Covino Glaze Medium over Liquin for portraits?
 

Hi all,

I started using oils in January - coming from sketching and pastels - and have poured over the posts that are materials and technique related here, and at two other forums, and I've been trying a little of this and that. I've been working in still life and figures as I familiarize myself with the characteristics of oils and mediums, but I want to eventually work in portraiture and so I have a couple questions about materials for portraiture.

Since I started painting I've primarily used turps alone for underpaintings and opaque passages, turps-standoil-damar for glazes, and damar and turps retouch varnish between each layer. What I want to try next is Liquin for underpainting, and Covino's painting medium for opaque and glazed areas - I didn't find that retouch between layers was doing anything for me, and I coat the canvas with medium before I lay on the pigment anyway.

Do you guys have any input into this method? Is the Covino medium OK for opaque and glazed passages? What do I lose by not using retouch varnishes?

Thanks for your kind indulgence, the level of experience (and civility) over here is amazing.

Respectfully,

Thich Minh Thong

I can't speak to Covino medium, which I haven't used, but I'd offer a few comments, some anecdotal, about other things you mentioned. More-experienced contributors can correct me if I'm out in left field. (Not that there's anything wrong with that.)

I've never encountered any two oil artists who use the same formulas for or methodologies in employing mediums, but I find that an almost universal attitude is "less is better". It is the obvious characteristic of oil paints that they already have oil in them (!!), and you should be able to create paintings with complete molecular integrity using no additional oils or solvents at all. Mediums have various uses -- such as increasing or decreasing drying time, or their obvious necessity in glaze applications -- but they're most often used simply -- and sparingly -- to enhance the "spreadability" of the paint. Manufacturers don't carefully formulate their paints with the intention that those formulations necessarily be altered prior to use. It's important to remember that anything you add to paint changes the ratio of pigment to binder (oil or resin); to the point, it dilutes the pigment.

It sounds to me like you're using a very great deal of solvent and medium in your paintings. Indeed you say you coat the canvas with medium before you even start painting. Yikes! Sounds like you handicap your efforts by beginning with an oily, slippery surface. Also, medium (oil) is "fat", and "fat" belongs on top of, not under "lean" (paint to which no oil, or in the case of a toned underpainting only solvent, has been added.)

Most painters I've worked around do use turps in their pigments to tone a canvas or possibly to lay in an underpainting, but I don't think turpentine has any use or place on its own in a painting after that. (I realize that some medium formulas require addition of "some" solvent.) As a solvent, turpentine returns paint to its premanufactured forms, most notably separating the oil binder from the pigment, which was powder before and, according to some, will become powder again under such conditions. One instructor even takes somewhat perverse competitive delight in the fact that other painters use turpentine in their paintings, which, he says, means that those paintings will self-destruct in a few decades or less, while his own will still be sound and viewable. I don't know if that's true and I don't know if that instructor knows, and I won't be around long enough to discover the truth.

You refer to the use of medium for "opaque" passages. I wonder if you mean "transparent". Opacity would be compromised at least to some degree by use of medium or solvent.

As for what you "lose" by not using retouch varnishes, I would say "nothing", unless you're confronted with one of these narrow situations: the color in some areas has "sunken in", become matted in appearance and difficult to assess in relation to other areas of the painting; or, a layer of paint has dried, in which case, for subsequent layers to adhere, retouch varnish can add some "tooth" to the surface. Otherwise, I'm aware of no sound reason to introduce that additional material into your paint surface. I've sometimes read that painters will apply a coat of retouch varnish before delivering a piece, because it's too early to apply straight varnish. Personally, I would be disinclined to send a painting out with a fresh coat of a solvent-based compound. I have trouble understanding how that can "protect" the painting in any significant way.

Lastly, Liquin. Mostly as a matter of convenience, I use Liquin exclusively when doing plein air landscape sketches. I just prefer not to use valuable time and space schlepping a bunch of solvents and oils around in my French easel, which is already full and heavy enough. Indoors, I tend not to use it, though many wonderful painters use it exclusively for everything. I would note that Daniel Greene, aware that many of his vocational compatriots use Liquin, nonetheless has chosen not to (at least up until about a year ago), simply because the formula for it is proprietary and secret, and Greene says he's not comfortable putting something into his paint if he doesn't know what it is.

No doubt others have their own experiences and observations.

Steven

P.S.

As for the "civility" on this site, the fact is that many of us are misanthropic, rabble-rousing hardheads, but Cynthia makes us take off our shoes and behave when we're in her house.

I guess somehow I gave the impression that I use a lot of medium ... I don't. But the little bit that I do use is from the formula I posted. I just wanna use the Covino and Liquin for a while (always experimenting) and was curious if anyone had used that combination.

I do, however, put the medium on the canvas rather than into the paint on the pallet. It's just another thing I'm trying out that a buncha folks suggested. I'm not really sold on it ... just trying things ... feeling my way around.

Thanks for the reply, it's greatly appreciated,

Minh Thong

Steven,

LOL...your astuteness continues to amaze me on a daily basis!

Liquin
 

Are you saying that you want to mix Covino's medium and Liquin in the layers of a painting?

I use Liquin. My understanding is that when it is used in a painting, it must be used throughout ALL the layers of the painting. The only exception is using turps to thin the paint in order to draw on the canvas (in the first stages).

Just two quick comments to this post,

1) Number seven of nine on my "Untitled list of extremely succinct but nonetheless critical points which should be addressed in every painting you do....get off your duff, Peggy, and pay attention!!!", (a list, I might add, that I made up for myself...), is:

"You're a painter, paint!" Meaning paint, don't draw, with paint, and use a lot of it -- straight from the tube.

(Number three is "Squint", number five is "Kiss", as in "Keep it simple stupid". I told you it was succinct....)

2) In my opinion, Liquin brings a milky quality to the painting that I don't like.

Peggy

Thanks for they reply, Karin.

It's my understanding at the Covino workshops the students use Liquin for the underpainting, retouch varnish over the dried underpainting, then the Covino painting medium for everything else, including the glazes. I guess I was asking if this was correct.

Also, I never got much out of using retouch varnish between layers. I was wondering if I was missing something there. I used it once when I had matte/dull sections, but otherwise I was gonna drop the retouch.

Opinions welcome ...

Minh

Frank Covino has been around a long time and is a respected painter and teacher. I'd say that if he says it is OK to mix his own medium with Liquin...it really is OK. And that is a good piece of information to know. Thanks.

Hey Peggy....I never noticed the "milky" quality with Liquin that you've found. Liquin doesn't affect my work that way but I have certainly heard this comment before.

Minh,

If, as you say, you have only been painting in oils for a short time, my suggestion would be to first learn to do as much as you can opaquely before concerning yourself with glazing. Glazing is best used in a very limited way, as a final refinement to a predominantly opaque technique. If overused, it interferes with the impression of three-dimensional reality. Too many people become overly fascinated with glazing when they discover it, and waste too much time piddling with it. Light on solid form is best indicated with opaque paint. Mastery of opaque painting will serve any painter well. Transparent passages are best restricted to the deepest foreground darks. It works well to paint into them, while wet, with opaque colors to indicate secondary light.

Glazes are the most problematic parts of a painting, from a permanence standpoint. The general tendency of most painters is to use too much medium in them, which creates weak spots in the paint film. If the wrong medium is used, the glazes can come off with the varnish when the painting is being restored. Better to keep things simple, as Peggy said.

Virgil Elliott

Wet on wet or wet on dry
 

Nelson Shanks says to avoid problems paint wet on wet or wet on dry, but never wet on gummy. Minh, the Ralph Mayer Handbook for Painters is an intriguing resource for plumbing the depths of the MANY questions you raised.

In it, "fat over lean" is explained as a key principle for creating paintings that last.

Several years ago I studied with Hedi Moran, an Arizona painter known for her very fresh, vibrant florals...she related an experience wherein she used Liquin on upper layers, and found that it had peeled off in an irregular fashion. Since then I have limited my use of Liquin to my signature.

Hedi's approach is not experimental, so I don't know whether to attribute her disastrous experience to Liquin or our extreme climate...nonetheless, it definitely scared me off.

Chris

In addition to fat over lean, there is another consideration that is perhaps even more important, and that is not to paint faster-drying mixtures over slower-drying passages. Liquin dries very fast, and imparts that tendency to all paints with which it is mixed. Thus it works best over layers which also contain some Liquin. The choice of pigments is a factor as well, since some dry faster than others. An excess of any medium will cause problems. Knowing what can and cannot be done with mediums is as important as choosing the right one. As mediums go, Liquin is probably one of the better ones out there, but it still must be used properly.

Virgil Elliott

Thanks for all the help, folks. Since the original post I picked up the Meyer text, Covino's book, and Faragasso's 'The Student Guide to Painting' so alot of methods, materials, and color questions have been made clearer. I just did my first portrait with Liquin for the verdaccio and the Covino recipe for everything else. I must say, contrary to prevailing wisdom I kinda' prefer the old turps and linseed thing I was doing before.

Thanks again,

Minh

Oh BTW ... Mr. Elliot, I never considered how fast Liquin or Galkyd would dry if used over turps and linseed - sounds like a recipe for disaster. Thanks for bringing that up, I had 'Fat Over Lean' tunnel vision and wasn't looking at the big picture.

Minh,

Not necessarily a recipe for disaster, but something to keep in mind. Other factors are involved, and most disasters are due to a combination of errors. One can sometimes get by with small transgressions if the other factors are not working against the life of the picture, too. I would be concerned with the use of turpentine, though. It weakens the binding power of the oil.

By the way, Cynthia has prompted me to mention my upcoming workshop here. It's April 19-21 at my studio in Penngrove, California. I only have room for ten attendees, so everyone will get plenty of attention. Interested parties should contact me soon to reserve a spot.

Virgil Elliott