{"id":343,"date":"2010-11-03T18:38:20","date_gmt":"2010-11-03T16:38:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.americanartistinrome.com\/plog\/?p=343"},"modified":"2016-10-20T10:14:46","modified_gmt":"2016-10-20T08:14:46","slug":"the-drying-time-of-your-paint-how-to-use-cobalt-siccative","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.americanartistinrome.com\/plog\/2010\/11\/03\/the-drying-time-of-your-paint-how-to-use-cobalt-siccative\/","title":{"rendered":"The Drying Time of your Paint &#038; How to Use Cobalt Siccative"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Drying time is something that I&#8217;ve rarely had to worry about over the years, mainly because I had the time I needed. \u00a0But lately I&#8217;ve found it necessary to know more about drying times and, in particular, sometimes speed them up.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>First, a quick lesson on some quick drying paints:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Raw Umber &#8211; I&#8217;ll often use this to &#8220;ink&#8221; a drawing to the canvas, or, if there isn&#8217;t a drawing, then I&#8217;ll use this to block in the composition. \u00a0Usually dries in 24 hrs.<\/li>\n<li>Cobalt Blue- Also a fast dryer (in fact, I believe Velzaquez would sometimes mix this with another paint specifically for its drying properties); <a href=\"http:\/\/www.charlesweed.com\" target=\"_blank\">Charles Weed<\/a> suggested I use this in tandem with the Raw Umber. \u00a0I have not yet done that, but will!<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Not sure how long a certain paint takes to dry? \u00a0Well, you can always consult the Mayer handbook&#8230; or buy a tube of Michael Harding paint; he puts the drying time right on the label.<\/p>\n<h3>Speed Drying<\/h3>\n<p>Here is where the cobalt siccative comes into play. \u00a0The most important part is this: use it sparingly. \u00a0Only a &#8220;few drops&#8221; is what I&#8217;ve been told, but searching the web, I found a discussion about it on <a href=\"http:\/\/www.wetcanvas.com\/forums\/showthread.php?t=39422\" target=\"_blank\">wetcanvas.com <\/a><\/p>\n<p>Below are some quotes I thought useful. \u00a0I&#8217;ll soon run some tests using a cobalt siccative and walnut oil. \u00a0I&#8217;ll be sure to report back!<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>5 drops of cobalt drier should be used per each 2 1\/2 fluid Oz of any given medium.<\/p>\n<p>Cobalt Driers (of which cobalt naphthenate is the best grade) are safe enough if used with care. The general rule is to use as maximum, 50 drops of it per each pint of medium.<\/p>\n<p>We have seen that the advantage of LEAD and MANGANESE siccatives compared to Cobalt is\u00a0<strong>that Lead and Manganese dry the oil painting film from the inside out<\/strong> .<br \/>\nOf these, there have been some famous driers:<\/p>\n<p>1. Siccatif of Harleem<br \/>\n2. Siccatif of Courtrai<\/p>\n<p>Siccatives of Harleem have been discarded for a long time, because they were very dark and would tend to yellow and darken the picture.<\/p>\n<p>Modern industrial practices have enhanced the methods of making\u00a0<strong>Siccatif of Courtrai<\/strong><br \/>\nThere are 2 types of Courtrai Drier:<\/p>\n<p>TYPE 1: Contains both Manganese and Lead salts and is the most powerful drier. Darker in colour, but modern industrial processes have managed to stop it from darkening pictures.<\/p>\n<p>TYPE 2: Contains just Lead salts. Clear transparent it is not so powerful as type 1, but safer as it is safer to use with light colours or colours in which even a slight yellowing could pose problems.<\/p>\n<p>The BEST Courtrai driers I ever experimented with and indeed used are manufactured by\u00a0<strong>LeFranc &amp; Bourgeois<\/strong> :<\/p>\n<p>Product Ref. Code 1168 &#8211; Brown Courtrai Drier<br \/>\nContains manganese and lead oxides<\/p>\n<p>Product Ref. Code 3122 &#8211; White Courtrai Drier<br \/>\nContains only lead oxides<\/p>\n<p>MAXIMUM APPLICATION RATE: 1% to 5%, which means 2 to 3 drops of drier for a blob of oil paint of the size of a walnut.<\/p>\n<p>These driers should be used only with slow drying colours, especially Brown Courtrai Drier. White Courtrai Drier may be used in the same proportions mixed in the painting medium.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Drying time is something that I&#8217;ve rarely had to worry about over the years, mainly because I had the time I needed. \u00a0But lately I&#8217;ve found it necessary to know more about drying times and, in particular, sometimes speed them up.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[47],"class_list":["post-343","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-materials","tag-cobalt-siccative"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.americanartistinrome.com\/plog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/343","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.americanartistinrome.com\/plog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.americanartistinrome.com\/plog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.americanartistinrome.com\/plog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.americanartistinrome.com\/plog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=343"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.americanartistinrome.com\/plog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/343\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2509,"href":"https:\/\/www.americanartistinrome.com\/plog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/343\/revisions\/2509"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.americanartistinrome.com\/plog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=343"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.americanartistinrome.com\/plog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=343"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.americanartistinrome.com\/plog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=343"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}