Greetings,
I’ve heard of painters using spray fix on primed canvas ( (both oil and acrrlic ground) to fix a charcoal drawing before painting on top with oil and have assumed this could be problematic with potential delimination issues, but trying to gauge if this is overly cautious as long as the spray fix is applied reasonably thinly.
Does Mitra recommend a best practice here for proceeding from a charcoal underdrawing? How is this issue different if the ground is oil based vs. Acrylic gesso? Are there better fixatives suited for this purpose if it is not to be avoided altogether?
Forgive me as I’ve seen this touched on in these forums, as in here,
https://www.artcons.udel.edu/mitra/forums/question?QID=669
but feel like I am still missing info on this general topic here.
Happy New Year- Best, T
Thank you so much for the quick response here Brian.
T
I am not sure what I could add to that previous post. Perhaps I should add that depending on what the fixative is composed of and if/what solvent you are using to dilute the paint, you may pick up the fixative to some degree, dissolving it into your paint. However, often fixatives contain resins that are not soluble in the common solvents used for oil painting (eg B-72 is soluble in Xylene, toluene, acetone, ethanol) The issues are the same whether one is painting on an acrylic dispersion or oil ground.
Others have a different take on this issue. I have stated mine in this and the aforementioned thread.
Assuming the reason for sealing/fixing a drawing on canvas is to prevent intermixing with and staining paint, I think it’s a much better strategy to use something like vine charcoal and forget the fixative. Whisk away all excess, leaving a minimal cartoon which will absorb into paint without any detectable influence on colors.
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