Tom Keating On Painters - E04 - Rembrandt

I couldn't agree more. Keating was a masterful technician with a surfeit of knowledge that sadly was lost to us all.

It's a pretty concentrated bit of knowledge, but I don't think this is Rembrandt's actual technique. There are books that came out after Keating's death that go into Rembrandt's materials and technique that don't quite support what he's doing here.

You didn't learn how to structure English sentences correctly, or even completely, that's for sure.

He was also a heavy smoker - unfiltered roll-ups. He mentions this in his autobiography, which is actually very well written, and often hilariously funny.

His breathing affliction was a direct result of his war service on the Baltic convoys during the second world war before he became a proffesional artist an restorer.

@@ninthgate100 i guess you meant Arctic convoys as there were not Baltic ones during the war...

Tom died in 1984

This is like a criminal version of Bob Ross. I love it.

wrong. way

what he is doing is very impressive but I believe he has some reference images on the left hand side to help him out

You'd need a year for each episode

I was looking at that, too. From what I was able to gather, when he says he is using tempera, he was just mulling a pure ground pigment (I suspect lead white in the above demo) with distilled water. Things like ground sand have been found in Rembrandts painting under analysis which he likely used as filler to stretch things

+Constantino Fine Art But Dad!

...What?

please , can you answer to me ,, when he stop paint with tempera and start use oil painting .. IS this green glazing oil o tempera , thank you , and please answer to me if you can , have nice day ...randyrocker

Great series and technically brilliantly. In a secretive profession where artists paint in private in their studios and keep their techniques hidden Tom Keating was a master painter. Art restorer with a deep knowledge of the masters and their techniques. Worth watching over and over and techniques are passed on each time.. Does anyone know where any original Tom Keating paintings are to be found.

I am interested as well, one commenter below posted a pic of a painting he presumably made using Keating method. It is probably some kind of emulsion with oil which he mentioned that is diluted with water, I have read this on a comment from another video of Tom painting. There is a painter called Pietro Annigoni (if you type this in youtube you will see) that uses premixed "tempera" as an oil/egg/solvent emulsion and gets similar results - quick drying workable paint, only thing i dont understand is how Tom gets that beautiful creamy brushstrokes and texture, surface reminds a bit of Rembrandt actually, which is very nice.

Hi, tempera isn't normally used for impasto, however due to the fast drying times heavy layers will produce impasto. It may also be worth considering that there may be a binding agent in the ground pigment he mixes, as seen in his Turner video, this is obviously not so common, but we did have these things at art school.

Martin Lee hi, i understand, i have worked with tempera before, casein tempera, or casein paint i dont know how it is properly called because some people have different names for similar things, but it wasnt THE old school classic tempera it was more what would be called "poster paint" but a very good quality, the manufacturer was good, so that is why i was always wondering what is he using. the picture quality of the video can also be misleading a bit, because it is not perfectly clear so some tones and colors look more melded than they probably really are i guess. i have tried doing what someone below posted that Tom did : squeezing oil colors from tubes on to blotting paper and let it over night to dry a bit and for the paper to absorb oil, and then make egg tempera. i have tried this today with black and white, and then i mixed my egg, linseed oil/ tiny bit terpentine/milk emulsion and the results were similar to this indeed. it leaves a similiar brushmark, and it dries quicker, and can be diluted with water but something is still missing, i have just begun so i am not proficient enough, i will investigate more.

Interesting, I was taught years ago about leaving paints particularly oil to dry before using , however we used to mix our modern tempera with a ground body medium (made by our teacher) for impasto works but I cannot for the life of me remember what it was. I completely agree that to guess what Tom is using here is possibly a futile exercise, especially when, as you made mention, the picture quality is not clear. I do remember reading an article in which Keating told of the particular paints he used at the time, if I can find it again I will share.

I think he uses paint made with half wihite egg tempera and half white oil paint mixed as Max Doerner thinks venetian painters used. This paint is called "Putrido". You can search in google for recipe.

You'd find the painting gets rather muddy if you don't... it would be a very thin layer of water soluble varnish mind, not a preservation layer.

not all artists do, but varnish serves many purposes, it seals the painting making the next layer removeable while wet without disturbing the underpainting, it makes the colors richer as though they are still wet so that the color does not appear flat and sunken in, if painted into immediately it serves to remoisten the surface so the brush glides across the surface more easily, if it is allowed to dry a bit its stickiness (tackiness) helps glazes to not run and slows the sinking of the pigment into the last layer, and it provides a bed into which the paint will eventually sink and adhere making the painting more durable, there are some other benefits including effects. But a lot of artists avoid varnish because of the odor and the brittleness varnish can add to the painting and the darkening it can cause. There is a lot of controversy whether varnish was or was not actually used by the old masters and what it may have been made of.

Jeremiah Embs You wont catch me doing this. To me it's stupid, and prevents underpainting from oxidizing properly.

Daniel Millard I know artists like Rockwell often put varnish on the underpainting and even the first layer, but even he admitted that "Doing this is technically terrible" and that it would ruin the life of his paintings. If you're doing something for illustration and you don't expect the work to last beyond it's printing, and you have a deadline, then it's excusable, but yeah, it will kill the life of your painting.

that looks really good, what did you use? tom says half tempera - half oil paint, could you please elaborate how you did the painting? i am beginning to try some tempera methods but i am not yet successful, so it would be really helpful if u would share your info on your painting. thanks

Don Donic , I did not use tempera because it was too expensive. The benefit of using tempera is its fast drying time. I used venetian red mixed with zinc white for the ground layer. Waited until it was dry. Did the drawing with charcoal. Painted with only bone black and titanium/zinc (flake) white until it looked like a sepia photograph (this stage can be done with tempera). Waited until dry. Then the impastos, glazes and finally the highlights with titanium white mixed with a small amount of yellow ochre (to simulate lead white). I used the same pigments as Rembrandt did except for the whites and I had to replace lead tin yellow with naples yellow. I believe the egg was left out intentionally to confuse people. Egg has been found in Rembrandts paintings.

Mikael Aminoff thank you for your reply. i am trying recently a whole egg/linseed oil/milk emulsion with a little drop of terpentine combined with oil paints from the tube. it seems to dry very quickly and is suitable for fast drying painting, but i yet have to explore it. the reason for trying this is to minimize hazardous terpentine because i work in a small area, it has a window, but still, so i was curious. Tom probably uses distilled water and classicly made emulsion tempera with pigments, that is why it has such quick drying properties

Don Donic Here is the secret: "Tom Keating claimed have to resolved the problem by squeezing his oil colors from their tubes on to blotting paper to absorb the linseed oil, leaving them to dry overnight. He then mixed some zinc white and EGG tempera before use". Rembrandt used this technique because he had so many clients and Keating because he was a forger. They both wanted their paintings to dry fast.

Mikael Aminoff oh nice to know, thanks for the info.

tom keating did a lame forgery or two in the sixties or seventies and got caught. the forgeries he did were badly drawn and its a shame on the so called exprts he fooled. Basically what I am trying to say is dont listen to him hes shit.

+steven halliday I don't think he is. I think he has a lot of wisdom. Also he made sure to make his forgeries appear to be forgeries including writing "FAKE" in big letters behind some paintings just to see if people would catch it.

You sir are an ignoramus and understand nothing about painting and proberbly still dont.