Thursday 15 December 2011

Characteristics of Oil Paintings

Those days’ oil paints require oil in order to facilitate frenzy, stable and waterproof film. Such kind of oils is known as drying oils. The other name drying oil is siccative oil. These oils are distinguished by high levels of polyunsaturated fatty acids. One of the most frequent measures for siccative or drying property of oils is the iodine amount and the number of grams of iodine captivated by one hundred grams of oil. 

Oil is said to be drying if the number of iodine is greater than 130. If the range of iodine lies in the range 115-130 then the oil is said to be semi-drying oil and those with an iodine number of less than 115 are considered to be non-drying. The most common medium for artists' oil paints is the Linseed oil (Drying oil).

We know that water gets evaporated when it is exposed to air but oil does not undergo the same. Instead of that they polymerise into a dry semisolid but the rate of process can vary depending on the oil.

The main advantage of using a slow-drying quality oil paint helps an artist to develop their painting slowly and gently. With oil-based paints an artist can improve or rework their paintings very easily. The only disadvantage with this oil painting is that it might take months or years to finish. 

Oil paints also blend well with each other, making delicate disparity of color as well as more easily generating the details of light and shadow. Oil paints can be diluted with turpentine or other tightening mediators in order to build a painting in layers, on the other hand, such agents are extremely combustible and the danger of a building fire was always present.

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