An Overview Of Oil Paint

Components Oil paint is usually made up of three different components: a pigment, a binder and a thinner. The pigment is the colour element and is a ground-up powder. The binder is a liquid substance that holds the pigment together. Once the pigment and binder have been mixed together, the thinner is added. What the thinner does is it makes the paint easier to apply to a support with a brush. Many of these paints contain other additives to give it extra properties or to make it dry more quickly. These additives, also known as 'mediums', can be mixed in with the paint or they can be applied to the paint once it's on the support.

Drying speed One of oil paint's main properties is that it is very slow to dry. Once you've applied the paint, you should have about 12 hours to manipulate it. Usually you'll have to wait three days or so for one coat to dry before you can apply another coat. You can apply as many layers of oil paint to your painting as you want, so long as you let the paint dry enough in between coats. For an oil painting to completely dry out, it should take three to six months. Once an oil painting has completely dried out, you'll then be able to apply varnish to it to protect it from dust and other particles. Application and supports The flexibility of oils means they can be applied to supports in numerous ways. In fact, you can use practically any implement to apply this type of paint to your support.

As well as brushes, you can very easily apply oil paint to supports with implements such as a palette knife, or even finer implements like toothpicks for extra fine detail. You can apply oil paint to a variety of supports; artists usually go for canvas, specially prepared paper, a hard wooden or metallic board or even panels. Advantages Oil paint has many advantages, which is why it's been the paint of choice for many artists over the years. The slow drying time allows painters much more time to get their paintings exactly how they want them. It gives more time for applying different techniques, blending and layering. Oils provide a much wider range of colours, tones and shades; once oils have dried, their colours tend to be long-lasting.

When painting with oils, if you make a mistake, you can easily remove it with a wet rag or a palette knife and start over. Joanne Perkins is a Berkshire-based artist with a BA (Hons) in Fine Art. She specialises in painting Berkshire landscapes and loves capturing the natural beauty of her local countryside. She is happy to accept all queries and questions. For more information about Joanne, her work and her current projects visit: [http://joannesberkshirescenes.com/default.aspx]. Joanne can be found on Facebook.