I love alla prima painting, but keep running into the situation where my paint no longer layers. In the past, I’ve just scraped off the paint and put whatever color I wanted in its place or let the painting dry and go over it with another layer. However, these days I’m trying to be much more intentional about my layers from the very beginning. To do this, I’m leaning into what makes oils so great: the slow drying time. In the past I’ve relied heavily on liquin and other fast drying mediums to dry my paint as fast as possible. But I’ve reached a point in my painting journey that fast dry mediums are getting more in my way than helping me paint.
So I’m leaning into using solvents (Gamsol) and oils (linseed oil) as my mediums. In the first layer, I’m diluting my paint very heavily with Gamsol and gradually using less in the subsequent layers. Then I’m switching to diluting my paint with linseed oil, again, using less and I move up in layers. Finally, I can then use paint straight from the tube for the final touches of highlight. Using the mediums in this way allows me to gradually build up my painting in layers and really dial in my values.
I realize oil painters have been using this layering method forever, but it wasn’t how I was initially taught to oil paint. From the beginning, I was taught to layer using quick dry mediums and letting the painting sit overnight. I understand why this was taught to me, but I wish this focus on how to layer wet paint would have also been taught. For a very long time I really enjoyed building up a painting by glazing over dried layers, but when I decided to pivot and finish a painting in a single sitting, this method no longer worked for me. For a long time into my alla prima journey, I continued to use alkyd mediums, but found the layering tricky and very limited. Frustrated, I did some research on how other artists alla prima paint and came across a video by Paint Coach that very clearly broke down how to layer.
I’ve really enjoyed my results this week, but there were two days I didn’t finish paintings. Hopefully next week I’ll get all 7 done. Anyway, have a great week!