December 21, 2010

Fat over Lean

Fat over Lean;  a habit I have to get used to. I may have painted my purple daisy wrong.

The principle of painting 'fat over lean' in oil painting is a rule one should follow to reduce the risk of an oil painting cracking. 'Fat over lean' has to do with the varying drying times of oil pigments (which can vary from a couple of days to a month) and ensuring that upper layers of paint don't dry faster than lower ones.

I did my usual.  When I had the basic painting finished, I decided to glaze the background to help bring the pansy forward.  I did this by thinning some pale green mix with some walnut oil.  Now is this mixture fat or lean? I think it depends on whether walnut oil is fat enough.  I'd appreciate any advise.


"White Face Pansy"

Oil,  6" x 6" on high quality deep canvas panel.
$78.00

11 comments:

  1. hey bonnie - sorry i don't know. to me fat over lean is when you'd rather eat pizza than a salad. i'll be checking back for the answer. the pansy looks beautiful!

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  2. Très jolie fleur qu'est cette pensée... et une pensée pour vous à l'occasion de ces fêtes...
    Bises

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  3. Sorry Bonnie, I'm not sure if your glaze qualifies as fat or lean. I'd lean toward the lean if I had to venture an uneducated guess. Your pansies are lovely.....

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  4. As my mom would say: Myra, you're a hoot. That's a great thing to be. ;D

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  5. Hi Bonnie, it looks gorgeous! Well, if the glaze is applied after the painting is completely dry, it doesnt matter if it is fat,since the underneath layers are dry.

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  6. It's beautiful! Is this the same painting as in the previous post, with the yellow underpainting? I'm fascinated, and confused, about underpainting in complimentary colors... I wondered if that's what you did here?

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  7. Hi Padmaja, unfortunately the painting wasn't quite dry this time but next time I'll be more careful. Thanks.

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  8. Hi Katherine, sorry about the confusion. The pansy with the yellow is the next one I'll working on. The base coat to both of pansies was a dark pink. I just picked a colour I thought I'd like to see peeking through.

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  9. Your blog is great! I find you from Leovi, check out my blog about art as well =)

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  10. Hi Bonnie,
    I always thought that the lean was the underpainting done with more turp or thinner in the paint than the medium (oil) or even straight from the tube paint (because that too has oil in it). If it has oil in it... it's fat, more oil fatter! Experiment... if you apply paint that has been thinned down with turpentine (or thinner, gamsol) it dries pretty fast... oh Bonnie, check out this link http://painting.about.com/cs/oils/a/fatoverlean.htm

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