From: Judy Seigel (jseigel@panix.com)
Date: 02/25/03-11:18:56 PM Z
On Tue, 25 Feb 2003, Christina Z. Anderson wrote:
> Hi list,
> I'm so thrilled to keep seeing gum stuff posted.
Oh lordy, this is worse than going to Kremer -- I've GOT to get off & get
some other stuff done -- but a propos of one-coat gum, I want to mention a
tidbit i picked up last thursday at College Art... maybe everybody knows
this, but here's a slightly different angle.
My original interest in 1-coat gum was a revolt against all that heavy
breathing about how complicated and difficult gum was. I wanted to just
bat out a gum print like a xerox,,,, and I found I could actually (tho at
the moment I prefer the sublime effects of multi-coat).
I mentioned in the 1-coat article that I'd use gouache ("designer color"),
probably. But in the process of chatting up the paint experts in their
display booths (Gamblin, Liquitex, Golden, etc.) I got into conversation
with a Winsor Newton paint pro, who pointed out that gouache in the tube
has much more pigment. That would account for its extra covering power...
I'd also thought that it has other opaquing ingredients, which was a
reason for not using it past the first coat. She said not... but then in
another one of those coincidences (the prepared mind, I suppose), I again
came across a reference to gouache in the Franklin Jordan book... and HE
says it has white added.
So either one or both of these authorities is mistaken, or more likely
there are different kinds of gouache... I suspect not only are different
colors different, so you can't settle for one brand across the board, but
that not every color in a given brand will have equal treatment. You need
to test each one -- but that's the case mostly with any paint. In any
event, gouache for one-coat is almost certainly the easy(er) road.
One other point -- Keith Gerling was frustrated trying to do a gum coat in
white... Different white pigments are different. As I recall Ralph Mayer's
rundown, zinc white is the most transparent. ("chinese white" is zinc
white.) Titanium has the most opacity, and I've had some good solid white
coats with it when I wanted to cover something or otherwise get special
effect with a layer of solid white. There were some reasons it isn't
desirable for all oil painting purposes. (Don't expect me to remember from
50 years ago, but it may have been that it's brittle in pure paint, which
would NOT be an issue in a gum layer.)
There's also lead white, which i doubt you can get any more ("flake" white
in oil paint), but it yellows over time & I don't know how it would be
with dichromate anyway.
J.
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