How is it best for an artist to mix/preserve a painting using oil, acrylic, graphite,...

[brynze]

...oil pastel on cavnas? Is there a medium that need goes down in between each application? How does one varnish this piece? Aren't there dif varnishes for oil and acrylic paints...? And for use with things like graphite/chalk do you need to spray that immediately when working... and with what? Will that spray effect the oil that will be applied or any other medium applied to the piece? And when a piece is defined as "mixed media" using "acrylic and oil", do there just mean they used oil on the top, or that they used a water based oil in general and weren't concerned about what order it was applied? Lastly, when adding other things to the work, like newspaper, paper, anything really, at what point is best to add these sorts of material so they'll stick best? Maybe that's just a guessing game.

 

[tlw-artist]

Intermingling layers of acrylic and oil are a recipe for possible structural failure. Acrylic paints dry quickly, sometimes within minutes, or at most, hours of being applied. Oils can take weeks or months to dry sufficiently. Acrylics applied over oils are most likely to fail. Layering one after thee other, over and over, or attempting to get acrylic to adhere sufficiently to oil pastels . . . questionable. And the mediums you use with oil and acrylics are totally different and can not be intermingled. There is no universal medium that would bind them together and guarantee that they would remain on the canvas.

Mixed media means any painting that is not done with only one media. Examples are pastels over watercolor, watercolor/charcoal/pastels, charcoal/oil, watercolor and colored pencil, etc.

A collage is created by including non-paint materials, such as paper, fabric, wire, string, sand, glass, rocks, and other objects. These objects can be "glazed over" with acrylic gloss medium when using acrylics, or varnish when using oils.

Charcoal and pastel do not have to be sprayed with fixative to be completed. Fixing pastels is basically fusing them with acrylic sprayed on in very fine droplets. . .and this has the effect of fusing the individual particles of pastel that give it its luminous glow! When using pastel in mixed media, it would be best used as part of the last layer of color added.

I am not sure what kinds of mixed media work you have seen, but if you proceed as in the same haphazard manner you described, you are going to have a mess. I would suggest you practice, or do small studies to see how the various materials work together before you commit to doing a larger piece.

Good luck . . .

 

[Zetsu]

There is no medium to add between layers of paint to preserve them. Yes, Acrylic varnishes are made of acrylic polymer in a form of matte or gloss. Oil varnishs need the oil painting to completely dry which takes 6 months to a year. Any varnished applyed before that will cause the paint to crack. For oil pastels & charcoal, use a fixative from any arts supply store. If you want the painting to be workable after the fixative, buy a workable fixative. There is no water based oil, there is water soluble oil paints made by winsor & newton though. Most likely if a painting was oil and acrylic, the acrylic would be on the bottom of the oil paint layer. If the acrylic was put on top of the oil paint, it would immedeatly crack. To be honest with you, any time you put a fast drying oil color, like browns and yellow ochre or raw sienna on top of a slow drying color, like alizarin crimson, the paint is likely to crack.

I would alsos not reccomend using newspapers and paper with oils, or just not putting oil paint on top of them etc. just because it can erode the paper or cause the oil paint to crack.