After taking a break from painting for a few years, I came back with a fresh outlook. I always felt that the surface of my work lacked uniformity. Some areas would be too shiny and others areas too matte. In order to correct that, I started using a new medium, Liquin. It has it’s advantages. It helps the paint dry fast, so that I am able to work on a dry canvas in a few hours. It also keeps the surface relatively even. I also stopped using dammar varnish in an attempt to breath in less fumes.

While I was working today, I came across a bottle of stand oil which I had forgotten about. I used a little stand oil diluted with Liquin, and realized that’s what I had been missing! I was amazed at how much better the paint looked on the canvas. The pigments were suspended in layers that seem to melt into each other. The areas that I couldn’t resolve previously, looked good in an instant. I am glad I rediscovered stand oil. The only disadvantage is that my surface is a little uneven once again. Once my painting is dry, I should be able to fix that by varnishing the whole surface of the painting.

A typical recipe for a rapid setting medium is:

3 parts of volume of stand oil

2 parts by volume of dammar varnish (5-pound cut)

3 parts by volume of turpentine 1 or 2 drops of cobalt drier per pint of medium*

Below are some details of old paintings of mine where I feel the medium enhances the surface/painting.

Words of Caution:

A. The glaze or scumble actually accentuates all brush marks and surface irregularities in the underpainting. Thus the character and direction of all strokes in the underpainting should be meaningful and consistent with the painterÍs purpose. [p. 80]

B. Colors diluted with too much glaze medium may trickle. Sometimes such over-thinned color develops small spots in the dry film which look like dust spots. Actually they are particles of color clumped together like islands of pigment in a sea of oil.

C. The underpainting must be bone dry before it receives a glaze or scumble.

D. Glazes containing so much medium as to create a glassy surface are dangerous, since subsequent films cannot adhere well to them and must crack at the first movement of the canvas.

E. Glaze films containing high amounts of spirit-resin varnishes (such as dammar) in relation to the oil and pigment content are extremely vulnerable to cleaning operations, since the varnish is always resoluble in the cleaning agents used by most restorers. Glazes that are the final or finishing films on a picture are especially vulnerable since they are usually thin.

F. Pictures glazed with slow-drying colors and very slow-drying mediums (such as walnut oil or poppyseed oil) should be shielded from dirt and dust while they dry.

G. Unsuccessful scumbling or glazing effects may be removed while the glaze is still fresh without disturbing the underpainting by wiping the surface with a clean, soft, lintless rag, moistened, if necessary, with a little turpentine. Such removals are possible only if the underpainting was thoroughly dry before the glaze was applied.

H. Any changes in the mediums in the glazing or scumbling of a particular area will be apparent–can be advantageous as well as very disadvantageous. [pp. 80-81]*

*[Kay, Reed. The Painter’s Guide to Studio Methods and Materials. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1983.]