Oil Painting Techniques Glossary

The following is a glossary of terms for techniques used in oil painting. These are just a few of the techniques you can use.  I will be going into more detail in future blog posts and try to show you an example or two of the techniques:

Dry Brush

This technique can be used in oils or watercolour, very scant use of pigment on a textured surface the paint clings to the raised part of the surface only. Therefore it is a useful method of suggesting texture, for instance, weathered rock or long grass, but like all special techniques it should never be overdone.

Glazing

A glaze is a thin-layer of transparent paint laid over a dry layer which can be either thick or thin.  Since the lower layer is visible through the glaze, the effect is quite different to anything that can be achieved with opaque paint.

Fat Over Lean

An expression applied to oil painting, which indicates that pigments mixed with oil (fat) should be used on top of those thinned with turpentine or other spirit (lean). Build up several layers, the oil content should progressively increase. If lean paint has been applied over oily paint the top layer will dry before the lower one has finished shrinking and this can cause the hardened lean paint to crack or even flake off.

Impasto

This term describes paint that has been applied thickly enough to retain the marks and ridges left by the brush or painting knife.  The ability to build up oil paint is for many people one of its main attractions.  The picture surface can acquire a three-dimensional quality which can be used to model form an even mimic the texture of the subject, such as clouds.

Scumbling

An uneven working of a thin layer of paint over another of a different colour, so that the under layer shows through. It gives a veiled or broken effect.

Sgraffito (to scratch)

This technique involves scoring into the paint after it has been applied; using any rigid instrument such as a paint brush handle, a knife, fork or even a comb, the surface layer of wet paint is scratched into to reveal either the ground colour or a layer of dry colour beneath.

Texturing

A number of techniques can be used to provide specific textures, among them ‘imprinting’ and ‘knife painting’.  One way of texturing is to mix the paint with one of the special impasto mediums, other favourites additives are clean sand, sawdust, wood shavings, plaster and decorator’s filler.

Tonking

Tonking is a technique that can be used to remove too much applied paint on the surface of a painting, use a sheet of absorbent paper such as newspaper or kitchen towel, place over the overloaded area or the whole painting, gently rub with the palm of the hand and then carefully peel off.  This carries off the top layer of paint leaving a thinned down version of the original with softer outlines.

Wet into Wet/Wet on Dry

Wet into wet involves applying colours over and into one another while still wet, each new brushstroke mixes to some extent with those below or adjacent to it, the result are softer, with forms and colours merging into one another without hard boundaries. Wet into wet is the essence of the ‘Alla Prima’ approach; the entire painting is done in one session.  If you are completing a painting over a series of sessions you will probably find that you are painting wet on dry.

Best wishes

Lee