In the video “Jean Dubuffet: Brutal Beauty – Curator Tour” ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c0ooUVvJwdg), at 7m10s, the host says Dubuffet applies a mix of zinc oxide/varnish in order to repel oil paint. How does this technic works? Is there another similar way to create oil resistant regions on the canvas?
Hello there,
It’s one of the bad sides of zinc oxide pigment. It reacts with the fatty acids of the oils to create soaps that act thus like non absorbant / anti-sticky surface for the next layers and cause in the end delamination. (amongst other issues…)
So it’s a risky process to attempt in oil paintings since it’s playing on defects.
Varnish unfortunately can mean ‘painting medium’ in some places and times, so I wouldn’t attempt theorising what that meant there.
A way I would suggest would be to create your own painting medium with a load of dissolved beeswax inside. Using it in the last layers of your painting to ‘wax’ the parts you want to repel oil with it. But I would advocate it’s more risks than it’s worth for your painting.
I wish you a nice day,
Lussh
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