Making Fumed Silica Gel Medium - Oil Painting

Just tried a little experiment with the West System 406 and some refined linseed oil (W&N, about 15 years old). It made a gel easily. At first, I tried 2.5ml of the silica in a little pile with a dimple in the middle, poured in 2.5ml of oil, and mixed with a knife. The result was very stiff and looked a bit grainy. I then added a little more oil &#; no more than 1ml (poured from the refilled 2.5ml measuring spoon), and mixed some more.

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This resulted in a gel that felt pretty similar to artist grade oil paint&#;

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I then squeezed out a little W&N French Ultramarine, and then took some of the gel and little bit of the paint&#;

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The blade on the painting knife to the left is about 32mm long.

And mixed them together&#;

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It felt a little stiffer than the ultramarine paint on its own, but only slightly, and it seemed to feel smooth and buttery under the knife when I spread it out. It certainly holds its shape in the main lump &#; I don&#;t get the impression that it would settle or level.

About the only reservation I have is that the West System 406 particles seem to be quite large, and either vary in size or tend to clump a little in the mix. A few larger bits can be seen in this closer view, especially to the top right&#;

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Looking at the smear through a loupe, it does seem to have a slightly textured or reticulated look to it &#; particularly evident in the violet-leaning area in the middle. The area shown in the close-up photo is about 32mm wide.

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The West System 406 does seem to clump a bit in the tub &#; scooping some out results in a combination of powdery stuff that seems to be loose particles, and small clumps a few millimetres wide that easily break up. I didn&#;t make any attempt to reduce it all to a powdery consistency, and the mixing time with the knife was just a few seconds. Perhaps putting the silica through a sieve would help, or maybe spending more time mixing it with the oil. Maybe mulling is what&#;s needed. (I have no idea how this compares to commercial versions.)

With regard to volume, adding the silica didn&#;t seem to make a noticeable difference. I didn&#;t measure the volume of gel before I starting playing with it, but looking at the two piles I ended up with (one clear, one blue), I&#;d say they&#;d manage to fill the 2.5ml spoon and no more.

Judging the stiffness with a such small quantity would be quite tricky by measuring out volumes of the components. To get a reliable recipe, it would have to be made in a larger quantity and the volumes carefully noted &#; the tiny bit of extra oil I poured out made a big difference. With the West System 406, the proportion by volume was about 55-60% oil to 45-40% silica.

In terms of extending the paint, it seemed very effective &#; the little bit of blue was probably about 15% of the volume of the bit of gel. When spread out, the result was a bit lighter than the raw paint, suggesting increased transparency. (The palette is white melamine, incidentally.)

I found this to be true. It would stay semi opaque and lumpy until it was fully mixed in which took quite a while. Once that state was reached it went almost crystal clear and the texture became what I consider to be ideal. Doing this without a muller is very difficult even with a small batch and quite time consuming. I will definitely be getting myself a nice large muller for this project.

I mentioned this recently elsewhere in another context, but it seems to be relevant here too so I&#;ll repeat it. Once a long time ago, I had some cad red that had dried in the tube. Since it was part of a set, and since I had only just started in oils and didn&#;t want to spend the money for a replacement in case I didn&#;t like oils, I experimented with re-vivifying the paint. Using an old blender jar &#; the small plastic type &#; and an old blender blade (both dedicated forever to paint mixing to avoid contaminating food), I opened up the tube and scraped the hard paint into the jar and added solvent and oil. Then it was whirred away until it was in a soft form again. At the time I was told this wasn&#;t a good idea so I threw the paint out, but later somebody else said such paint would still be fine because what had been created was just a new suspension of pigment in oil, exactly what oil paint is anyway. Could this approach might represent an alternative to mulling the fumed silica with the oil, thereby speeding up the process. At least, it might be a way to start the process and the final stage could be hand mulling.

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