Signing an Oil Painting

Again and again I see artists asking how to sign their paintings, so I’ve decided to tell you how I do so. The very first thing I’m going to suggest is to develop a signature and stick with it. Go and get a cheap pre-stretched canvas or prepare some paper with acrylic primer and take a day to paint your signature over and over. I personally first developed my signature using a pen and then went to a canvas to get the brush strokes down. I mainly sign my paintings in one of two ways:

Lately, my preference is to sign with a small sable round and thinned oily paint. Specifically, I take my Trekell red sable size 0, larger sized brushes can be used as long they come to a fine point. I’ve tried out script liners and find them too floppy for my tastes and writing style, but many swear by them.

Then take the brush and clean it thoroughly in turpentine or mineral Spirits. This serves to shape the brush to a nice fine point and to get any possible old paint out.

I then select a mixture leftover on my palette or (if there’s no good colors left), I go in and use one of the pure colors and neutralize/dull it.

Keep in mind that Harmony with the painting and the signature are important. Many artists and collectors expect that the signature should be ‘hidden’ or blend into the surrounding paint. Because of this, I suggest using colors that are dominate in the painting and to mute them. I must admit however, that I do not feel it is paramount. If you wish to make a bold bright signature have at it! Other, famous artists’ get away with it.

Once my brush and color are selected I add linseed oil and turpentine into the paint until I get an inky consistency. We’re looking for an oily paint in this case, it’s the top most layer, oily is fine and simpler to manipulate in this manner. Don’t however, make the paint so oily that is runs down your surface!

I go right in with it wet, rather than waiting for the lower layers to dry. This has more to do with my desire to make the signature a cohesive part of the painting rather than because it works better. If you have no qualms with the signature being on top of your painting wait until it dries first as it’s simpler.

The other, fast and dirty way, is to take the backside of the same size 0 sable and to use it much like a pencil and scratch the signature into the paint, revealing the painting ground.

Clove Oil Test Results

Clove Oil Test Results for Oil Painting Suitability - 1

Results from the clove oil tests are in. The clove oil is 100% suitable for oil painting. The left most is just the paint (Windsor and Newton’s Winton Burnt Umber). The next column is just some clove oil, the next is a mix of clove oil and paint. And finally is the clove oil placed onto the paint but unmixed.

The larger piles with clove oil both mixed into the paint and placed over the paint are still very moist and have no skin formation. The paint without the clove oil mixture is now thickly skinned over.

Clove Oil Test Results

The thinned sections all dried at various rates, the clove oil portions lagging by a day for the thinnest, and two days for the medium thickness.

The support discoloration is from some amber shellac I was using for a wood working project. The shellac lowered the absorbency of the paper so I would get less oil leaching from the paint. The blotches of clove oil around the paints were because of my over application of the clove oil.

I started setting up my next still life lastnight. I went to a local junk shop and found a lovely old tarnished silver sugar bowl that I’m hoping to incorporate into the next pice. I’m still unsure if I like the arrangment at this moment however so it may change.

Clove oil

Pure Essential Oil Clove Eugenia Caryophyllata - Indonesia

Relatively unproductive week again. I seem to be in an artistic lull right now. It’s been very hard to focus lately and I’ve been extremely tired at times. My sleep has been less that ideal as well. Living in an apartment inside the city has some drawbacks that I had forgotten about, namely being woken up by traffic and the other tenants at night.  I’m quite sure this is a large reason for my productivity loss.

The weather has been oppressively humid. We’ve also been seeing some of the hottest days we’ve seen in quite a while. It makes me long for air conditioning again but I know my families choice to not use it is a correct one budget wise. I admit it’s a much missed luxury item however. The weather today seems to have finally relented after storming last evening. I hope we keep the milder weather for awhile.

Did some plumbing work at my parents all of Saturday. Replaced the shower valve that had crumbled into the hot piping and the problems seem to have vanished. I asked them to keep an eye on it and also helped in purchasing new ceiling tiles for the kitchen that were water damaged from the leak in the bathroom above. Right when I was about ready to leave my sister showed up. Having just moved to Boston I felt I should take the chance to visit at least for a little while.

Once I got the family packed into the car we arrived home at seven that night. I found my clove oil in the mail waiting for us. I was surprised it’s in plastic bottles, in the end I will probably get a glass jar to keep it in. I should note it’s fine for it to be in plastic, and that the tops are nice and strong, the extra air was removed from the bottles (obvious because the plastic was sucked in a bit) and the caps securely taped for shipment. I simply prefer glass to plastics.

For those wondering “what does clove oil do?” First and foremost it greatly slows down the oxidation process of oils. in simpler terms: it makes oil paint take longer to ‘dry’. Clove oil also removes unpleasant odors from your other mediums such as turpentine. Finally clove oil acts as a preservative for mediums with egg or natural hide glues (like rabbit skin glue).

I got a test strip going on Sunday, to check for compatibility with my oil paints. I’m testing it with burnt umber, a notoriously fast drier. So far the results are good. No unexpected consistency changes, as is commonly reported when other additives are present in the clove oil. It does thin the color down, much like when adding turpentine or mineral spirits. However under normal circumstances you would use only a very small amount of the clove oil (such as a drop or two for a full paint nut). but for my tests I added way more than typical to make the clove oils properties more apparent.

I purchased the clove oil from the ebay store Pure Essential Oil for those interested.

Cast Offs Abstract Series – Orange Streak

12 x 24 inches

Oil on Gallery Wrapped Canvas

My family had I have finally moved into our new apartment and are busy settling in and figuring out where everything is going to live in our smaller quarters. As such painting has been nearly nonexistent lately. I’ve yet to even get my easel set up.

The lighting situation in the new home should be much better as I can actually get some northern light in the kitchen. More likely I’ll be set up in the living room where I’ll get southern light but at least now it’s all from one direction and not flooding in from everywhere.

I recently ordered some new supplies. Everything should arrive by the end of this week and I’m quite happy that I’ll have some of this stuff again.

• Grumbacher Pre-tested oils Cadmium-barium Yellow Light
• Old Holland Ultramarine Blue
• Master Brush Cleaner and Restorer
• Clove oil

The Cadmium has a small amount of barium (15% or more makes the barium listing technically required) added as an inert filler. I’ve used Grumbacher’s Cadmium-barium in the past and find that the barium doesn’t effect its tinting strength too badly, and the barium greatly reduces the price. Of color swatches I’ve seen Grumbacher’s actually has a pretty good concentration of cadmium, beating out some other brands in intensity that don’t state having barium added. It just goes to show you that trying and searching out different brands is worth it.

The Old Holland Ultramarine was actually suggested by a friends so I thought I’d give it a go. As for the Brush cleaner I tried out some a while back and loved it. So this time I’ve gone for the studio tub.

I’m most excited by the clove oil I just ordered. I’ll report back on it’s properties latter once I’ve had some experimatation time. To put it quickly however, it greatlly increases the oxidation period of oils.