The Painter in Oil Part 5

=Oils.=--The most commonly used oils are linseed and poppy oil. They are neither of them quick dryers, and are usually mixed with sugar of lead, manganese, etc., to hasten the drying. These have a tendency to affect the colors; but if one will have recourse to none but the pure oils, he must be patient with the drying of his picture. For this reason it would be well to use vehicles with the colors on the palette as little as possible--and that is against thin and smooth painting.

Oil has the tendency to turn dark with time, thus turning the color dark also. The only way to reduce this tendency is to clarify the oil by long exposure to the sunlight. The early German painters used oil so clarified, and their pictures are the best preserved as to color of any that we have. But the drying is even slower with purified oil than with the ordinary oil.

It would be best, then, to use oil as little as may be in painting, and if you need a dryer, use it only as you actually need it in bad drying colors, and then very little of it.

The essences of turpentine and of petroleum may be used to thin the paint, and are preferable to oil, because they have less darkening tendency. They do not, however, bind the color so well, and the paint should not be put on too thinly with them. Usually there is enough oil ground with the pigment as it comes in the tubes to overcome any probability of the paint scaling or rubbing when thinned with turpentine, but in the slow-drying, transparent colors there will be a liability to crack. Moderation in the use of any and all vehicles is the best means of avoiding difficulty. Use vehicles only when you need them, not habitually, and then only as much as there is real need of.

If you use oil, use the lighter oils, and expect some darkening in time. Prefer turpentine to oil, and expect your color to dry rather "dead," or without gloss, by its use. If you intend to varnish, this is all right. If you do not intend to varnish the picture, keep the color as near the pure tones as you can. The grayer the color, the more the "dead" or "flat" drying will make it look colorless.

=Varnishes.=--When the picture is done, after it is dry, varnishes are used to bring out the freshness of color, and to preserve the surface from outside influences of all sorts. A picture must be well dried before it is varnished, or it is likely to crack; six months is not too long to be safe. If you are in a hurry to varnish, use a temporary or retouching varnish.

The best varnish is necessary for use on pictures. Never use any except a varnish especially made for the purpose by a reliable colorman. Those made by Winsor and Newton may all be depended upon.

Pay a good price for it, and don't use too much.

Mastic varnish is that which is most favorably known. Be sure you get a good and pure quality.

Varnishes are made from various gums or resins dissolved in a solvent such as alcohol, turpentine, or oil, as the case may be. The lighter gums are the best for pictures, because they do not affect the color of the picture. Much care should be used in putting on the varnish--that it is even and as thinly distributed as will serve the purpose. It should not be flowed on, but carefully worked out with a clean brush, and then kept from dirt and dust until dry.

The finer varnishes in oil or turpentine are best for ordinary use.

Those in alcohol do not hold their freshness so well.

Varnishes are sometimes used as siccatives, and to mix with colors which are liable to affect other colors, or to lack consistency.

Usually, however, they are not needed.

CHAPTER VII

PALETTES

The most important qualities in a palette are that it should be large enough, and that it should balance well on the thumb. Whether it is round or square is a slight matter. The oval palette is usually best for the studio because the corners are seldom of use, and add weight.

But for sketching, the square palette fits the box best.

[Ill.u.s.tration: =Oval Palette.=]

Get a palette much larger than you think you want. When you get it on your thumb the mixing-surface is much less than there seemed to be before it was set, for all the actual surface is between the row of colors and the thumb. If the palette is polished it is not essentially better; it is easier to keep clean, as far as looks go, but of no greater real service. If the choice is between a larger unpolished and a smaller polished one, the price being the consideration, get the larger one.

Get a light wood in preference to a dark wood for a choice of color, but not if there is better grain or lighter weight in the darker palette. It is an a.s.sistance in painting not to have to compare the tint you are mixing with too dark a surface, for the color looks lighter than it is; so the light wood will help you to judge justly of the color while the palette is new. When it has been worked on a while it will come to have a sympathetic color anyway.

This bears on the cleanliness of your palette. It is a mistake to consider that cleanliness demands that the palette should be cleaned to the wood and polished after every painting. On the contrary, if a little of the paint is rubbed out over the palette every time it is cleaned, after a few weeks there will come a fine smooth polish of paint, which will have a delicate light gray color, which is a most friendly mixing surface.

=Adapting.=--When you get a new palette, before you use it take a little trouble to carve out the thumb-hole to fit your thumb. Make it large enough to go over the ball of the thumb, and set easily on the top of the hand. When the hole is too small the thumb gets numb after working a little while, which this will obviate.

=Cleanliness.=--The cleanliness of a palette consists in its being always in such a condition that you can handle it without getting dirty; that the mixing-surface will not foul the freshly mixed paint; and that the paint around the edge is always so that you can pick up a fresh, clean brushful. If you try to clean off all your color every day and polish your palette nicely, you will not only take up more time with your palette than you do with your painting, but the fact that some left-over paint may be wasted will make you a little stingy in putting on fresh paint, which is one of the worst habits a beginner can fall into. You cannot paint well unless you have paint enough on your palette to use freely when you need it. It is all well enough to put on more, but nothing is more vexing than to have to squeeze out new paint at almost every brushful. You must have paint enough when you begin, to work with, or you waste too much time with these details.

[Ill.u.s.tration: =Arm Palette.=]

If you are painting every day, leave the good paint where it is at the end of your work, and sc.r.a.pe off all the muddy or half-used piles, and clean carefully all the palette except those places where the paint is still fresh and pure. Then, when you have to add more to that, clean that place with the palette-knife before squeezing out the new color.

In this way the palette will not look like a centre-table, but it will be practically clean, have a good clear mixing-surface, and you will neither waste paint nor be stingy with it.

=The Arm Palette.=--For painting large canvases, where the largest-sized brushes are used and paint must be mixed in greater quant.i.ties, the arm palette is a most convenient thing if it is well balanced. It is in the way rather than otherwise for small pictures, and is useful only as it is particularly called for.

CHAPTER VIII

OTHER TOOLS

It remains to speak of those tools which are not essentials, but conveniences, to painting. Even as conveniences, however, they are of importance enough to have an influence on your work. You can paint without them, but you will work more easily for the having of them; and something of the sort, although not necessarily of the same kind, you must have. You may improvise something, in other words, to take the place of these, but you would be wiser to get those which are made for the purpose.

=The Box.=--First, the box. You must keep your things together somehow, and it would be as well that you keep them in a box which is portable and suited to the purpose. When you sketch you must have a proper box, and why not have one which is equally serviceable in the house? Those most commonly sold to amateurs are of tin, and they are various in size and construction, and not too expensive. The only thing against them is the difficulty of adapting them to service different from that they were designed for; that is, if you want to put in a different sort of panel, or if you want to fix it in the cover for convenience, or anything like that, you cannot readily do it, because you cannot use tacks in them. This counts for more than would seem on a sketching trip. But the tin box is light, and is not easily broken, and while it is in shape is practical.

[Ill.u.s.tration: =The Color Box.=]

The box to be most recommended is the wooden one. It costs more than the tin one,--about twice as much; but you can always arrange it for an emergency very readily, and if it gets broken you can fix it yourself, or get any carpenter to do it for you, while you may be a good many miles from a tinner, who would be necessary to mend your tin box.

You had better not get too large a box. Get one long enough for the brushes; but if you are going to use it out-of-doors much, get a narrow one with a folding palette, so as to save weight. In this way you will get a larger palette than you could get in a smaller and wider box, which is an important consideration.

[Ill.u.s.tration: =Palette Knife.=]

=The Palette-Knife.=--Of more immediate necessity to your painting is the palette-knife. You cannot keep the palette clean without it. Now and again you may want to mix colors, or even paint with it. But you constantly get rid of the too much mixed color on your palette with it, and this is essential to good painting. Take some care to select a good knife; have the blade long enough to be springy and flexible, but not too long. About five inches from the wood of the handle to the end of the blade is a good length. And see that it bends in a true curve from one end to the other, and is not stiff at the end and weak in the middle. It should have the same even elasticity that a brush should have.

For painting you need a "trowel palette-knife," which has a bent shank, making the blade and the handle on different levels, so that as you press the blade to the canvas, the fingers are kept away from the painted surface. The shank should be round, and the blade very fine and flexible. The knife should balance nicely in the hand, and turn freely in the fingers, so that you can paint with either face of the blade with equal balance. It takes some care to pick out a good trowel-knife, as a poor one is worse than none.

=The Sc.r.a.per.=--You frequently need to sc.r.a.pe rough paint from a canvas or a picture, and you need to sc.r.a.pe strongly to get a dirty palette clean. You can use an old razor for the first purpose, or a piece of broken gla.s.s, if you use it carefully, and any old knife can be used to clean your palette. But a regular tool is better than either. The sc.r.a.per here shown is the best.

[Ill.u.s.tration: =The Sc.r.a.per.=]

=The Oil-Cup.=--Do not use oils and vehicles very much. But when you need them you must have something to keep them in, convenient to the brush when working. It should have a spring to hold it on to the palette, and of such form that the contents are not easily spilled by the movement of the hand or the body when painting. The form here ill.u.s.trated is the best that has been brought out so far.

[Ill.u.s.tration: =The Oil-Cup.=]

=The Mahl-Stick.=--Sometimes you want to rest the hand when painting, for steadiness. The "mahl-" or rest-stick has a ball on the end, which one usually covers with a wad of rag, so that it can be placed against the canvas without injury, and the hand rested on it. It is so light that it can be held with the brushes in the palette hand, and stiff enough to support the brush-hand.

[Ill.u.s.tration: =Mahl-Sticks.=]

=Sketching Adjuncts.=--Out-of-doors you must have a seat, and you should have an umbrella. The best seat for a man, because it can be folded into so small a s.p.a.ce, is the three-legged stool. This is not usually satisfactory for a woman, whose skirts tip it over. The better seat for her is shown below. The back is not very firm, but it does give support, and the whole is light and strong.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

[Ill.u.s.tration]

The umbrella should be large and light, and one such as the ill.u.s.tration, with a valve in the top to let the wind and hot air through, will be found cooler and less easily blown over. You should have some strong rings sewed on to it, so that you can fasten it from four sides by strings, to keep it steady if the wind blows hard. The umbrella should be of light-colored material, preferably white; but if it is lined with black, the shade will be better, and give no false glow to the color.

[Ill.u.s.tration]