Oil painting, wet-in-wet, with homemade liquid white
Posted on December 24, 2009
I first came across the wet-in-wet technique (sometimes called wet-on-wet) while watching reruns of Bob Ross’s Joy of Painting show.
Wet-in-wet is where you cover the canvas with a thin spread of ‘liquid white‘ making the canvas slippery and allowing the oil paint to easily slide across the canvas, mix with the liquid white, and be much easier to blend.
Unfortunately, liquid white is a secret recipe and quite expensive to buy, since it’s Bob Ross branded, but… you can make your own liquid white substitute. Here’s how I do it:
Basically, liquid white is, as it sounds, white paint that is of a more liquid consistency than normal oil paint. I make my liquid white using a pea-sized amount of white oil paint then add the same amount but in oil, linseed oil in my case. Once it’s mixed, that’s enough to cover an area of about A4 in size.
If you find that it’s not covering the A4 size, put a tiny bit of oil on your brush and spread what you have around the canvas until it’s completely covered.
And remember, as Bob always said: a thin, and I mean THIN, coat of liquid white…
To see me painting wet-on-wet, you can watch the videos below:
Hello Ronnie,
Recently found your site while searching for info on liquid white having seen the Bob Ross tv progs.
Never painted before so will have a go and see what happens,
being a pensioner I just wondered if making your own liquid white is as easy as you make it seem?. Cheers Ray Smith
Crackin’ photo’s Ray!
Yep, making homemade liquid white is as easy as mixing a blob of white and some linseed oil. It can take a bit of trial and error to get a mix you like, I like it more slippery than stiff, so put a touch more oil than white. Get an old canvas or piece of canvas paper and put different mixes of homemade liquid white in each quarter, play around, see what you prefer and go with it. Good thing with oils and canvas is that once you’ve finished you can scrape the lot off, let it dry, gesso it and reuse the canvas.
Let me know how it goes.
Hi Ronnie,
Thanks for that, would the Stand Linseed Oil be the right one for the liquid white?.cheers
Hi Ronnie, came across your page a while back. We are snowed in where I live and can’t get out to store but I wanted to paint. I was out of liquid white and tried your method. Works great! I added a few drops (and I do mean few drops) of paint thinner and it worked even better! Thank you for sharing with us. I certainly appreciate it!
Awesome! I’m glad it worked out for you. Hopefully it’ll save you having to buy the genuine, more expensive, liquid white.
can you use just linseed oil as liquid clear as well ,as some time i just would like clear canvas hope you can help, as you can move the paint on the canvas
would boiled lineseed oil work. i found a the oil its labeled boiled lineseed oil. is it same or not. and can i make alot of liquid white and store it or its not recommended…if so what is the best amount to make and the instruction plz. thankx
This tip sounds great but I was wondering, would that work with slow drying medium in stead of linseed oil? I have tons of that stuff at home for my wet in wet trials
You cannot put gesso over oil paint unless you want to peel it off, or just wait and it will fall off by itself.
so is it possible to use the linseed oil as is for a liquid clear substitution?
Technically, yes, but too much oil in a painting can make it yellow over time.
The best linseed oil for this purpose is polymerized, which retards drying and non-yellowing with time!
Bob Ross Liquid White did not wear mixed with ink, but only apply a thin, uniform layer to the screen, so that the brush glide more easily and facilitates the fusion of colors for SKY and WATER only.
can I Mix white jesso and linseed oil to get the wet on wet effect?
I’ve never tried it, but I wouldn’t think so as gesso is water-based.