ldakersList of supplies used:
prepared linen stretched:
https://www.greatart.co.uk/gerstaecker-excellence-plus-canvases-linen.html
Brushes;
38749 Spalter
34108 Odourless white spirit
24940674 underpainting white
20490076 W&N Alkyd paint burnt umber
28460 silver marker
23900017 palette knives
60749001 glass palette
BLOCKX colours:
20305086 titanium white
20305511 Indian yellow
20305427 Crimson Lake
20305253 French ultramarine dark
20305148 Burnt umber
slow-drying medium (own recipe) or:
BLOCKX oil colours according to BLOCKX:
Pigments, oil, usually poppy oil, and other ingredients are added at variable speed, adjusted to each pigment, until a homogeneous paste is obtained. The paste is then ground at a slow speed to avoid heating the material and maintain the purity of the colour. Numerous checks are carried out, each worker is trained to do so and has impeccable know-how and technique.
BLOCKX oil colours are smooth, bright and of high quality. The extra-fine oil colour is largely made from mono pigments, with no fillers and no additives, for a product that is highly concentrated in colour. The selected pigments are of high quality and very lightfast (score of 7/8 on the blue wool scale). The traditional production of grinding on a porphyry stone, similar to manual grinding, greatly respects the colour and ensures optimum fineness of the pigment.
According to BLOCKX, using poppy oil ensures that the paint dries less stained and does not wrinkle as quickly as linseed oil can.
Steps:
Using a mix of the underpainting white, burnt umber alkyd paint and odourless turpentine, I give my canvas a base colour with the spalter, it’s a mid-tone that should be about the intensity of the colour of a cardboard box. I also give that same colour to the back of my glass palette so that the colours you will mix on the palette look the same as on the canvas.
The canvas must be thoroughly dry before you can continue.
When the primer is dry, I use the silver marker to sketch my still life. A silver marker is made of real silver and unlike graphite or other drawing materials, it will not affect the colour of the paint you put over it.
I will build up this painting in two layers. The first layer is the grisaille in grey tones and on top of that I will add colour by glazing on the painting. Although it is possible to add many more layers to a painting, for this demonstration I am keeping it to two layers to maintain simplicity.
The first layer: grisaille:
A grisaille is a painting technique where you first create a tonal value painting as the base layer for your painting. You then paint over it with transparent colours, largely retaining the tonal values you have already established in your grisaille. The advantage of this method is that you have fewer problems to solve per layer at a time, because in the first layer you only need to have the right values. The colour comes later.
Tip:
(Use palette knives to mix your colours before adding the tray-drying medium! Then add as little medium as possible, for the first layer you can even use only a solvent such as odourless white spirit or turpentine, as this layer should not be too greasy).
I first create as neutral a dark grey tone as possible with burnt umber and ultramarine blue. Since not all colours have equal strength, the ratio is not 50/50, but you need a little more blue than brown to achieve this. You can check if your tone is neutral by taking a little separately and mixing it with some titanium white. This way you can quickly see if your grey tone is more warm or cold. If the tone is too cold, add more burnt umber. If the tone is too warm, add more ultramarine.
For this painting, I use both a cooler shade of grey and a warmer shade of grey. I use the cooler shade of grey for the rug in the foreground, and the warmer shade of grey for the rug in the background and the small vase.
I work from visually seeing the back part of the image to the front part. For example, I start with the rug on the background of the still life. I do this because this rug is behind everything else. The rug in the background hangs over it and the vase is in front of it again.
(Image 1)
Next is the rug in the background. Again, from dark to light but you can see that sometimes I work out parts towards lighter before I start the next piece of the background. This can help to check if your tonal value is correct.
(Image 2)
The final component in grisaille is the vase.
(Figure 3)
Tip:
(Oil paint stays wet for a long time and you can work in it for a long time. This is a great advantage, but sometimes it also encourages us to overwork parts of our painting so that we lose the brush stroke and the result looks very polished. Try to prepare the colour you want to put down in every shade on your pallet and always put down the right colour as directly as possible on your canvas. When you have finished putting down your colours, see if there are parts that need to be worked over into each other more, usually less than you initially think).
It is very important that the grisaille is thoroughly dry. The paint only needs to be dry before touch, so you don’t need to wait a year like with varnishes. You are going to apply wet paint again over a dry layer so if that layer is not dry properly anyway you will lift the paint from the grisaille and it will start to mix with your second layer which is absolutely not the intention if you want to glaze.
I specifically chose this colour palette (see supplies) because I want to glaze. Glazing means that you put a transparent layer of oil paint over a previously applied layer. The transparency of your oil paint ensures that the layers underneath remain visible, so that they continue to influence the final result. It is important that if you want to do this you also adjust your palette and use transparent colours for glazing. It is possible to use more opaque colours when glazing but you will only be able to use them sparingly. What you especially don’t want is to add large amounts of medium to your paint to make it transparent. This makes your paint too fluid and can cause problems later on, such as wrinkling when drying, spotting and crackling.
Tip:
(If you want to use the paint more wet on wet (alla fine) and paint in 1 layer or just want to paint opaque over something, I would recommend swapping at least the Indian yellow for a cadmium yellow light or lemon. You could possibly swap the Crimson lake for a cadmium red medium).
The dark rug on the ground is still largely burnt umber and ultramarine blue but with a little Crimson lake and Indian yellow. By the way, you will still have to include the light dark values in your colours, the effect will be enhanced by the grisaille. Again, I work from dark to light.
(Image 4)
The rug in the background is mainly Indian Yellow, the darker areas are darkened with burnt umber and crimson lake and in the left section also with ultramarine blue.
(Figure 5)
Last up is the subject again.
(Figure 6)
Perhaps I will add another layer with details later but first the painting needs to dry again.
(Figure 7)
My experience with BLOCKX:
When I squeezed the first paint on my palette, I immediately noticed a big difference in viscosity; each colour has its own smoothness. On average, I would say the paint is slightly smoother than Old Holland oil paint and slightly firmer than Rembrandt oil paint. It is a fine consistency to work with and, if necessary, can be tapped directly without using mediums. My own preference is to use a medium.
The colours are bright and powerful, so far BLOCKX lives up to its claims.
After letting the grisaille dry, I was all excited about BLOCKX. The paint had retained its brightness after drying the first layer! With other brands, I invariably find that at least parts dry duller, especially in the first layer. The grisaille had dried without dull spots or blotchiness.
Then it was a pleasure to paint the second layer with the transparent colours. This layer also dried very nicely.
The BLOCKX oil colour range consists of 105 colours. This is a relatively small range when you compare it to Old Holland (168 colours), Rembrandt (120 colours) Winsor & Newton artists’ Oil Colour (133 colours) but all the essential colours are in there and what is not there you can mix yourself. The smaller range allows BLOCKX to concentrate on what really matters: producing the essential colours as well as possible. They do this averse to any fashion or trends. In my opinion, they live up to their claims and produce some of the best oil paints you can buy at the moment.
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