My Crazy Love for Natural Pigments Oleogel
One of my favorite art tools is by far, Rublev Oleogel. First off, you need to know that I am a stickler for details, especially when it comes to the chemical processes that goes into the curing (not drying, mind you, but curing) of an oil painting. I keep my practices as simple as I can with my materials with the understanding that less complication is more. I have in the past used mediums, so I can say I have been to the dark side and come back to seeing the light. I have used many different driers and additives and in the past, made a special mix of lavender spike oil, linseed and various other chemicals I don’t even remember now so I could find a specific kind of flow. My painting got significantly better when I dropped all of it. I now have learned to keep my paintings as clean of additives as I can. However, there is one additive I use (other than Odorless Mineral Spirits) that I swear is like magic.
I love Rublev Oleogel made by Natural Pigments. It is a beautiful product. I use it sparingly, so a tube lasts me a really long time, but I really don’t want to create a larger painting without it. So what makes it so great? The Natural Pigments website says it best, “Oleogel is a thixotropic painting medium made with linseed oil and pyrogenic silica. Oleogel is a clear pale amber gel that adds transparency and thixotropic body to oil, resin-oil or alkyd paint. Add directly to your paint to give it transparency without thinning its consistency. Add pigments or extenders to thicken it for creating impasto effects that do not sink in.”
At the very end of a painting, when I am making sure all the details are the way I want and that the background is blended exactly as I think it should be, I will lay in a couche on my painting. This means putting a very thin layer of fat on top of a dry to the touch painting just before adding a new layer of paint to finish. It is traditionally used for glazing, although I use it to incorporate the final touches to a painting. It allows a painting to feel wet right away and allows for easy flow of paint therefor allowing for blending easily. I do this by putting a very small amount of Oleogel on a paper towel, wiping it into the area I am painting, and then wiping off any excess with a new, clean and dry paper towel. As a rule of thumb, I try to add as little additives as possible, as I said before, because I feel like there is less opportunity for chemical issues down the line and it just feels better to me during the process. To learn more about Oleogel, click here, and to see my work, click here.
