Paint Quality
Paint quality isn't something every painter is sensitive to (nor do they need to be), but since it plays a role in the way I work and the techniques I use, in this post I'm going to talk about what I'm aiming for when it comes to the finished look of my paintings. Basically I would define paint quality as the surface texture on the painting once it's been completed. This is something I can recall being wound up about way back in school when I probably should have been more concerned with some other important things like values and composition. In art school our paints were laid out in strings of values and all of the mixtures tended to gravitate toward opaque so there wasn't much conversation between transparent and opaque pigments. Come to think of it, I'm pretty sure there weren't the same options for purchasing transparent pigments like there are today. Working on cotton duck in layers, everything ended up having more or less the same look to it in terms of the surface. The finished paintings (mine and everyone else's) reminded me of Naugahyde -- a very bland and uniform faux leather fabric that was popular back in the day. Fifty years of innovation has done wonders for artificial leather, but I still don't want my painting surfaces to have that same look.
One of the things I like the most about a direct painting method is that the paint quality ends up being interesting without me putting a lot of conscious effort into it. Working with knives and brushes, concentrating on shapes and leaving finished strokes as I proceed, results in paint being put down in a way that has an authority I'm not able to replicate when filling in an outline or working in layers. What I'm aiming for is a finished surface that in and of itself is interesting --- so that even if a painting was coated with flat wall paint there would still be a variety of textures that would have some distinct character. It's just part of the puzzle I enjoy setting up for myself and a way to help make every area of the painting interesting, even if not every area of the composition is intended to command equal interest.
Above are a couple of detail images from a recent painting I'm still working on. I took these up close and with a slight amount of glare to illustrate some of the strokework I'm using to create a more interesting surface than the linen weave by itself. There's a mix of thin to thick areas, scraping with a knife, brushstrokes, thicker knife passages and a few areas of smudging. The result is probably thinner than most people would guess with some of the heaviest build-up being 1/8" or less. The areas shown above I consider more or less finished and any additions I make going forward will be minimal. In these examples you can also see a few places where I have deliberately not thoroughly mixed the paint so there are small streaks of varied or more intense color. This is what I call 'Visual Mixing' and I'll be writing more about that in an upcoming blog.
Of course there are things that can affect the outcome of the paint surface beyond just the way the paint is applied. I've often felt that students in particular place a lot of emphasis on brushes and paints, when finished paintings are often influenced more by the support (canvas or panels) and way they have been primed. This is one of the reasons some artists favor linen over cotton canvas. Because linen fibers are longer, (and therefore produce a stronger fabric), the threads are also more irregular which typically results in a less mechanical weave. My ideal priming is one that has subtle textures not likely to get in my way, yet takes the paint well without requiring a lot of extra effort to modify that texture. I don't try to rely totally on the support and priming to create a nice paint quality but it sure doesn't hurt to start off with something that lends itself well to the end result I have in mind. It's a pretty personal thing for each artist but experimenting to find a surface that suits your painting method, technique and budget can be time and effort well spent. Some of the online art retailers offer small pieces of canvas to try out and that's advisable before buying a whole roll. One thing I don't recommend is purchasing materials that are so precious or expensive that they're intimidating and the temptation is to save them for when you're a real artist. In my experience, it's unlikely that anyone will be able to spend their way into doing better paintings and there are good enough options to fit every price range. For more on this topic, check out my June 2024 blog post Painting Materials -- Grounds and Supports
