"Casein paint rubbing off (oil painting horses)" Topic

The "oil drag" method of painting horses gives instant shading and highlighting. It is a beautiful thing to behold (when it works).

Back in the day, I just base coated the horse in the casein paint of choice (Yellow ochre, for instance), let it dry, painted thinned burnt sienna (for example) oil paint over that, left it for 20 minutes, and used a cloth to gently drag the oil paint off the surface. The oil paint was left more on lower surfaces (giving shading) and progressively less as surfaces were higher. Worked like a charm.

In the good old days I used Plaka brand casein paint and never thought twice about it. Now I only have shiva casein paint. Four colours work OK, one works if I add black, and come off no matter how many coats I give.

Looking at the list of colours which work (cadmium orange, light red, white, black) I don't think I can get the range of colours I need if I have to mix these "winners" with the nine "losers" (and the one that works with black added).

The point of using casein is that it has a "tooth" so it is pointless to paint over it with something that fills in the surface like varnish. But I will try vallejo matt varnish anyway.

Some web sites say that you should add casein to the paint. I may have to make some casein from milk and give that a go. But what a pain in the bum!

I will contact Richeson (who make Shiva casein) and see what they say.

Any thoughts?

Have you changed the primer?

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Martin Stephenson
The Waving Flag | Twitter | eBay

I tried various primers to see if they could heal the problem. I was using gesso, which was a bit fickle anyway, so I have now switched to vallejo airbrushed surface primer in a variety of colours. Before the switch wiping off oil paint exposed the metal. Now, for the casein colours that don't hold, only the undercoat shows. So I am a bit better off anyway.

I don't wipe any oil paint from the horse, I just paint the whole horse with oil paint….

I don't wipe any oil paint from the horse, I just paint the whole horse with oil paint….

The wipe method looks very nice (when it works!)

How about trying clear gesso instead of the casein paint? You can then add whatever colour you wish to it and you have an excellent tooth.

If you want to add tooth to any acrylic paint just add some fine marble dust. It is the ingredient in Modern Gesso and can be bought cheaply from artist supplies.

Thank you for those suggestions, Fizzy. I learn something every day.

I have invested in this Casein paint (lots of it) and want to make it work if possible. That tip about marble dust is very interesting. I could use sea shell dust, which we have here.

I have to think about the long term impact which I add to the paint, as I don't want to end up with some kind of rot down the road. I will go look up the Ph of sea shells. Sea shells are mostly calcium carbonate, so slightly alkaline. I am reading values of about 7.7 ph for gloss varnish. Sounds like they are a match.

Previously I had figures yellow after years due to varnish. So I am very sensitive to this. I hate to see lots of good work go to waste.

BTW, I tried brushing vallejo matt varnish over two yellows which wiped off. I stopped on the first casein yellow (Naples yellow) because it actually became wet and started to run! So I let that dry and airbrushed varnish over it. Got to try everything I have on hand. That casein paint had a day to dry. Wierd.