The Alkyd Advantage
from The Artist's Magazine, June 2003

What it is:
Oil-modified alkyd resin. Originally used for industrial printing purposes, Winsor & Newton modified alkyd for fine-art use in 1968. Clean up after alkyd with mineral spirits.

Who makes it:
Winsor & Newton, under the Griffin line.

Why you should give it a try:
Alkyd has the advantages of a couple of different kinds of paint, but few of the disadvantages. The paints are very bright, like oils, but they don't have the trademark slow drying time. Although alkyds can be blended like oils, a spot of pain maintains its independence from nearby (touching) paint unless you purposely blend. The paint sets up quickly (in about an hour), becoming sticky and difficult to smear. These characteristics allow precision brushwork with complete control. In addition, each alkyd color dries at the same speed.

Surfaces and preparation:
I use the waffle side of a 1/4 inch Masonite or hardboard. I apply about 10 coats of acrylic gesso to the rough side with a trowel, alternating with three or four coats brushed onto the smooth side to keep the board from warping.

Between each coat of gesso I lightly sand the board with 80- or 100-grit on my sanding block and gradually work my way up to 220- or 300-grit. When I see the waffles disappear, I put on a coat of gray alkyd paint.

Article Image and Caption: A Level Painting Field There may be a variety of smooth-and-rough-looking textures in "March" (alkyd, 20 X 15 1/2), but the painting surface itself is smooth as glass, a look that I strive for throughout my entire painting process. I accomplish this by sanding out imperfections as I go along, and using a varnish with enough body to level the surface of the finished work. Shown at left: "March" by Edward Gordon, 2001

What brushes to use:
I use synthetic sable brushes in various sizes of flat, round and filbert. And sometimes I'll use rubber stamps that I have designed. This is especially handy if I'm painting wallpaper in a scene.

Key techniques:
Alkyd is so versatile that you could probably adopt and use any technique your imagination can come up with. You can do washes and glazing by diluting it with Liquin, an alkyd medium made by Winsor & Newton. Sometimes I even mix alkyd with gloss varnish to create a thin paint into which I dip a ruling pen for painting tree limbs or for drawing in lines around doorways and in hardwood floors. Most of the time, though, I paint in layers. I put down crude colors to start with and get the space filled in and then I add on and refine until I get what I want.

Mediums/additives you can use:
I haven't used many additives other than Liquin. Once or twice I've added a little extra linseed oil or stand coat to retard the drying. I used some cobalt drier once to speed up the drying time, but that was a big mistake. It made the painting so dull I had to repaint it.

Making corrections:
I consider alkyd to be the most forgiving paint there is. It dries overnight, so if you don't like something, you simply paint over it.

Mixed-media potential:
You can mix alkyd with oil paint fully or partially. As well, you can use alkyd underneath oil colors but not the other way around because alkyd dries faster. I also wouldn't alternate paint layers with other fast-drying media like acrylics because of the different flexibilities in paint film.

Finishing it up:
My finished painting is dry within a couple of days (but can take a month to cure), and that's when I apply my varnish, a 50-50 mixture of MSA (mineral spirits soluble acrylic) varnish and Winsor & Newton's Conserv-art Gloss Varnish. This mixture gives me the right amount of body in my varnish, and a finish that's neither super-shiny nor really dull. I use three coats, sanding lightly between each with 600-grit sandpaper.

Paint like these masters:
Sharon Ellis, David Reed and Squeak Carnwath all work in alkyd.

Image: "Music Room II"

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