The Medium is the Message

Perspectives from The Artist's Road

The Alchemist Joseph Wright

Oil painting mediums have been around for centuries, yet they are frequently asked about in our oil painting classes. We weren’t taught too much about them in our school days and had to do some investigations on our own to understand what they were and how they are meant to be used. From those investigations, we wrote an in-depth article, “Understanding Oil Painting Mediums”, which we are reprising this month. Among the questions we are asked are: “What are mediums for?”, and “What are they made of?”, “Does one have to use a medium at all?” All good questions and we hope we have provided answers to them for you in our article. Concurrently, we contacted a few professional painters we have previously featured in our Voices of Experience articles and asked them what mediums, if any, they prefer and why. Here are their responses:

Thomas Paquette:
“I use very little medium, and not much thinner. When needed, I opt for Gambl…