Enhance the characteristics of colour
Choosing complementary oils, solvents, mediums, and varnishes for your oil painting is as unique as choosing a colour palette. Depending on your style and technique, there are a wide range of traditional oils, mediums, and solvents to help you control your colour as well as varnishes to protect your work and provide a final finish. Used to modify the rate of drying, increase gloss, improve flow or add texture, mediums should be used in moderation as an additive to the colour. We also recommend avoiding adding multiple mediums to oil colour.
Highlights
- Oils - Winsor & Newton Drying Oils, used in conjunction with oil colour, will modify the colours existing consistency, gloss and drying time. Using oils maintains the flexibility of paint films, particularly when working fat over lean, and prevents over-thinning, which can happen when using solvents.
- Mediums - Used to alter or enhance the characteristics of oil colour, mediums are used to modify the rate of drying, increase gloss, improve flow or add texture. Based on the binders used in milling the colours mediums should be used in moderation when used with colour.
- Solvents - Solvents are used to clean brushes and palettes after painting. They should only be used sparingly for thinning colour to not change the integrity of the paint. Our solvents are made specifically for artists' use and are fully volatile, meaning that they leave no residual matter behind upon evaporation from the paint mixture.
- Varnishes - The final coatings for finished pictures, varnishes protect from the build-up of dirt and grease. Available in different finishes, matt, satin and gloss, it is important to wait until oil paintings are thoroughly dry before varnishing.