How Oil Painting Is Improved With Glazing

Oil paint is such a versatile medium for those whose artistic expression leads them to paint. There are many things that can be done with oils plus techniques that can be used singly or in combination. One of the more important is glazing.

The Essence Of Glazing
Glazing is essentially the use within a painting of successive layers of very thin colour so that a colour underneath is allowed to show through the upper one. Now, one way to categorise oil paints is into opaque and transparent varieties. The former is a dense type which covers whatever is underneath; the latter allows whatever is underneath to show through, and so this is the type of oil paint which is used in glazing.

It is important, therefore, when buying oil paints to check with the manufacturer’s category in this respect. Most oil paints fall into one or other of these two types but some can vary in their degree of opaqueness or transparency. There may also be variations between different manufacturers.

Before Glazing
If you are going to use the glazing technique, wherever possible make sure that the ground you are going to paint upon is white. This will always help towards that crucial glow on which glazing depends. You will also save some tears and effort by spending some time on experimentation. Buy a pad of good canvass paper and some medium. There are a good many alternatives for the latter and you will eventually find your own favourites, but initially restrict yourself to two: say, Michael Harding’s and Liquin. The latter is quite thin, while the former is more of a gel. For different purposes, you can alternative between them, finding out which suits your needs in different circumstances, and depending on your own approach to glazing.

The following explanation assumes the use of Michael Harding’s medium. If using Liquin, one might wish to mix the Liquin into the yellow paint and use in that way.

Glazing And Colour
One of the most common uses of glazing is to use two colours to produce a third and different one. This would probably be a limited usage in any single painting. But why not simply buy a tube of the third colour? There are several answers to that question, including getting to know colour and how they interact. But arguably the most important reason is that glazing one colour over another produces a third which is quite different, in many ways superior, to simply using the third straight from a tube.

The obvious benefit is the translucent effect which can be obtained from glazing. To see this, use a sheet from your pad and (transparent) yellow and (transparent) red: yellow and red mixed together produce orange. Lay several 2” squares of red and leave them until touch dry. This is always crucial, so to quicken the process you might wish to use alkyd quick drying oil paints, or mix-in a drying accelerant, although if you are using Liquin that will cause them to dry overnight because of its alkyd content.

When the red has dried, put some Michael Harding medium into a small container (such as the type you clip to a pallet). Put some yellow paint not your pallet, dip the end of your brush into the medium, wipe it on the edge of the container and push the brush gently into the paint to pick-up a small quantity only. Draw the brush over Square 1, recharging it as necessary to cover the whole square. Leave to dry.

Repeat the process for Sq 2, but this time rub the yellow in quite hard with your finger. (Use a cheap surgical-type glove if you wish to protect your skin). This will remove some of the yellow. Repeat the application of yellow for Sq 3 but this time rub in with a rag, which will remove even more paint.

The rubbing process is not mandatory, but the benefit is that it can greatly improve the results of the process. The cost is that you will have to use more coats and so the process will be lengthened. So below Sq 2 repeat the process for that square in Sq 4; and below Sq 3 produce Sq 5 repeating as for Sq 3. Now apply two or three more coats of yellow to Sq 4 and Sq 5, rubbing and then allowing each to dry between coats. To properly compare your results paint a Sq 6 using a straight mix of the red and yellow, as you might normally do to produce an orange, and let dry.

Compare the results. Even allowing for your relative inexperience in using the technique, you should see quite a marked improvement in all cases over Sq 6, and Sq 4 and Sq 5 should look even better than Sq 1. Masters like Rembrandt used this approach repeatedly and developed great expertise. So can you!