I know. OT but I sold three paintings!

[MovieStuff]

Kinda happy and kinda sad. These were some of my favorite:

http://www.rogerevans.tv/wet_lace_close.html

http://www.rogerevans.tv/leather_big.html

http://www.rogerevans.tv/spurs_close.html

A couple came in to the gallery and bought all three on the spot for their new study or something like that.

Oh, well. Hated to see them go. But sometimes they have to leave the nest!

Roger

[StoneBuilder]

Acrylics haven't been tested over centuries - just decades. Nobody knows what they'll do. Oil paint is at least a known quantity. And much better colour. Shame to spend so much time making something when there's a flaw in the process! (Cough). Where is your nearest Rembrandt painting? And what about Thomas Moran? He went to school in the same British town as Danny Boyle (and not very many people know that!)

[MovieStuff]

Acrylics haven't been tested over centuries - just decades. Nobody knows what they'll do.

True. I guess if my paintings fade over the next 200 years I'll need to give my customers their money back! ;)

But seriously, acrylics have been used for about half a century and none of the acrylics from that time have changed a bit. But oil paintings from as little as 30 years ago have already started to deteriorate.

Oil paint is at least a known quantity.

Yep. Oil is universally known to crack and darken and yellow with age. And it doesn't take centuries to see it. Oil is widely considered the most unstable medium there is. Oil paintings bring higher prices in galleries, though, but that's because of accepted hype and the painting process for oils takes longer due to the slow curing time. Oils don't "dry" like acrylics do with evaporation. Oils cure through oxidation, which is a chemical reaction, and is verrrrrry slow. A typical oil painting won't be totally cured for 6 months to a year, sometimes. This can slow down the creative process unless some tricks are used. An age old common technique in oil painting is to varnish over the surface of your work at the end of the day so that you have a relatively "dry" surface the next day to work on. If you don't like what you've done, you can wipe it down to the previous day's varnish layer. The problem is that the paint under each varnish layer really isn't cured totally and that leads to mold and darkening of the colors and cracks and discoloration as the layers cure up at different rates. You see it in virtually all old paintings and many new ones. That's why restoration of old oil paintings is excruciatingly expensive and time consuming.

And much better colour.

That's certainly the myth. Oil can hold more pigment but that really means nothing except to the person doing the painting. When dried, it has been proven time and again that even the experts can't tell the difference between oils and acrylics, even when it really counts! One of the most famous art forgers in the UK used ordinary acrylic house paint and fooled the experts for years. In galleries, the common question that every gallery owner asks when looking at a new submission is, "Is it acrylic or is it oil?" If there is an obvious difference, why ask? Everyone that comes into my gallery initially assumes my paintings are oils.

Shame to spend so much time making something when there's a flaw in the process! (Cough).

Hell, I'd paint in oils if I had the time. I used to and I know they bring a higher price in galleries but they're just such a pain to work with. I like to do a lot of dry brush and oils really don't lend themselves to that technique. Oils is a very wet on wet medium.

Roger

[Mitch Perkins]

I like to do a lot of dry brush and oils really don't lend themselves to that technique. Oils is a very wet on wet medium.

Roger

Just start w/a lot of turps (under-painting), and go from there. Fat over thin, as they say. Turpy stuff will be ready for dry brush the next day.

That said, very nice acrylic work, and congrats on the sale. The great thing about being the painter is you can whip up a private copy...~:?)

Mitch

[StoneBuilder]

I have painters in the family - that sell on a small way - yet I wouldn't dare say to them 'acrylics are crap', which is more or less what I posted above. I can remember being in a lab, years and years ago, when a bottle of 'blue whitener' was passed around (we had strange ways of getting our kicks then). It was the mysterious ingredient that washing powder was getting dosed with - it converted invisible UV into white light, making the finished laundry brighter (never mind what it did to your skin). That had an eery glow (I had great fun printing a footprint on a jacket and standing under a black light at the local frugagogo). But that's what I see in acrylics - colours that are unnaturally bright. They look great on my mountain bike frame - but horrid in a portrait. It's just an opinion - I know oils are labour intensive and difficult - but Rembrandt would have run a mile (if he could!). He was the master of brown!

[MovieStuff]

But that's what I see in acrylics - colours that are unnaturally bright. They look great on my mountain bike frame - but horrid in a portrait. It's just an opinion - I know oils are labour intensive and difficult - but Rembrandt would have run a mile (if he could!). He was the master of brown!

Well, what's interesting is that much of people's preconceptions about the "oil look" has been based on viewing countless, centuries old paintings of the masters done in oil, which have naturally faded, darkened and discolored over time. It is a pleasing look but it's kind of like looking at an antique cabinet that shows the passage of time in the wood and assuming that it looked that way when it was new. Not so. People forever looked at the Sistine Chapel ceiling and assumed that Michelangelo had painted it in deep, dark tones to reflect the mystery of God and the heavens because that's how it has looked for all these years. But after it was restored (at mucho costo) many historians and art experts were aghast to find that it looked bright and cartoon-like it its colors.

The same holds true with many paintings by the masters. So while I agree that the super bright characteristics of acrylics can be misused when doing something like a portrait, it doesn't have to be so any more than Michelangelo had to paint the Sistine Chapel bright and colorful. The difference is that if one paints in acrylics bright and colorful, it will stay that way. The same can not be said of oils over time, as history has proven. That doesn't make oils bad but they are unpredictable as a stable painting medium and change is expected.

But in terms of the "look" of oils versus acrylics, oil traditionally had the edge because of the luminosity derived from its (at one time) unique refractive index. As a pigment's index gets closer to the index of the carrier (oil or water), then the more transparent it starts to look. The refractive index of fresh linseed oil is about 1.48 and can rise to as high as 1.5 after a few years of curing. This refractive index can be different from one brand to another. The refractive index of acrylic polymers varies also but is well over 1.4 in modern, quality acrylic paints. (Water has a refractive index of 1.0, for comparison.) White, in both oil and acrylic, generally has a refractive index of about 2.7 or greater, which reflects the most light and allows good coverage for painting over something you don't want to see (which I need all the time!) .

Now, older acrylics also had a high index in all colors, which is what made them look "cartoony" due to a lack of transparency. But now there is scant refractive difference between oil and acrylic in this modern age, with some brands of oils having higher refractive indexes than acrylics. So the playing field has been pretty evened out, though acrylics from even a decade ago really don't compare with any modern paints, in terms of luminosity.

So the long and short of it is that one can now achieve the same look in oil or acrylic but it, like so many things, depends on the artist.

Roger

[Mitch Perkins]

That doesn't make oils bad but they are unpredictable as a stable painting medium and change is expected.

Hardly unpredictable after 500 years of use...?

The bottom line is that oils are superior because their aroma reminds me of my youth. ~:?)

Mitch

[MovieStuff]

That doesn't make oils bad but they are unpredictable as a stable painting medium and change is expected.

Hardly unpredictable after 500 years of use...?

Well, predictable in the sense they are going to fade, discolor and darken over time. That's a given. But unpredictable in the sense that you don't know to what degree or when, hence the instability. Acylics are predictable in the sense that if the painting looks bad now, it will look just as bad in 50 years but at least won't look any worse. ;)

The bottom line is that oils are superior because their aroma reminds me of my youth. ~:?)

Yeah, mine too, I must admit. I love the smell of linseed oil in the morning....

Roger

[StoneBuilder]

The Pre-Raphaelites had a pretty vivid palette - but it wasn't flourescent! I'm willing to admit that art appreciation is an accumulation of cultural prejudices. And here's a link to Thomas Moran ( http://www.nps.gov/history/museum/exhibits/moran/ ) now considered, along with Danny Boyle, as an honorary Boltonian!

[MovieStuff]

Thanks for the link. I love his stuff. Very soft and muted.

Roger