Hello.
I have come across an Austrailian brand of oil primer that appears to utilise water-miscable linseed oil because it is dilutable with water. It is fast-drying so that you can apply two coats in one day and paint in oils on the following day, possibly because of alkyd resin content. But since it contains linseed oil I don’t understand how it can be applied as they say, with no size. They say this oil primer can be applied directly to the canvas. They also say it doesn’t yellow.
Does anyone have any ideas about this?
Thank you George O’Hanlon. They say it contains linseed oil so I don’t understand how it can be applied to raw canvas without a size. Do you know how that might be possible?
I have a follow up question please-
Is an alkyd resin in contact with the surface detrimental to the longevity of cellusose, the same as a drying oil? And also are all drying oils as detrimental as each other to canvas and paper or is linseed oil worse for some reason? How detrimental are they, if paint covers the entire front so there are no unsightly rings of oil, and there is still enough oil to act as a good binder on the front, if oil seeps through does the back darken and become brittle over time to a slight degree or a huge degree?
The acid levels of different linseed oils or other oils completely, would make a difference as well. Always bad, but different degrees of bad.
I have forwarded this to a couple of relavant moderators
Water-miscible alkyds have been available for several decades, so it is possible that an artist materials manufacturer has produced a primer using a water-miscible alkyd. Alkyds are resins derived from vegetable oils or fatty acids of vegetable oil. In a few cases they are made from linseed oil and may also contain a percentage of linseed oil. These can be made to dry quickly because they may use driers that are compatible with both water and solventborne systems.
All alkyds and vegetable oils yellow so it is unlikely that it is completely non-yellowing. Waterborne alkyd compositions may yellow less than pure linseed oil systems, neveertheless they yellow.
How effective are these types of primers no one knows at present because long term aging studies have not been condicted on these products.
In theory, all acidic environments (aqueous and non-aqueous) would be detrimental to some degree to cellulose. Alkyd resins are created by modifying polyester resins with fatty acids. Fatty acids are the culprit in the deterioration of cellulosics when one speaks of oil in fabric substrates. I am not sure that anyone has really worked out the time necessary for the deterioration of cellulosics in a fatty acid environment. Likely, it is not best practice and problematic, but probably less disastrous than often related. The resultant unappealing and unsightly greasy suffusion, and likely, oil-stained ring, are probably more problematic in the short term.
I would guess that a stiff and undiluted oil pint, freely but thinly applied, in a broken and not continuous manner, to a well sized 300 lb cold pressed or rough watercolor paper that is later sensibly mounted and framed would fare well. I know, that is a lot of caveats. It is hard to judge all of the possible permutations from this side of the laptop.
Could you share the product name and/or website? I have read a number of reports of artists who mix their oils with acrylic emulsion paints in their painting practice with success for years and centuries. Even though this is totally experimental these mixtures seem to hold up well. I doubt however, that an acrylic emulsion with 4% linseed oil will harden at the same rate as pure oil paint and IF that were the case, whether that would actually be beneficial to the overall aging process of the oil painting. A survey of modern paintings at the Tate from 2008 had shown that oil paintings on acrylic emulsion grounds had overall fared better than oil paintings on oil grounds.
No problem 😉 As Brian already suggested it might be a good idea to size the canvas, even though the manufacturer says it’s not necessary. The product seems interesting and in all likelyhood is fine to use.
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