For busy artists working on a lot of commissions, there is a timeline to adhere to for upcoming shows or deliveries. Oil paintings take weeks to dry. It is one of the major reasons acrylic paints are highly preferred as they take a moment to dry out. For times when you have to paint alla prima (wet on wet), it's impossible to call a shot for oil paints.
In the worst-case scenario, the thickness of oil paint would make it impossible to reduce the drying time even with fans running and ventilation uptight. Styles like wet on wet painting stand no chance with oils until Liquin comes in picture! And the problem is solved!
Say How?
What is Liquin?
It is an oil painting medium very easy to fall in love with. It's tough to resist once you start using it because you get the best effects of oil painting in your artwork and it won't be time taking. Unlike oil painting mediums like linseed oil, it is basically alkyd resin also composed of odorless mineral spirits, soyabean oil, and bentonite clay.
How does it pace up the process of drying oil paints?
Since it has resin and bentonite clay, which are themselves jelling and drying substances respectively, they work as catalysts in drying out oil painting reducing the drying time from approximately a week to a mere 24 hours. Presence of soyabean oil helps from losing the texture of oil paints while it's drying out.
Being a medium, Liquin can be mixed with oil paints to dilute the paint and thinning out layers of paint for them to dry out fast.
Liquin can be used for the final coat or glazing on acrylic as well as oil painting. It gives life to sources painted like animal fur, human hair, etc.
How to use Liquin:
Liquin is mixed with oil paint either with a brush or palette knife (preferred). Palette knife (of your choice of shape and size) helps in an even mixing of liquin with the paint and avoids blobs of paint getting stuck within the bristles of a brush.
It's very important to mix liquin with paint evenly (especially while glazing and layering on layers) because, if not, you might end up adding a lot of color in one place and it may spoil the desired effect or shade you want to bring.
While glazing, try adding more liquin and just a dash of paint to it. Glazing is a final coat and it need not add much color to the painting. It's just for giving finishing touch and that much color serves the purpose.
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