Hello wonderful Mitra team,
I recently saw in your forum that underdrawings with pencils containing wax is not recommended for oil paintings.
Thus I am trying to find something without wax in white and I am having surprisingly a hard time. Most drawing materials companies have wax, or don’t list their ingredients and neither respond to my emails.
Do you have specific white pastels, chalk or white charcoal that you recommend?
I am thinking the General Pencil Compressed White Charcoal sticks. Maybe as it’s sticks they put less other fillings in it?
Derwent charcoal pencils say they are made of charcoal particles mixed with the finest clays. Is clay ok?
Thank you so much for your help as always!
i believe clay is not good as it is not a drying medium, so safest is to use willow chacoal only.
Hello there,
You’re right to be careful about the waxes since they are non drying no-stick fat, over which a thick layer of oil painting might hold initially, but never stick entirely. Also, over the years, the initial layer of wax/fat will migrate through the colours.
I’ve had the saddest idea of using a lipstick to sign on the back of a painting many years ago. You can almost read it from the front now.
Clays and charcoals are non drying (even slowing the drying of oils), but at least they will be swamped and incorporated in the film as you paint. So you wont risk much delamination or fat migrations over time.
Charcoals are probably the safest option. Chalks / hard pastels likely are fine as well. You can use a spray varnish to fix them a little before painting over so they don’t wash too much while painting.
Cheers,
Lussh
Thank you so much!
In case it helps someone:
General Pencil Co., Inc. answered me afterwards about their particular charcoal pencils to use for underdrawing in oil paintings.
The General’s® Charcoal White® #558 pencils have no wax in them: “General’s® Pastel and Charcoal White® There are no waxes in either formula and should be compatible with the creative methods you mention using.”
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