Scraping the Palette
After thickly applied paint—as a feature of oil painting—had its moment, it didn't recede into the past, but became another vernacular idiom of Art. Deconstructing the making of art in this way is not intended to tamp-down enthusiasm for the aesthetics of art, but to increase understanding of the means. If everyone who loves art tried painting in oils this digression would be unnecessary. How is the elan of creating to be expressed?
Art, like many things, is a feedback loop. Try something, step back to look at it, and, if it "works" continue. If it doesn't try something else. Or, return to it under different conditions, and so on. Originality is new, and different, combinations of limited options. Oil painting is like that.
Objectivity is always behind, and at the height of the thick paint craze, it was noted that the thickness dimension did not reproduce well in photographs. This was received more as complaining by artists, creative frustration, than as a criterion. Always looking to make the best of circumstances, painters turned it around, pointing to the irreconcilability of flat, photographic reproduction, and, what was then becoming known as, the Totem art object.
Phenomenologically, to look at art properly, it had to be immediately, literally, physically, present. It is a valid condition. That, then, raised the corollary. What could be done to reconcile the physical reality of art with its reproduction? Thickly painted insistently physical art had reached its peak relevance.
Thick paint abstract painting gave rise to the "anyone can do it" objection, when, in fact, handling thick paint is more difficult. Aside from alternate processes like spilling, dripping, and splashing, handling thick paint is much more difficult with traditional paintbrushes. Oil brushes are made of stiff bristles, which give more leverage when pushing thick paint around than softer hair brushes, or synthetic like nylon.
Known to very few artists, and virtually unknown to everyone else, is the fact that brushes are only for moving paint around on the canvas. The brush is not good for mixing paint (stirring) on the pallet, or (horror), used for transferring paint from the pallet to the canvas—on the brush tip—at risk of accident. Adepts know better.
Oil paint is to be mixed and blended on the palette by means of a palette knife, or spatula, sometimes called a “palette scraper.” Oil paint should be kneaded thoroughly with the thin, flexible steel blade, giving the paint the right consistency and color. Next, a measured amount of the mixed paint is transferred to the canvas on the scraper, as a brick mason would use a trowel to spread mortar.
The palette knife—or scraper—is then put to the side, and the brush taken up, for detailing the paint placed by the spatula on the canvas. Brush painting is intuitive. Use of the stainless steel paint spatula is not. It's discovery and use comes with experience. For blending colors it is unmatched. Oil paint, recall, is a viscous goo. A limp bristle brush can't cut it.
Oil paint is nothing like water-based paints, least of all watercolor. Watercolors are not supposed to be mixed. Finer even than oil paint, watercolor is a purist's medium. Oil paint is substantial, crude matter. Oil painting is best for substantial subjects. Every artist painting in oils has a personal relationship with oil paint. The differences are obvious to viewers. It is because a brush cannot compete with a stainless steel blade for blending to perfection the exquisite colors attainable with oil paint.
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