The Cure For Muddy Paintings

STUCK IN THE MUD? – The most common question that you ask me is “How do I keep my paintings from getting muddy, especially with oils painting wet-into-wet?

I have never had an issue with this so it has been hard for me to understand what the difficulty is. But I guess over the years, I have developed good habits that prevent it, without even realizing it, So I have had to give this some deep thought, and have come up with a list of guides and tips that will help you with this issue

TIP 1: THICK OVER THIN – Also the “Fat Over Lean” rule. This is a recipe for a healthy painting that doesn’t crack as it cures, but also makes it easier to work and make changes without giving too much power to the pigment that is already on the painting. 

In the beginning stages of the painting, you use paint thinned with solvent or medium. The thinned paint has less pigment. When you apply increasingly thicker strokes over the top, the new strokes will be the dominant contributor to the outcome. It is also helpful to use softer brushes the disturb less of the previous brushstrokes

TIP 2: CLEAN UP YOUR ACT – Much of this issue can be solved with good painting hygiene. You wouldn’t try to wash your dishes with a dirty rag and filthy water? No, you would ring out the rag and use clean water. It’s the same in painting. Having clean solvent, clean brushes, and a clean palette allow you to make good clean color mixtures that aren’t muddy even before you apply the paint.

Use a brush washer to hold your solvent (like the one pictured) that has a trap for the pigment to settle, to help keep the solvent clean. Use a 2- can storage system to recapture clean solvent for sustainable use. See my IGTV video on Brush Washing System. Change out the solvent when it gets too dirty. 

Wash your brushes every time you mix a new color. Some artists use several brushes divided by hue so that they don’t have to wipe as much. Use Bounty-like paper towels that dry the brushes well. I go through a roll a week (I know). If all else fails, use a palette knife to mix colors so that you don’t contaminate the colors with a wet dirty brush.

TIP 3: OVER-CROWDING – Your palette is too small and not easy to clean?

Well, think about using a larger glass palette. You can make one yourself, by taping picture glass onto a board. So toss that cheap wooden palette or worse, the old plate that is pretending to be a palette. With a glass palette, your paints stay wet longer and you can easily clean it while wet with a glass scraper, and when the paint is dried, you can still get the paint off with a little elbow grease. Now you have a great way to scrape clean new areas to mix when your palette gets full.

TIP 4: IT COULD BE YOUR VALUES? – I am not talking about your morals, I mean your color values. Many paintings look muddy because of the lack of lights and darks. The light side of the face is dark with no spectral highlights and the dark side is too light with no very dark accents. The lack of lights and darks can leave your painting looking drab and flat.

TIP 5: OVER-BLENGING – One of the great characteristics of oil paint is that it blends so easily. So, it is very tempting to blend smooth each area of the painting, creating smooth gradations on the cheeks, forehead, nose and chin. Well, all that blending is killing your color. You are just mixing and remixing colors that are desaturating and evening out the values.

Try applying transitional colors instead. Where you want a gradation, put a fresh stroke down with the in between color. Try to put fresh paint on the brush with each brush stroke. This, in combination with the previous tips is guaranteed to get the mud out of your paintings.

FEEDBACK – I would love to know what you think, so please leave me a comment. Thanks.