Oil Painting Glaze Mediums

How Does Oil Painting Glaze Medium Work?

Oil glazing is a technique that many artists of all levels enjoy experimenting with. The glaze itself is a thin, transparent oily substance. It blends with the oil paint underneath, rather than concealing it. It performs its precise effects by making light refract through the layer of glaze. The way that the light reacts to the specific glaze then has the desired effect on the way the viewer will see the oil paint below.

With an oil glaze, you will be able to increase the depth of your colour, as well as bring an additional intensity, especially in terms of luminosity. This is all going to come together to make for paintings which don't have the impression of being flat. Instead, they will appear richly layered, with a depth to them as though they were three dimensional. This is your key to a kind of photo realistic painting that is so suited to oil paints.

Oil Glazing Techniques

This transparent layer of oil generally contains a single pigment. What you do with it will depend on the kind of glaze and on your desired effect. Some artists use glazing with each layer of their oil painting. Other oil painters tend to wait till they are at a later stage of their painting to then add the glaze. It all depends on the kind of colour contrast and emphasis that you would like to create.

Applying multiple layers of glaze can be particularly effective when you are attempting to achieve nuance and detail in a complex area such as the face in portrait painting. Having control over which areas will appear particularly intense in colour will allow you to manipulate the viewer's eye, creating the effect that they are gazing into a real face, where some features are more dominant than others.

Variety of Effects

You will find that most artists use glazes in a localised way, rather than glazing their whole artwork. It is in this manner that you can create really precise effects. You will essentially be in control of how light hits your artwork and what effect that has on the human eye.

Many glazes will additionally heighten the smoothness of the oil paint so that you can work on those finer details with greater ease. We love how you can experiment in so many different ways with your medium oil glazes to find the right effect for you. This glazing process opens up a whole new area of creativity which is just as fun, rewarding and effective in its results as the basic oil painting process itself.