Art Terms in Action: Viscosity
About this video
Viscosity is the thickness of a fluid. Oil paint straight from the tube has high viscosity, like toothpaste. You can lower its viscosity by adding linseed oil or a solvent such as turpentine, or simply use enamel paint, which already has very low viscosity in the can.
You'll be able to
- define viscosity.
- describe ways to decrease the viscosity of oil paint.
- tell high-viscosity paint from low-viscosity paint.
Key words
- viscosity
- How thick a fluid is; high viscosity means thick, low viscosity means runny.
- linseed oil
- An oil that can be added to oil paint to make it thinner.
- turpentine
- A solvent that thins oil paint.
- enamel paint
- A paint that comes in the can already very fluid (low viscosity).
Transcript
Viscosity is the thickness of any fluid and in paint, high viscosity or viscos paint, comes straight out of the tube. In fact, it has the consistency of toothpaste as you can see. One way to decrease the viscosity of paint is to add linseed oil to it. Another way to decrease the viscosity of oil paint is to add solvent and in this case, turpentine.
And another way to use low viscosity paint, is to simply paint with an enamel paint, which in the can is already prepared with a very low viscosity.
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