What is Ox Gall & How to Use it in Watercolor! Video Lecture - Master

hi there Lindsay here the frugal crafter
with a quick art tip today I had a lot
of people ask me what aux call is so I
decided I would order a little pan of it
and and give it a try I find that most
of my colors flow really well on paper
some you know earthy pigments won't move
quite as much due to the weight of the
pigment particles but I generally have
not had a problem with flow in my
watercolors but I know that sometimes an
issue especially with student grade
paint so I found some synthetic ox gall
in a pan I just figured that'd be more
convenient than having a bottle to deal
with by the Lucas company and I'm just
gonna mix a puddle of it here on my
pallet I'm just gonna give it a little
spritz of water there Ospital is a flow
agent which means it should help your
pigments flow on the paper someone clean
up your brush here now I will achieve it
I'm gonna tell you that while we're
painting here because I've been rinsing
my brush in in the water buckets
chances are everything is gonna have a
little auks call in it by now um I'm
gonna use makeup paints because I
believe shingu is formulated without aux
call although I have not had a problem
with SH Minka paints not flowing well
but I think it's just I think it may be
a wetting agent that is at it maybe
copiously this certain brands of paint
to give it extra flow if you have paints
at home that just like you paint and it
sits there it doesn't do anything you
may consider adding a little ox skull to
your water or in a little mix up a
little cup of it and have it ready for
when you are painting okay
so what I'm gonna do first here is just
grab some it's like a lemon yellow here
and just dab it a few times here you can
see it's not really doing much it's
moving a little bit it's flowing okay
you could see the little spots are
getting a little bit bigger I mean this
is a pretty glossy paper if I if I tip
it the paint will flow a little bit in
the direction that's up tipping it in I
hope you can see that it looks like you
can see it all right in my monitor now
I'm gonna take a red and I'm gonna mix
it with the with the ox gall I'll mix it
right into this puddle here I don't know
how much I should use really so we're
gonna dab the right in there and look
what happened
it just kind of blooms like a flower see
that you can really see that flowing
isn't that cool
let's try it with a different color mix
up a little bit more grab a little more
ox go let's use a color that's a little
bit more granular let's do like an
ultramarine here make a hard time
getting enough out of my eye actually
I've got some Daniel Smith ultramarine
let me go with that because I think that
might come up a little bit easier okay
did I I don't think I think I did yep
see how much how much that flows with
the ox Kyle in it it just makes it kind
of just burst out so if you have stained
people paint and their paint is like
when woosh and you're bummed out the
yours is instead of buying a new set of
paints just try a little ox Kyle let's
try that same yellow that we were using
with a little ox call and see if that
improves the flow yes it does oh it's it
it doesn't know if you can see let me
dab in the middle of the red the red
stole this has dried a little bit
putting them all to yellow maybe you can
see it is flowing it now quite a bit
more I'll put in another middle of a
yellow spot you can see it's flowing
much more than it did before on its own
so that's that's kind of fun I think and
then you could just have a little more
versatility with the different paints
that you have I'm gonna try some of this
and that mix that the Ox girl in it it's
just a kind of a cool cool effect
so that's ox skull if you think that
your paints don't flow enough and that's
something that would benefit you I paid
three dollars and fifty cents for my to
my 1/2 pan Vox Cal it's also available
in in bottles I got the synthetic ox
call real ox call comes from cow bladder
I believe or the stomach lining of cows
I'm not I think after the gallbladder of
cows so just kind of keep that in mind
you can get a synthetic version honestly
I think you're probably even used soap
to get the same effect
in fact how would I pause the video and
I try it hang on a minute okay I grabbed
a little brush soap because it was the
closest thing I had handy we're gonna
try the exact same thing so this is just
the backside of another experiment I'm
just gonna wet that down because I don't
want to waste another piece of paper it
doesn't you know cuz this is just fun
playing okay so I'm gonna do that I'm
gonna repeat the experiment I'm gonna
first go in with my regular yellow
dabbing that on okay actually this one's
flowing a little better here because
this paper has more sizing so that's
another thing that affects how your
paper flows so now I gotta find a new
place to mix I'm gonna mix my soap
so let's wipe off these colors here and
let's add some soap and this is brush
soap so I know it's not gonna hurt
anything it might be a little a little
chunky crazy experiment okay so we're
gonna do ultramarine with one okay so
let's see the soap doesn't seem to make
you want to flow pretty well and
probably because just like ox Kyle it
reduces the surface tension of the water
of course I don't know how archival
using soap is but uh but it's kind of
fun you know do that same red color yeah
but actually I really did improve the
flood that's so funny
so okay you know what if you have cheap
paint and and you've been having you
know trouble getting it to blend then
you know try some soap they give me a
little more water in that one but yeah
the soap is actually making it would be
felt - oh that's funny I probably would
maybe use a like a dish soap instead of
the instead of the brush cleaner just
because I think brush cleaner may have a
little bit of Pumas in it but yeah the
soap seems to do quite well - you can
try some soap onto this one I don't know
if it may be too
I know but let's try with this color
except color is pretty juicy
I think the papers too dry here I'll try
I'll try an ox skull one with that color
just just to make sure that was this car
I think actually know the Ox file is
working better than soap so there you
have it guys the Ox cull works better
than so but soap will work in a pinch
there's the Ox go there so so there you
have it a little bit of fun
experimentation in watercolors that's I
was curious about it I'm also curious
about granulation meeting him so maybe I
will buy some of that and try that next
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next time and until then happy crafting