Oil Painting
Water Lilies; by Claude Monet (1840-1926) French Impressionist. This is
one of the approximately 250 paintings in the series.
Paint
ingredients
Pigment is a finely ground powder that
gives paint its color. Pigments come
from minerals such as azurite, cobalt,
zinc, titanium, etc.
Binder is a liquid to which the dry
pigment is added. The binder makes it
possible for the pigment to stick to the
surface. Linseed oil is a binder for oil
paints. (Gum Arabic is a binder for
watercolors.) It gives paints its
luminosity. Pigments ground in
linseed oil have a particular
depth and resonance of color
because of the amount of light
the oil reflects and absorbs.
Solvent is a liquid that controls the
thickness of the paint. Turpentine is a
solvent for oil paints. (Water is the
solvent for watercolor.) Solvents are
also used to clean the brushes.
Characteristics of
Oil Paint
Advantages of oil paint:
Oil paints create a significant depth on
the painting surface.
Oil paints remain workable for a long
time because they dry very slowly.
Mistakes can be corrected very easy
with applying another layer of paint
over the previous layer.
Disadvantages of oil paints:
Different colors dry at different
speeds.
Paintings can crack if the paint is
applied improperly. Usually every new
layer requires more oil because the
previous layer of paints will absorb oil
from the top layer.
Modern commercial paints are sold in
tubes. The tube was invented in 1841.
Paint in tubes also changed the way
some artists approached painting. The
Impressionist artist Pierre- Auguste
Renoir said “Without tubes of paint,
there would have been no
Impressionism.” For the
Impressionists, tubed paints offered an
easily accessible variety of colors for
their “plein air” palettes, motivating
them to make spontaneous color
choices. With greater quantities of
preserved paint, they were able to
apply paint more thickly.
Impressionism in Painting
•Exploration of light
and technique in
actual outdoor settings.
– New pigment methods.
• Group of like-minded
artists in Paris
• Reflects middle class
• Most popular
movement today (but
not back then.)
Characteristics of Impressionism
• Impressionist artists tried to depict what they saw at given moment.
•They often painted outdoors.
•They choose ordinary scenes as a subject matter.
•Simple composition; no details.
•Broken brushstrokes ========= to achieve loose, dense texture.
•Applied paint in small dabs.======to capture flickering quality of sunlight and reflections on water.
•Bright, unmixed colors. (Colors are supposed to mix in viewer’s eyes.)
•Avoided earthy or black colors; rejected somber tones.
•Used complementary colors for shadows and dark tones.
•Put one color on the top of another (layering). ======= to blur contours and soften the edges.
•While layering - used the principle “fat on lean” which means the first layer is thinned with linseed oil
and each following layer has less and less oil or almost no oil at all. The last layer looks like a paste
(impasto style.)
Claude Monet
Impression: Sunrise
Claude Monet: Rouen Cathedral; Full
Sunlight.
Japanese Bridge at Giverny; by Claude Monet
Mary Cassatt (1844-1926) American Impressionist artist.