Master painting manual: traditional painting material methodologies for the contemporary artist

Direct oil painting methodologies are simple in their application and optical effects compared to indirect layering systems, particularly the procedures developed during the Renaissance. Today, modern painting mediums alter oil paint’s flow and drying characteristics by using ingredients which are unnecessarily complex and mainly based on solvent usage; creating a health-hazardous environment. However, when a selection of some natural materials are combined, tested and amalgamated with ancient and modern painting processes direct painting methodologies are invested with a wider range of optical interplay. Thus by paying closer attention to the relationship between the artist’s tools and substances, modern and traditional painting systems are deepened and expanded. The outcome is that the relationship between the artist’s pictorial intentions and the means to achieve them are synchronised. Therefore, this research found, through an active professional painting practice, that there exists a highly symbiotic, richer, and more fluid relationship between ideas and materials, when using a direct oil painting methodology which fouses on its physical means of expression.