Sun Thickened Walnut Oil – Ark and Manna – Samuel Shelton

As far as mediums I used a combination of Thickened Walnut Oil, Water-Washed Walnut Oil and Impasto Medium. Thickened Walnut Oil is an animal all its own. If you are used to using solvents to make paint thin and flow then Thickened Walnut Oil is the opposite, it makes paint thick and sticky. Some benefits of adding Thickened Walnut Oil directly to your paint nugget (a little goes a long way): It will make paint level more, dry quicker, dry glossier and create a strong paint film.

Some benefits of mixing Thickened Walnut Oil with Spike 50/50 or even more spike to oil: All around medium but it sets up faster and has a bit of drag to it. Benefits of the medium I used which was a mix of Impasto Medium and Water-Washed Walnut Oil with a little Walnut Thickened Oil: It made the paint thick and rich with good flow. I cut the Impasto Medium roughly in half with Water-Washed oil and Thickened Walnut Oil (these two oils were mixed in roughly equal parts). I would simply dip my brush

in the medium to make the paint flow better. Used by itself Thickened Walnut Oil is so thick it is useless, but by mixing in some Water-Washed Walnut oil it gave it a nice consistency. The addition of the Impasto Medium is useful to me in this way, it adds strength to the oil so I can use more medium without the fear of it drying with an alligator finish (wrinkling) which happens if thick oil is over used. It also creates some nice drag, control in blending, and a satin finish.

If one does not desire to use solvents in a painting but is scared of using too much oil to thin the paint, then the solution that I use is mixing in some Impasto Medium. If working in layers one could start with a mixture of raw Walnut Oil and Impasto Medium for the first layer. Water-Washed Walnut Oil and Impasto for the second and the mixture I described above for a third pass.

I think some interesting possibilities can be pursued with the Thickened Walnut Oil in other mixtures. A caution though would be to keep it simple and stick with the same medium throughout a painting. Simply adding mixtures of thinner and thicker oil with Impasto Medium can create a variety of paint handling choices while keeping the paint from becoming too weak. If you do not go overboard with the Thickened Walnut Oil and make sure you have enough Impasto Medium mixed in to keep it from wrinkling then you will have a very versatile medium without solvents that will dry quickly.

Ark and Manna 24×30 oil on panel with gold leaf