Glazing in Oils

Learn how to use a glazing medium with oil paint to achieve transparency and luminosity. A way to unify the tones in your painting.

You're almost ready to get started. But first, you'll need these items:

• Artists' Oil Colour Burnt Umber

• Blending and Glazing Medium

• Monarch Glazing Brush

• Oil wells

• Palette

Glazing is a really good way to bring together light and dark tones and create luminosity. A glaze is a thin transparent colour which is painted over the top of your painting to unify the tones in your painting. There are lots of different recipes for glazing, but it is difficult to get a formulation that provides sufficient durability over time.

In the demonstration Winsor & Newton Blending and Glazing Medium is used to create the glaze, which is tinted with Burnt Umber from the Artists' Oil Colour range. Burnt Umber is a beautiful, transparent pigment which is derived from Umbria, a clay, that is burnt to achieve a much richer, deeper and darker tone. When you mix the two together you will notice that it has got a lovely strong transparency. You can alter the darkness of your glaze by adjusting the amount of pigment you add to your mix. Adding more pigment will make a much darker glaze.

As you can see in the demonstration, applying the glaze over very definite areas of dark and light creates unity. It will also bring luminosity into the light areas which appear to emerge from the darkness. Great examples of glazing can be seen in Rembrandt's work, notably his penultimate self-portrait which is part of the Kenwood Collection.

Read more about Winsor & Newton Artists' Oils

Read more about Winsor & Newton Oil Mediums

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