Glazing: A Traditional Oil Painting Technique

What is Glazing?

Glazing is a way of painting that goes back to the foundation of oil paint as a medium. Many Dutch masters, especially those who created still lives, excelled at glazing.

"Flowers in a Glass Vase" (1593-1692) Ambrosius Bosschaert

"Arnolfini Portrait" (1434) Jan Van Eyck

It’s a very traditional method and many painters still use this way of painting today (like Sasha Gordon). At the very least most painting students learn about it in art schools. I learned from my professor at RIT, Clifford Wun. His work also heavily uses glazing. 

"Trimmings" (2023) Sasha Gordon

"Pretty Meat, Thigh of the Tiger" Clifford Wun

Basically, glazing is painting using very thin and transparent layers of paint. Back before synthetic pigments, this method allowed artists to have a broader range of colors by layering different pigments on top of each other. If you’re a painter you’ve maybe heard the saying, “transparent darks, and opaque whites.” Glazing many dark layers on top of each other can give very deep, rich dark values. Because glazing is more medium than paint, the layers on top of each other are liked stacked glass. Glaze=glass. 

I’m probably one of the least patient people I know. So I rarely paint using an underpainting and glazes anymore. I do, however, always use some glazing at the end of a piece. To me, it’s like a “fix it in post” mentality. I make darks darker, add additional colors, and fine tune details using glazing. 

How to Glaze:

Before you start, make sure where you are planning to glaze is dry. It doesn’t really work if the paint is still wet. There are other techniques for that. 

Then, get a little bit of the color you want, preferably a transparent color. Most paint tubes are labeled with their transparency. I use mostly Gamblin paints and they all say, “transparent, semi-transparent, or opaque” on the back. I do have one or two from other brands that don’t say, but you’ll be able to tell by using these paints over time. 

Most labels have transparency on the back. Cadmium colors are usually opaque

White glaze was done on arm on left, above the stomach, and highlights of leg. Dark glazes were added on the clothing shadows and hands.

Side note: it doesn’t have to be a transparent color. I glaze with opaque paints a lot as well, especially titanium white. They have transparent whites like Zinc and lead, but I prefer titanium. You just have to be careful cause they can leave a chalky appearance if you don’t know what you’re doing. The biggest way to figure any of this out it to just try it yourself. 

I like to start by dipping a clean brush in my medium. Currently I’ve mostly been using a combination of lavender spike oil (an alternative to odorless mineral spirits), linseed oil, and stand oil. I like my paint to be super liquid and slower drying. However, you should be able to glaze with any medium as long as it’s not a solvent. Preferably one that adds shine as well. But I guess it’s all preference. 

Notice how transparent the paint is. Usually you want it even more transparent than this.

Then, I take just the tiniest bit of paint on the brush and move it around the medium until it’s evenly mixed. If I need a stronger color I can add more paint. And if I need it more subtle, I can add some more medium to the side. 

Then you just paint where you want. If it goes on too thick or you need to blend better, you can take a dry soft brush and gently blend into the surrounding areas.