Art School 1
Let's start off by de-mystifying paint. It consists of two basic things: a pigment and a binder. What makes good paint and how it is used is up to the artist.
It's actually a film on a surface.
Now, if you have money to spend, maybe you can buy your paint at a store, but assume that manufacturers are out to make money.
Basically paint is the conjunction of pigment and binder as mentioned, however, other material may be added to make it perform special tasks. For example, adding detergent to carmine pigment lets it take on water. The detergent has greater attraction for hydrogen than water.
Break pigment conglomerates by wetting agents and dispersing agents for a uniform paint film.
Some polymers need a fungicide. Gives it shelf-life.
There may be a place near you where you can get pigments. Get some and work with it. Just be careful as many of the best colors are also toxic or poisonous. Make sure you review some safety procedures while handling them. Dust masks, latex or non latex gloves while handling some of them, be aware of precautions, don't eat or smoke (don't smoke at all, nicotine affects your ability to concentrate and artwork takes all the concentration you've got) at the same time, know which ones, like lead pigments (i.e.: Naples yellow) that can be absorbed transdermally through the skin. Things like that. Hey, you wanted to be an artist. You can't use toxic colors in many public schools, so if you're in school, I feel sorry for you. But make due with what you've got.
Respect for toxicity of art materials is no joke. Handle with appropriate care and in twenty years you'll still be there.
You may seem like Macho Bravado when you're in your twenties, but if you make it to your fifties when you really could get some significant work done you may find out that dumb brain of yours is more a vegetable than an artist. You've got to stay on top of your chemistry and toxicity info. You've got to keep a neat shop and take care how you handle stuff. Watch yourself around powders, use a dust mask that fits. Just because air is invisible doesn't mean you don't have to deal with it. Keep air currents, intakes and exhausts around solvents and stuff like that. Use your common sense and it will turn into common dollars.
You've got that cad red and Naples yellow all over your bare hands and your clothes look like a Jackson Pollok and your coffee mug looks like Van Googh's pallet, you got a pizza Hawaiian in one hand and a paintbrush in the other, Okay, be that way, idiot. You're going to be a joke in fifteen to twenty years (if we still have a world by then) when your mind doesn't work right and your organs malfunction and no one knows who you are. Do your homework. And watch the sewage specks before you go pouring turps and other chemicals down the sink. Yeah. Let's get down to business, here. It's not as easy as you thought.
Each pigment is a different animal. Each has unique water and oil demands.
Gum Arabic and sometimes alcohol and sometimes talk and pigments make poster paint.
Keep notes on observation and accomplishment.
Water colors are made from pigment and cherry gum.
Bees wax is a good binder. But keep it melted.
Paint thinner has oils in it which interfere with the drying process in the paint.
Carnimba wax is to hard. Petroleum wax is too soft.
Start with this concept: Essentially, any pigment will go into any binder.
For egg tempera, pick up the egg yolk by the membrane and prick with a pin. Take the yolk which pores out, discard the membrane and mix pigments with the yolk. It gets harder with age. Cracking depends upon the proportion of the pigments to the binder. Egg tempera is a high-class medium like oils. Only watch the rats. If you find yourself, like most of us, in sub-standard housing, they'll eat your art and have the wall paper for desert. These days there are anti-rodent sonic plug-ins. People say they don't work but they do. You have to put them where the sound can travel. Hang an extension cord with two or three of them dangling from the ceiling. That ought to do it. It takes a while. Also, if they're hungry enough, they'll brave the excruciation.
You can retard the drying of oil with oil of clove. It's longevity has to do with 35% trigliceride of fatty acids.
Oil polymerizes and oxidizes. The carbon atoms in these fatty acids are bound twice to each other as the oil takes on oxygen and polymerizes.
Stand oil is a thick, kettle-bodied stuff. It's partially polymerized. It's heavier than regular oils it's made of.
Dry oil has chemically changed.
Sometimes dried kelp can be used as a thickener. So can pumice.
Oil: cold-pressed, raw, and refined:
Cold-pressed is pressed out of the seed. This is the best stuff to use.
Raw is steamed.
Refined oil has been adulterated with additives.
Alchids are used with oils and are often used in enamels.
An overabundance of pigment will give a weak film.
Dmar varnish is soluble in turpentine. It darkens with age and is brittle.
Next page, if you will, art school 002
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The Art School table of contents
Paul A. L. Hall
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2003 [Paul Hall]. All rights reserved.
email Paul and all at paulandall@paulhallart.com