end up doing that and re-doing the tail some other way. I don't think I have the skill at this point to get the refinement and gracefulness to match the mane. If anyone has any suggestions or advice for me I'd be happy to hear it! I know my advice to myself: Carol, stick to painting lol!

Details, Details

 

I've been working on a lot of little details over the last week, lots of blanket work on Ravenhill but also some detailing on his head and hooves, so here's a little peek at that:

I've also been working on Lajjina's dapples, moving them about a little and changing their size, etc. I still have quite a bit of work to do on them at this point

And here is a shot of my new favorite detail brush, the Escoda 1210 Kolinsky sable, size 5/0. This is a pretty pricey brush (about $5 at dickblick), but the one I bought lasted a long time and held its point really well. I only used it for oils, not acrylics. I wore it down to a little nub! I also bought their higher-end brush, the 1212 Kolinsky Tajmyr, but have not tried that yet.

Production has slowed to a crawl while I work on a lot of these little details. Normally I can touch 4-6 horses a day, but when I'm doing work like this it slows to 1-2 horses.


I know Breyerfest and NAN are just around the corner, I wish all that are going good luck and will be watching the results online :-)

Weekly Update

Not much to show this week as I'm doing a lot of detailing, touching up and letting things dry, etc. Lajjina above is getting some adjustments made to her dappling.

Here's an old Page Patty custom that I just started. He has a very simple basecoat in acrylics and I've just started to put a little oils on him. He looks really orange right now but his coat color is going to be bay. He will be an appaloosa.

I think I did figure out my airbrush problem. I have an Iwata HP-CH (I think) that has something called a MAC valve at the bottom of it. The documentation for this valve offers precious little insight into how to use it, and for some reason I had it set in a way that wasn't allowing a lot of paint to come out. Fiddling around with that valve fixed my paint flow problem so the airbrush is back in business. Whew!

I hope everyone reading this has a great week and stays safe in the heat! I personally am loving this hot weather in Seattle, I wish every day were sunny and in the 80s. I'm living in the wrong state.

Weekly Update

I worked on Finn's head and hooves some more, I'm basically down to detailing and touching him up now. I still need to touch up and refine a couple of areas in oils.

Here is an Alvaro resin I just started. He's big! I need to get some kind of beanbag system to set him down while I paint him. Whoever cast him did a beautiful job, and he's very lightweight so easy to hold. I'm working on his basecoat right now. For some inexplicable reason my airbrush has been giving me fits lately. I have replaced just about every part on it, but the paint doesn't want to come out. I know I could coincidentally be getting a clog every time, but for it to happen four times in a row is unlikely. I take good care of the inside of the airbrush and clean it religiously. I don't want to have to buy a new one so I guess I'll have to investigate some more.
In other art news, I had my first Thursday art walk this month, it was really fun and I enjoyed it a lot. I was nervous at first, but my work was very well received and I ended up relaxing and enjoying myself. I was told it was a slow night, but I thought it was really busy! I was really glad to get the exposure, and I got to meet some really interesting artists and see a lot of art. Also, my bunny painting of chocolate bunnies won first place at the Edmonds Art Festival a couple of weeks later, so I was really happy about that.

Product Comparison

  Today I thought I would do a little comparison of some of the mediums that can be used with oil paint. These are all alkyd resin-based mediums. They have a moderate drying effect on oil paints. As you can see they all carry a health warning label and need to be used with adequate ventilation, some of them are pretty smelly. A small amount can be mixed directly into the paint, or you can dip your brush into the medium and then into the paint (I always wipe off the brush after dipping into the medium and before dipping into the paint so that I don't use too much of it.) I always get the smallest bottles because the larger bottles dry out after opening, and it lasts a really long time.

Liquin is my favorite medium. I used to hate it because it smells pretty bad, but I really like the consistency of it. It's kind of a gel, and it dries to a soft, semi-matte surface. I think this is one of those love/hate mediums: people either love it or hate it. I feel like I can control it really easily.

Liquin Fine Detail is really watery. I don't like it. It's too easy for me to get too much into the paint, and I have also found that it stays tacky for a long time before it dries.

Weber Rapidry is another really watery medium. It does dry really fast, though. I have used it a couple of times just to put on a base coat, but it's too hard to control these liquid mediums. Weber has videos on their web site that show you what all the mediums are used for, it's definitely worth watching.

I like this medium. It's a soft gel that dries to a fairly matte surface. It's a little slower-drying than Liquin. I was told by a Daniel Smith technical person that this medium uses pure turpentine in it (rather than Odorless Mineral Spirits) but I can't even smell it. In fact, this is the least smelly medium, IMO.

I love Gamblin paint, but I don't like their Galkyd medium. It's really sticky. It has almost a honey consistency to it, sort of halfway between a gel and a liquid. It's really gross.

Neo Megilp would be my all-time favorite medium except that it dries slowly. As an example, Liquin may be dry to the touch in 24 hours or so, but Neo Megilp will take about 3 days to dry. I love the consistency of it, it's a soft gel that dries to a nice matte finish, and it's just a dream to work with, but I never use it on models because of the slow dry time. If they could just make this medium exactly like it is, but with Liquin's dry time, I think it would be the perfect medium.

And that's all I've got laying around. All mediums should be used in small amounts, but they do help to dry oil paints a little bit faster, and they also make the paint a little more transparent so you can create nice glaze effects.