TwoInchBrush - Forum

Hello DaveJ. Bob started out as a traditional painter but I think he chucked the rule book out of the window once he started to work with this wet on wet technique. I believe wet on wet was designed to do away with all of that. His paints were developed purely for this technique, being thicker than normal. You might want to watch a few of his videos where he describes what he is doing, he often mentions that thin paint sticks to a thick paint. To my knowledge he's never mentioned how drying times differ between the materials used. Bob places no restrictions on what colours to use for highlights but simply recommends thinning your chosen highlight colour down a bit. Somebody more experienced here might have studied the technicalities you mention, but I just follow what Bob says, slap it on, and hope for the best. Good luck.

DaveJ , Hi DaveJ.....I had the worst time in my brain with what you are talking about too. Just forget all that talk, it doesn't apply as TheLandscaperPainter said. I messed in my head trying for months until I just said forget it and follow Bob!!! Paint straight out of the tube for starters and tin the paint to layer.....works like a charm. I am new though, I am sure that others might be able to explain better. Just get it out of your head, pick up the brush and have FUN!!!

As far as I know the BR brand colors already vary in thickness depending on what they are used for in Bob's technique.

So lighter colors used for highlights have more oil in them than darker ones used for backgrounds

Hi, No disagreements with what everyone has said and I appreciate your input and comments.
I am enjoying and improving my use of Bob’s paints & techniques. and am interested in learning a bit more to better understand and use them.

So I was looking for a 1 or 2 pager that went a bit further in explaining this that might help me.
I presumed that 1 existed somewhere, but haven’t been able to find it through google searches. So I thought someone in the 2”B network might know where a document of this nature might be.
A document or link will either be available and turn up, or not. If not, I’ve tried; no worries,

Much appreciated, Cheers & Happy Painting.

Hi Dave, for wet-on-wet or alla prima you don't need to worry about the rules as paint is applied in one sitting. So all pain is intermixed and dries together as uniform layer.
The rules you mentioned become important when we talk about academic painting and layering. In this case you start with underpainting most times (burnt umber= quick drying), then add medium tones, then do glazing to enhance parts, etc. So in general 3-5 layers. Following rules will prevent upper layers cracking and will keep painting in tact.

This website is a source of wonderful articles about oil paints, mediums, etc. Please go ahead and investigate. https://www.jacksonsart.com/blog/category/art-technique/oil-painting-art-technique/

I recommend as they deserved my trust over last couple of years since I jointed oil painting.

Fat over lean = more oil over thinned paint.
Thick over thin = a lot of paint (impasto) over very thin layer of paint.

Bob indeed breaks the rule fat over lean when he does branches on the trees, it did not work as I wanted for me though, thus I started thinning paint for brunches with thinner and with oil together. I found for myself that paint thinner cuts through the layers and did not like that while with oil added I have more flow and control over brunches.
However, as folks said above in general consistency of BR paints, thus BR method somewhat follows the fat over lean and thick over thin rules.

Many thanks Sunnylady for your additional input and link.

I have experienced similar with thinning paint with thinners for the final dead branches. I notice in a number of his episodes, Bob reverts to using liquid black / white for these and that the paint seems to flow better and give a better look.

Where I have had worst problems is where I end up with too many layers and then adding the highlights on trees, sea spray etc on top, where I haven’t paid sufficient attention to minimise the thickness of the initial layers, eg where Bob makes comments such as:

• for mountains and ocean rocks, it is important to push the colour into the canvas and then scrape as much excess paint off the canvas as possible and spread the remainder out as much as possible;
• probably similar with scraping paint away from where putting cabins;
• not filling the sides with too much background to see the few spots between the multiple layers of tree branches and leaves that we overlay in great profusion;
• and probably a few others.

Contributions much appreciated, cheers and Happy Painting.

In the other method I use for my seascapes first foam is made with mushing in shadow color , then with quite liquid paint (with use of medium = stand linseed oil+turpentine) i add splashes and highlight to create a shape and splashes. Stand oil also have a good advantage over standard linseed oil - it dries faster.

I definitely recommend using liquid black or liquid white (depending on the background color) for putting in tree branches, sticks, twigs, and highlights for the waves. It flows so nicely and you can create such fantastic effects. You can always use liquid clear with any color you want and do the same thing. But like Bob says, it should flow like ink.

For cabins, mountains, and rocks I do recommend scraping off whatever paint you can to help the color you're applying to stick better. I often have to go over these areas a couple times to make sure it looks like I want.