Ask Maurice: Oil Portrait Using the CSO Method by Maurice Garson

There are new habits you will have to develop early while painting with CSO:

Your first action is to remove all other materials other than your pigments that you're accustomed to using such as Turpentine, Resins and Driers. They are not needed or welcome in this method of painting.

Grind and thin your colors on your palette. The consistency of CSO is similar to a thinned version of glazing putty until it is ground with pigment and thinned with glair emulsion. Color can be easily manipulated and blended on canvas. For those who are familiar with using turpentine to thin out or to lightly remove pigment from your canvas, don't. Thinking about the same process using emulsion? It will work but it will dry with a matte finish.

Make up your palette in limited quantities or use a palette you can seal off from air when you are idle unless you don't mind the waste. This medium is nothing like the oils we are used to that takes weeks to dry.

The chemical composition of this paint film becomes the result of a reaction between calcium carbonate, the fatty acids of the linseed oil and the oxygen in the air causing a cross-linked resin like polymerization. In a cruder form of refinement and higher concentrations of calcium carbonate these are exactly the same components of glazing putty. Note: Although the CSO method is a much safer medium to use, it does not eliminate exposure precautions required for handling your pigments.

My subject is from an old photo which has been scanned and the image was digitally edited to avoid the waste of time and materials on study sketches or color manipulation on canvas. Since it was my intent to be fairly realistic with this rendering, many of the conflicting issues for determining the properties of this painting where addressed before the canvas had even been touched. There is also the advantage of printing a larger, more detailed reference photo to work from. Additional information from other artists about how the use of digital methods can be used to complement traditional painting can be found in these reference books

On the first day, I will be skipping the initial charcoal or inked sketch and move directly to the under painting or "brown layer" drawing with a mixture of umber, cobalt blue, ivory black and pink (under her gown).

The choice of color for the under layer was to create luminance. The back ground under layer at this time should contain more blue (under the deep red) and I've used pink shadowed with cobalt blue for under her white gown.

Click image for larger veiw

Using an Egg Glair Viscous Emulsion from Louis' read, I initially favored a dry brush technique instead of "oiling out" since this layer is only used as a definitive sketch to outline dimensional and tonal scale properties. However, in an effort to reduce excessive build up of paint and the amount of pentimenti in this painting, through a little testing I discovered an outstanding alternative. After the first "oil out" process, I have found that soft pastels work well for sketching and that when blended with a brush or finger into the glair emulsion it will dry as if it was painted.

The advantages are as follows:

Reduced time for grinding paint colors. After oiling out and wiping the excess, you can move on to applying the colors of your first layer.

Obvious enhanced control of line and color. Color can be smeared and moved on the canvas much like pastel painting.

Can be erased easily. This must be done lightly to avoid removing the emulsion in your first oil out. Lightly rubbing with a Colour Shaper works well. Avoid soft erasers in this step since rubbing with them will produce eraser crumbs that contaminate the emulsion layer.

Allows more freedoms in regards to choice of under painting colors through out the painting.

Minimizes paint build up to improve the flexibility of the canvas.

Note: With this process you should only be using soft pastels which contain minimal amounts of gum binders in a compressed pigment stick. Chalk and oil pastels contain chalk and wax that will interfere with adhesion and the polymerization process.

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