Another approach might be to do the under-painting in acrylic, let it dry fully and overpaint in oil - for studies, I often use cardboard sealed with a couple layers of acrylic 'gesso'. Modern gesso is usually acrylic with chalk and titanium white, so most of us are painting over acrylic in any case.
I hadn't thought about using gessoed cardboard for my quick composition and color decision pre-studies before starting a painting. I'm a thinkin'. They would be easy to later store vertically, along with color swatches and notes attached about how to mix the exact colors accurately. Thanks. I will do this.
there are brands such as Sennelier which have non-toxic oil paint mediums, and I've found them to be an incredibly effective alternative to solvents. I highly recommend them.
I'm an art student, and almost all my classmates, myself included, can only paint in our bedrooms, meaning we sleep with the toxic fumes. I knew it was bad, but I didn't know it was that bad.
I took lessons from a wonderful artist who switched to acrylics because of toxicity! Just sent your UA-cam to him . He is a magnificent oil painter and hope he will return to it. Love all your videos!
I have been using M.Graham walnut/alkyd fast dry medium and Chelsea Classical Studio Citrus Essence as a solvent and cleaner. They have worked excellent. Sometimes switch to safflower oil with a bit of clove but that's when I get lazy and don't want to clean brushes. Use masters soap for cleaning and long term brush storage.
Great video! few tips for fellow Solvent free artists, you can stain the canvas with acrylic paint. as long as you don't thin to much with water and wait for it to fully cure it works wonders! Also Gamblin has a solvent free line of oil painting mediums! They have a safflower medium to speed up the drying time, a gel medium for more impasto aswell as plain safflower oil to help clean your brushes. I've been painting solvent free (besides Vanishing) for over 4 years and you can really do any oil painting technique other than glazing painting solvent free!
When underpainting with acrylics, just don't thin the acrylics too much with water or there won't be enough binder left in them and later on when you paint oils over them, the drying oil paint will crack and peel off the canvas because the acrylic will have dried flaky without enough paint binder. Years ago I lost the best oil painting I've ever done in my life due to this mistake.
i’ve been waiting for you to make a video like this. i too avoided oil painting because of the fumes. i looked up organic non toxic brush cleaner and that works well for cleaning. acrylic paint as an under layer and background works for me as well. lavender oil smells great and that works as a natural thinner as well. his method of keeping the brushes constantly dipped in oil means you don’t have to clean the oil brushes, so the only thing you would need the thinner for is for a base layer, which you can do with acrylic or (like he said) outside. i hate the smell of things in the studio. anything can take me out of the zone and make me not want to sit back down to work on something. it’s creatively important that i know i’m not potentially getting cancer from the things i paint with. great video as always!
@J.Shelby Sooner or later someone has a reason why everything one does creates cracks. Tons of top professional painters use acrylic paint under oil. In fact most gesso is acrylic, and there are people who will tell you that it isn't good either. All that may be true, but I can tell you something else that isn't good, 99.9% of the paintings people do. Use reasonable materials and paint lots of paintings.
Yes! That's how I found your work and this channel! I was thinking about getting into oil painting but could not get myself to start because I was leery of the toxic materials. Geneva art supply: problem solved! I worked with an old guy once that was a painter who's health and especially memory were going due to the materials he'd used his whole life. I think he was getting worse even in the six months I knew him. He was having trouble remembering conversations we'd had and my name, etc. Speaking of, what happened to your foundation? It's been out of stock for a while now. I wanted to get some. I was also interested in the palettes and some other things that have been out of stock.
It IS possible to do a “stain” or first lean layer using water mixable oil paints such as Cobra Artist and WATER to thin it. I do this all the time. For subsequent fatter layers, I typically use paint straight from the tube or with a bit of water mixable linseed oil or water mixable painting medium added. Not ALL brands of wmo paints thin well with water, however, so be sure to research! Makes cleanup much easier too-Dawn dish soap!
I wondered about this! Do you go over this later with water mixable oils or do you use conventional oils over your water-mixable lean layer? If you use conventionals over water mixables, do you worry about water being trapped underneath? Or do you allow your under-layer to dry thoroughly first? Thanks!
@@suzannebonham583 Hi Suzanne! After my first lean layer with water mixable oils thinned with water, I go right into other layers as needed. These other layers are also water mixable oils-I don’t paint with non-water mixable oils, although most of the brands let you mix up to about 30% of regular oil paint to any water mixable oil. More than that, and you tend to lose the ability to use soap and water for clean up. As far as letting it “dry”, the water evaporates pretty quickly, probably a little slower than using a solvent like odorless mineral spirits for regular oils or even the water mixable thinner for wmo’s made by Winsor & Newton. You could definitely use regular oils over the wmo’s, painting alla prima or indirectly in layers, waiting just long enough for the water to evaporate from the first layer. I would probably wait longer (overnight or at least a few hours) if painting on canvas than, say, gessoed hardboard. I would think canvas would retain water longer, so longer drying time. Of course, if you want to avoid solvent altogether, you could also just do your first layer in acrylic. I often do this as well. Hope this helps!
@@suzannebonham583 im sure you’ve probably already found answer to your question but in case you haven’t, yes it seems to be fine! Read “the new oil painting method” and it talks about using acrylic as an under painting. You do however need to allow it to dry before going over with oil… I think the conservative estimate is 3 days but I think it depends on your climate. Hope that helps!
I've been saying this for years! Hard to convince people though because they have a preconceived notion that oil paints are bad. Absolutely not true!! The solvents are bad. I've painted solvent-free for nearly 3 yrs now. I use walnut oil based paints and the pure oil when I want to thin down the paint for various techniques. To clean brushes, I use dish detergent; Dawn being my go to. Thank you for reinforcing this message so that more painters will be confident in painting with oil paints and following a solvent-free practice. :)
I use Gamblin Oil Ground tinted with an earth colour which has no solvent in it. Gamblin also has Solvent Free Mediums for painting All Prima. Brush cleanup is with Safflower Oil.
Straight from the tube works for me in about 75% to 80% of cases - particularly with those naturally oily pigments, like alizarin crimson and indanthrone blue. When painting fat over lean, I just add a few drops of stand oil and fire away as normal. I've never needed to use solvents and never will. As someone else in the comments mentioned, acrylic primers are an excellent choice, particularly in the days now of pigmented primers, where you can even do full block-ins with coloured primer and under-paint with complementary colours. *Oh, by the way, this is not to discredit Geneva. With the way my painting style is evolving I'm finding more and more that I favour a stringy honey-like viscosity to my paint. I may even make the switch at some point.
Can you explain what you mean with the block in primers and then underpainting with complementary colours? Do you mean a coloured gesso and that the shadows are done on top? Sorry! :)
@@starvictory7079 Micheal Harding (before we start, I'm NOT affiliated with him and don't want people to write off Geneva paints or Mark's system just because *I* have an opinion) does a range of pigmented, acrylic-based primers that allow you to tone the canvas with colour. A common trick for portrait painters is to tone a canvas with an earthy green, which in turn allows for the fleshy tones (especially in the cheeks and lips, think alizarin crimson) to play up and dance with the greens underneath. (That's what I mean when I say complementary.) That's really what it boils down to. I tend to block in with the opposite (complementary) colour. So if I'm painting an orange, I'll block it in with blue. Or if I'm painting a lemon, I'll block it in with purple. I'm not really a believer in generic, burnt umber washes. NOT that they don't work. I just like to approach by a case by case basis.
@@starvictory7079 Precisely. I actually block-in/underpaint in multiple colours, particularly in still-life work when things can become complicated. Not only do I have nice complementary/reflex tones to play with, I also have a natural colour coding system. Neutral stains work well for me when I'm painting tonal landscapes. When I have a street scene on my hands, I do my preliminary drawings in terre verte (low tint power, which means it's easy to wipe off if I mess up.) Basically, the more tools in your bag, the better. Maybe not when you're in the very early stages of learning, but when you're competent - which I suspect that you are, it's time to fly solo and figure what works for YOU. That's ultimately how artists are created.
Wow! I'm so glad I came across this video! I've been craving to paint again, and oils have always been my favorite. Also-- wow, a fellow Austinite! How awesome! Thanks for the tips!
As with oil and mineral spirits, acrylics lose their integrity as you thin them down with water. It is always best to use washes at recommended ratios, and if you are using acrylic, why thin it down at all? If you need it to retain a good adhesion for the oil above, use some pumice or other such flattening agent to roughen the paint surface so as to retain porous nature for paint adhesion.
Do you know the ingredients of acrylic? Toxic ingredients such as cobalt, manganese, cadmium, chromium, and lead. Since they are into a medium (water based), evidently they DO give off in the fumes.
I bought your paint and the clove oil its all wonderful, the colors are rich and it flows beautiful. Im hoping to buy more from you ,like the pallet/ table ect ..I keep checking your website and its out of stock .Not complaining just want the whole set !
Just use colors that are not too much oily (for instance rembrandt and geneva are FULL of oil, Old Holland are stiffer), use linseed oil to dilute them if needed or use them from the tube without any problem. Use mineral earth pigments and fast drying pigments and you can dry a painting over night, and it's enough for almost everyone, if you do like this there is no solvent in any step of this process. (I stain my paintings with umbers and some linseed oil and they are ready the day after).
@J.Shelby walnut oil is not tested long term, it seems it has cracking problems poppy seed oil is not even studied, every oil has his disadvantages but we pretty much know what are the problems of flaxseed oil and even if it tends to yellow it gets its tone pretty soon and it keeps his stability for centuries, we still don't know what will happen to other modern oils, you can check on rublev's channel they have a lot of info on this topic (and they only use linseed oil IRC)
@J.Shelby Another example of making up problems. Anyway most artist should focus more on whether their paitings will leave a toxic residue when they are burned.
@J.Shelby Traditional techniques were not always toxic as far as the oils used. Pigments were a horror show. But it was science that messed everything up in order to create products that dried really fast, and other goals. One of the routes to low toxic high durability paintings is to follow old methods. This is a new trend with several people offering seminars. Here is Kitts' teaser video, on old solvent free techniques: ua-cam.com/video/Ka6sTS94xns/v-deo.html
Goodness me. My first painting teacher was an old and prominent artist who did look like he'd been inhaling turpentine fumes all his life and he actually recommended it to his students as an affordable solvent. I was using turpentine myself for a few years after that and did not realize the danger. To be honest, I only switched to mineral spirits because we had group painting sessions with live models and one of the artists who attended them with me was completely intolerant to the smell of turpentine so she asked me to stop bringing it
@J.Shelby That's the thing - I personally didn't mind the smell at all and it was making me feel more artistic using the good old turps like the grand masters of the past. It is also super cheap so you can fill in a whole bucket with it, throw in your brushes after each session and never bother washing them. We live and learn that there ain't such thing in life as a free lunch
@J.Shelby Don't get me wrong, I'm not advocating the use of turpentine. Mineral spirits should do just fine for most folks. Never tried water-soluble oils so can't comment on those
@J.Shelby Cobra paints are good. You can thin them with water. A lot of people like their 91 medium. They will mix with regular oil paints, up to a point, like 1/3rd or 1/2" and they still work as water soluble, which is nice if there is a paint you can't get in their product line. Cobra has a whole course online about them, and it is very good. There is also an excellent video by Charlie Hunter that includes his whole rundown on the cobra paints and gear he uses, and that part is free online: ua-cam.com/video/ki4Tk9WrMI4/v-deo.html I do use Geneva paints, and they have many excellent qualities. But not everyone can get to them. In the US is shouldn't be a problem.
I use gamsol for my wash. It evaporates slowly and is odorless. You don't need much so you won't be exposed to any fumes. Its the safest bet for a thinner.
check the ingredients and safety warnings on your gamsol. It is a toxic substance and even though its odorless it still evaporates toxic fumes that you could potentially inhale.
I'm new to painting... We use mineral spirits to clean the brushes while we work. It is the odorless variety. Are you saying not to use that? We clean the brushes with Murphy's Oil Soap.
If it isn't nasty it is probably OK. Bigger problem is if it has vitamin e added (which artist grade will not). Anti Oxidants like E stop drying. Sometimes people who travel end up buying locally available stuff.
Eco-solve is a soybean oms replacer.ive used it for years, it's expensive but perfect! 100% non toxic, not good for a first wash though. Using oms gave me terrible headaches so I had to find a non toxic alternative.
I've used it too as well in the past, for both paintings and under paintings and as a brush cleaner. However, the general consensus on Wet Canvas it seems is that it is not trustworthy in the painting. The questionable issue I guess being drying time. Although in my expereince it dries fine on canvas, some were saying it is an issue that it does not evaporate on a surface like glass for long periods. A couple of other recommended methods I've heard online from a couple artists are to just use pure oil paint rubbed out onto the canvas/ a very thin layer for the underlayer. Or chalk and linseed oil. The downside to I think would be that straight paint without solvent takes longer to dry. In Tad Spurgeon's the Living Craft he has a chart of the safest underpainting/ layering systems under the section Fat Over Lean. He took his site down but another artist has it up for free download on their site. Per his book : Safest system: " Thin water-based or lean tempera on a slightly absorbent ground" then a middle layer of "thin tempera grassa, or thin oil paint rubbed out or used with chalk and solvent " and a final layer of "oil paint with minimal added thickness and minimal saturating and sequestering medium" A second safe system listed as : An underlayer of "thin oil paint on a slightly absorbent ground rubbed out or used with a little solvent and chalk, and then a middle layer of " Straight oil paint with any extra thickness removed with a knife or rag ," with a final layer of "oil paint with minimal added thickness and minimal added saturating and sequestering medium." The chart also lists unsafe examples. It sounds like those are not necessarily wet into wet, but I imagine they could still work as under-layers.
What is the best way to clean brushes between colors? I use vegetable oil sometimes; however, it doesn’t strip all the color out as well as a solvent would do. I can’t quite see myself cleaning brushes in dish soap (between colors), but…maybe!
What’s the best way to dispose of oil paint, mediums, and solvents? I’ve been painting once a week at a local art school for a couple months and it only dawned on me now that throwing away paint and dumping Turpenoid into the large sink in the classroom are probably not good things to be doing 😓
Your local recycling/refuse processing centre should be able to accept these kinds of toxic substances. But you might need to throw away less that you think. You can store solvent in a brush cleaner or sealed jar and reuse it between sessions. Once it gets a bit dirty, let it sit in its container for a few days and you should find that all of the solvent settles on the bottom. Pour the clean solvent off the top into a second container and it's ready for reuse. The dirty pigment is left at the bottom of the first container and you can clean this up with a rag and leave the rag outdoors for the solvent to evaporate, leaving only the pigment behind. If you follow this procedure then you should find that there's very little solvent to recycle because it either evaporated or is used up in your painting process. As Mark said in the video, *most* oil paints are non-toxic and don't require special recycling measures. But you should be aware of any toxic pigments you use (e.g., cadmiums) and arrange for them to be recycled.
@@UbiquitousBooks I agree, though, they say that none of (most?) of the cadmiums used in paints today are toxic either. Brushes don't need to be cleaned, there are many ways to achieve this. Mark has videos.
I can't imagine putting turpentine in a sink. But I don't use it. My left over acrylic goes on newspaper or poured into a tall plastic container where it evaporates in my garage. I'm hoping not to have much waste from my new water mixable oils. Most cities have hazardous waste once/year for paint, batteries, light bulbs, etc.
Thank you! My question about using WMO Winsor & Newton - how to keep the rule “fat over lean”? 1st layer (under paining) I put with water, but on the top of this I need to use Linseed oil all the time, because this paint is very sticky. So, how to avoid cracks? Thank you, I would appreciate your answer.
I considered this at some point when I first started, and I didn't try it for various reasons : 1. it is quite expensive, 2. people were commenting they got sick of the smell of lavender which is very strong, 3. Mark Carder explains in a video that you don't need any solvents to paint. So I started to paint only with oil. Even on large canvas pure paint is fine. other than paint, I use safflower oil, and stand oil. I don't need to speed up drying time. If I didn't have headaches using odorless mineral spirits, I would probably use it sometimes, to help spread paint on large area or getting a different visual effect, but I don't miss it at all, once I ve learned to paint without. The versatility of oil paint is the only thing I need : adding layers over dry paint, or blending with fresh paint. using the thickness of stand oil, or diluting with a bit of safflower oil to decrease the concentration of pigments. using a lot of paint, or just add a touch ... etc
Far too expensive though that is not a problem for some. The guy you want to look into for that product is Marc Dalassio. He has a YT channel and he has good reasons for using his LSO medium.
Lavender Spike Oil had the same problematic compounds in it a Turpentine and other solvents healthwise. I bought some from Chelsea Studio and it is really, really strong even in open air. It's not real pure Lavender Spike Oil but synthesized version.
turpentine always makes me sick, now i use milk paint citrus solvent for thinning the paint and to make it dry quicker, its labeled as non toxic and it seems to behave similar to turpentine and mineral spirits.
Been painting in oils since a young age 40 years + and to be honest never has a problem with fumes, the oils colours have a mild linseed sent as does my boiled linseed oil, the final varnish is mild too, i only varnish after about 8-12 months anyway, as for cleaning brushes with white spirit and turpentine i dont use it, i use fairy washing up liquid or decent bar of soap with red hot water.
When underpainting with acrylics, follow the directions. Just don't thin the acrylics too much with water or there won't be enough binder left in them and later on when you paint oils over them, the drying oil paint will simply peel off the canvas because the acrylic will have dried flaky without enough paint binder. Years ago I lost the best oil painting I've ever done in my life due to this mistake.
But in all seriousness that’s why a lot general public use studios steer clear of anchoring their educational programs with oil painting classes. The one studio I teach in uses water soluble
And we don't speak about other arts like sculpture for example! Modelling clays are toxic synthetic materials to the touch (despite the "clay" in the name, nothing natural in that!) and even more at the moment of baking them to rigidity them, releasing fumes but people still using it massively.
What about cleaning out the brushes while you're painting? That's where the toxicity lies, wiping the brush dry with paper towels. I had to quit using oils for that reason.
Nice . But you haven't spoken about cleaning your brushes during the procedure. You know, thinner and other liquid and its fumes !!! Painting with oil paints needs a ventilated place
He's lying you are going to have to break out the fumes sooner or later, but do like he says, nice day? paint on your porch. Create a well ventilated room with good air coming in and bad air sucking out!
I love the water mixable oil paints
Another approach might be to do the under-painting in acrylic, let it dry fully and overpaint in oil - for studies, I often use cardboard sealed with a couple layers of acrylic 'gesso'. Modern gesso is usually acrylic with chalk and titanium white, so most of us are painting over acrylic in any case.
I hadn't thought about using gessoed cardboard for my quick composition and color decision pre-studies before starting a painting. I'm a thinkin'. They would be easy to later store vertically, along with color swatches and notes attached about how to mix the exact colors accurately. Thanks. I will do this.
there are brands such as Sennelier which have non-toxic oil paint mediums, and I've found them to be an incredibly effective alternative to solvents. I highly recommend them.
Also the best non-toxic paints, in my experience, are Geneva oil paints. And the pigment load is great!
I'm an art student, and almost all my classmates, myself included, can only paint in our bedrooms, meaning we sleep with the toxic fumes. I knew it was bad, but I didn't know it was that bad.
Your art teachers should be fired for not informing you
Acrylic is bad too
@@jjk2one omg really? aaa :'0
@@PK-se2jh yes really martians make it
@@jjk2oneit's not.
I took lessons from a wonderful artist who switched to acrylics because of toxicity! Just sent your UA-cam to him . He is a magnificent oil painter and hope he will return to it. Love all your videos!
I use W&N Artisan … so good to be able to just clean up with water and leave brushes in a tube of water
I have been using M.Graham walnut/alkyd fast dry medium and Chelsea Classical Studio Citrus Essence as a solvent and cleaner. They have worked excellent. Sometimes switch to safflower oil with a bit of clove but that's when I get lazy and don't want to clean brushes. Use masters soap for cleaning and long term brush storage.
I'm about to switch from acrylics to oils and I'm going to do that too.
Great video! few tips for fellow Solvent free artists, you can stain the canvas with acrylic paint. as long as you don't thin to much with water and wait for it to fully cure it works wonders!
Also Gamblin has a solvent free line of oil painting mediums! They have a safflower medium to speed up the drying time, a gel medium for more impasto aswell as plain safflower oil to help clean your brushes.
I've been painting solvent free (besides Vanishing) for over 4 years and you can really do any oil painting technique other than glazing painting solvent free!
@lukedurdin how can we clean these brushes then. Other then turp
@@saigeeta28dip them in walnut oil to remove most of the paint. Murphy's oil soap as a final cleaning.
@@michelegirard that's a saviour tip.excited to try
When underpainting with acrylics, just don't thin the acrylics too much with water or there won't be enough binder left in them and later on when you paint oils over them, the drying oil paint will crack and peel off the canvas because the acrylic will have dried flaky without enough paint binder. Years ago I lost the best oil painting I've ever done in my life due to this mistake.
@@saigeeta28 look at some youtube videos on the subject, not toxic cleaning oil painting brushes.
I just use water mixable oils. I thin the paint with water for the under painting. Seem to work fine as long as you don't add too much water.
A solution for underpainting stains is to do it in acrylic.
I have always wondered why no one seems to prefer doing acrylic under paintings for oil paintings. Is there any downside?
Acrylic is also toxic.
I've ended up resorting to acrylic for the stain because his stuff on Geneva has been sold out now for quite a while.
@J.Shelby yes. Isn't a gessoed white canvas a type of acrylic?
@@jackmaxwell3134 No, they are not toxic.
i’ve been waiting for you to make a video like this. i too avoided oil painting because of the fumes. i looked up organic non toxic brush cleaner and that works well for cleaning. acrylic paint as an under layer and background works for me as well. lavender oil smells great and that works as a natural thinner as well. his method of keeping the brushes constantly dipped in oil means you don’t have to clean the oil brushes, so the only thing you would need the thinner for is for a base layer, which you can do with acrylic or (like he said) outside. i hate the smell of things in the studio. anything can take me out of the zone and make me not want to sit back down to work on something. it’s creatively important that i know i’m not potentially getting cancer from the things i paint with. great video as always!
@J.Shelby Sooner or later someone has a reason why everything one does creates cracks. Tons of top professional painters use acrylic paint under oil. In fact most gesso is acrylic, and there are people who will tell you that it isn't good either. All that may be true, but I can tell you something else that isn't good, 99.9% of the paintings people do. Use reasonable materials and paint lots of paintings.
@@HondoTrailside water color underpainting solves this problem as well
@@J.S.temporarypainting acrylic over oils causes cracks, not the other way around.
Yes! That's how I found your work and this channel! I was thinking about getting into oil painting but could not get myself to start because I was leery of the toxic materials. Geneva art supply: problem solved!
I worked with an old guy once that was a painter who's health and especially memory were going due to the materials he'd used his whole life. I think he was getting worse even in the six months I knew him. He was having trouble remembering conversations we'd had and my name, etc.
Speaking of, what happened to your foundation? It's been out of stock for a while now. I wanted to get some. I was also interested in the palettes and some other things that have been out of stock.
It IS possible to do a “stain” or first lean layer using water mixable oil paints such as Cobra Artist and WATER to thin it. I do this all the time. For subsequent fatter layers, I typically use paint straight from the tube or with a bit of water mixable linseed oil or water mixable painting medium added. Not ALL brands of wmo paints thin well with water, however, so be sure to research! Makes cleanup much easier too-Dawn dish soap!
I wondered about this! Do you go over this later with water mixable oils or do you use conventional oils over your water-mixable lean layer? If you use conventionals over water mixables, do you worry about water being trapped underneath? Or do you allow your under-layer to dry thoroughly first? Thanks!
@@suzannebonham583 Hi Suzanne! After my first lean layer with water mixable oils thinned with water, I go right into other layers as needed. These other layers are also water mixable oils-I don’t paint with non-water mixable oils, although most of the brands let you mix up to about 30% of regular oil paint to any water mixable oil. More than that, and you tend to lose the ability to use soap and water for clean up.
As far as letting it “dry”, the water evaporates pretty quickly, probably a little slower than using a solvent like odorless mineral spirits for regular oils or even the water mixable thinner for wmo’s made by Winsor & Newton.
You could definitely use regular oils over the wmo’s, painting alla prima or indirectly in layers, waiting just long enough for the water to evaporate from the first layer. I would probably wait longer (overnight or at least a few hours) if painting on canvas than, say, gessoed hardboard. I would think canvas would retain water longer, so longer drying time.
Of course, if you want to avoid solvent altogether, you could also just do your first layer in acrylic. I often do this as well.
Hope this helps!
I use water mixable oils in this way. Seems to work fine
@@suzannebonham583 im sure you’ve probably already found answer to your question but in case you haven’t, yes it seems to be fine! Read “the new oil painting method” and it talks about using acrylic as an under painting. You do however need to allow it to dry before going over with oil… I think the conservative estimate is 3 days but I think it depends on your climate. Hope that helps!
I've been saying this for years! Hard to convince people though because they have a preconceived notion that oil paints are bad. Absolutely not true!! The solvents are bad. I've painted solvent-free for nearly 3 yrs now. I use walnut oil based paints and the pure oil when I want to thin down the paint for various techniques. To clean brushes, I use dish detergent; Dawn being my go to. Thank you for reinforcing this message so that more painters will be confident in painting with oil paints and following a solvent-free practice. :)
I use Gamblin Oil Ground tinted with an earth colour which has no solvent in it. Gamblin also has Solvent Free Mediums for painting All Prima. Brush cleanup is with Safflower Oil.
Straight from the tube works for me in about 75% to 80% of cases - particularly with those naturally oily pigments, like alizarin crimson and indanthrone blue. When painting fat over lean, I just add a few drops of stand oil and fire away as normal. I've never needed to use solvents and never will. As someone else in the comments mentioned, acrylic primers are an excellent choice, particularly in the days now of pigmented primers, where you can even do full block-ins with coloured primer and under-paint with complementary colours.
*Oh, by the way, this is not to discredit Geneva. With the way my painting style is evolving I'm finding more and more that I favour a stringy honey-like viscosity to my paint. I may even make the switch at some point.
Can you explain what you mean with the block in primers and then underpainting with complementary colours? Do you mean a coloured gesso and that the shadows are done on top?
Sorry! :)
@@starvictory7079 Micheal Harding (before we start, I'm NOT affiliated with him and don't want people to write off Geneva paints or Mark's system just because *I* have an opinion) does a range of pigmented, acrylic-based primers that allow you to tone the canvas with colour. A common trick for portrait painters is to tone a canvas with an earthy green, which in turn allows for the fleshy tones (especially in the cheeks and lips, think alizarin crimson) to play up and dance with the greens underneath. (That's what I mean when I say complementary.)
That's really what it boils down to. I tend to block in with the opposite (complementary) colour. So if I'm painting an orange, I'll block it in with blue. Or if I'm painting a lemon, I'll block it in with purple. I'm not really a believer in generic, burnt umber washes. NOT that they don't work. I just like to approach by a case by case basis.
@@mrsnrub9780 Thank you. So like a verdaccio technique.
I like the block in idea with complementary colours.
Tack så mycket!
Greetings from Sweden
@@starvictory7079 Precisely. I actually block-in/underpaint in multiple colours, particularly in still-life work when things can become complicated. Not only do I have nice complementary/reflex tones to play with, I also have a natural colour coding system.
Neutral stains work well for me when I'm painting tonal landscapes. When I have a street scene on my hands, I do my preliminary drawings in terre verte (low tint power, which means it's easy to wipe off if I mess up.)
Basically, the more tools in your bag, the better. Maybe not when you're in the very early stages of learning, but when you're competent - which I suspect that you are, it's time to fly solo and figure what works for YOU. That's ultimately how artists are created.
@@starvictory7079 Oh, and greetings from London!
Wow! I'm so glad I came across this video! I've been craving to paint again, and oils have always been my favorite. Also-- wow, a fellow Austinite! How awesome! Thanks for the tips!
How do you feel about using a thin wash of colored acrylic to cover the canvas before painting with oil? Acrylics don’t give off poisonous fumes.
As with oil and mineral spirits, acrylics lose their integrity as you thin them down with water. It is always best to use washes at recommended ratios, and if you are using acrylic, why thin it down at all? If you need it to retain a good adhesion for the oil above, use some pumice or other such flattening agent to roughen the paint surface so as to retain porous nature for paint adhesion.
Neither do oils.
Do you know the ingredients of acrylic? Toxic ingredients such as cobalt, manganese, cadmium, chromium, and lead. Since they are into a medium (water based), evidently they DO give off in the fumes.
@@jackmaxwell3134 Not toxic in the EU. Buy cadmium hue etc.
@@nathanielovaughn2145 They do when they're thinned down with solvents, which is the whole point.
Sir, thanks for the information. By the way linseed oil can cause fire they say.
I bought your paint and the clove oil its all wonderful, the colors are rich and it flows beautiful. Im hoping to buy more from you ,like the pallet/ table ect ..I keep checking your website and its out of stock .Not complaining just want the whole set !
Just use colors that are not too much oily (for instance rembrandt and geneva are FULL of oil, Old Holland are stiffer), use linseed oil to dilute them if needed or use them from the tube without any problem. Use mineral earth pigments and fast drying pigments and you can dry a painting over night, and it's enough for almost everyone, if you do like this there is no solvent in any step of this process. (I stain my paintings with umbers and some linseed oil and they are ready the day after).
@J.Shelby it's used since centuries
@J.Shelby walnut oil is not tested long term, it seems it has cracking problems poppy seed oil is not even studied, every oil has his disadvantages but we pretty much know what are the problems of flaxseed oil and even if it tends to yellow it gets its tone pretty soon and it keeps his stability for centuries, we still don't know what will happen to other modern oils, you can check on rublev's channel they have a lot of info on this topic (and they only use linseed oil IRC)
@J.Shelby Another example of making up problems. Anyway most artist should focus more on whether their paitings will leave a toxic residue when they are burned.
@J.Shelby Traditional techniques were not always toxic as far as the oils used. Pigments were a horror show. But it was science that messed everything up in order to create products that dried really fast, and other goals. One of the routes to low toxic high durability paintings is to follow old methods. This is a new trend with several people offering seminars.
Here is Kitts' teaser video, on old solvent free techniques:
ua-cam.com/video/Ka6sTS94xns/v-deo.html
I prefer walnut oil as a painting medium.
Great information, I can only paint in an apartment now, and solvents are simply not possible. Thanks
Kind of helpful ... about as clear as mud. I'm going to take your online class and hopefully learn to understand this better.
When will it be possible to get the Geneva paint shipped to EU again 😣 ...
Goodness me. My first painting teacher was an old and prominent artist who did look like he'd been inhaling turpentine fumes all his life and he actually recommended it to his students as an affordable solvent. I was using turpentine myself for a few years after that and did not realize the danger. To be honest, I only switched to mineral spirits because we had group painting sessions with live models and one of the artists who attended them with me was completely intolerant to the smell of turpentine so she asked me to stop bringing it
@J.Shelby That's the thing - I personally didn't mind the smell at all and it was making me feel more artistic using the good old turps like the grand masters of the past. It is also super cheap so you can fill in a whole bucket with it, throw in your brushes after each session and never bother washing them. We live and learn that there ain't such thing in life as a free lunch
@J.Shelby what about acrylic ?
@J.Shelby Don't get me wrong, I'm not advocating the use of turpentine. Mineral spirits should do just fine for most folks. Never tried water-soluble oils so can't comment on those
@J.Shelby Cobra paints are good. You can thin them with water. A lot of people like their 91 medium. They will mix with regular oil paints, up to a point, like 1/3rd or 1/2" and they still work as water soluble, which is nice if there is a paint you can't get in their product line.
Cobra has a whole course online about them, and it is very good.
There is also an excellent video by Charlie Hunter that includes his whole rundown on the cobra paints and gear he uses, and that part is free online: ua-cam.com/video/ki4Tk9WrMI4/v-deo.html
I do use Geneva paints, and they have many excellent qualities. But not everyone can get to them. In the US is shouldn't be a problem.
Great video thank you. Can we also use vegetable oil or extra virgin olive oil?
I use gamsol for my wash. It evaporates slowly and is odorless. You don't need much so you won't be exposed to any fumes. Its the safest bet for a thinner.
check the ingredients and safety warnings on your gamsol. It is a toxic substance and even though its odorless it still evaporates toxic fumes that you could potentially inhale.
Gamsol just smells better, it is not guaranteed safe.
I'm new to painting... We use mineral spirits to clean the brushes while we work. It is the odorless variety. Are you saying not to use that? We clean the brushes with Murphy's Oil Soap.
Do you think that walnut oil and the like has a shelf and can go rancid? If so, how does one tell when it's time to throw it out? Thanks.
If it isn't nasty it is probably OK. Bigger problem is if it has vitamin e added (which artist grade will not). Anti Oxidants like E stop drying. Sometimes people who travel end up buying locally available stuff.
@@HondoTrailside Good to know. Thank you.
Eco-solve is a soybean oms replacer.ive used it for years, it's expensive but perfect! 100% non toxic, not good for a first wash though. Using oms gave me terrible headaches so I had to find a non toxic alternative.
I've used it too as well in the past, for both paintings and under paintings and as a brush cleaner. However, the general consensus on Wet Canvas it seems is that it is not trustworthy in the painting. The questionable issue I guess being drying time. Although in my expereince it dries fine on canvas, some were saying it is an issue that it does not evaporate on a surface like glass for long periods. A couple of other recommended methods I've heard online from a couple artists are to just use pure oil paint rubbed out onto the canvas/ a very thin layer for the underlayer. Or chalk and linseed oil. The downside to I think would be that straight paint without solvent takes longer to dry.
In Tad Spurgeon's the Living Craft he has a chart of the safest underpainting/ layering systems under the section Fat Over Lean. He took his site down but another artist has it up for free download on their site.
Per his book :
Safest system:
" Thin water-based or lean tempera on
a slightly absorbent
ground" then a middle layer of "thin tempera
grassa, or thin oil
paint rubbed out or
used with chalk and
solvent
" and a final layer of "oil paint with minimal
added thickness and
minimal saturating and
sequestering medium"
A second safe system listed as : An underlayer of "thin oil paint on a
slightly absorbent
ground rubbed out
or used with a little
solvent and chalk, and then a middle layer of "
Straight oil paint
with any extra
thickness removed
with a knife or rag
," with a final layer of "oil paint with minimal
added thickness and
minimal added saturating
and sequestering
medium."
The chart also lists unsafe examples. It sounds like those are not necessarily wet into wet, but I imagine they could still work as under-layers.
What is the best way to clean brushes between colors? I use vegetable oil sometimes; however, it doesn’t strip all the color out as well as a solvent would do. I can’t quite see myself cleaning brushes in dish soap (between colors), but…maybe!
Use baby oil
What’s the best way to dispose of oil paint, mediums, and solvents? I’ve been painting once a week at a local art school for a couple months and it only dawned on me now that throwing away paint and dumping Turpenoid into the large sink in the classroom are probably not good things to be doing 😓
Your local recycling/refuse processing centre should be able to accept these kinds of toxic substances. But you might need to throw away less that you think.
You can store solvent in a brush cleaner or sealed jar and reuse it between sessions. Once it gets a bit dirty, let it sit in its container for a few days and you should find that all of the solvent settles on the bottom. Pour the clean solvent off the top into a second container and it's ready for reuse. The dirty pigment is left at the bottom of the first container and you can clean this up with a rag and leave the rag outdoors for the solvent to evaporate, leaving only the pigment behind. If you follow this procedure then you should find that there's very little solvent to recycle because it either evaporated or is used up in your painting process.
As Mark said in the video, *most* oil paints are non-toxic and don't require special recycling measures. But you should be aware of any toxic pigments you use (e.g., cadmiums) and arrange for them to be recycled.
@@UbiquitousBooks I agree, though, they say that none of (most?) of the cadmiums used in paints today are toxic either.
Brushes don't need to be cleaned, there are many ways to achieve this. Mark has videos.
I can't imagine putting turpentine in a sink. But I don't use it. My left over acrylic goes on newspaper or poured into a tall plastic container where it evaporates in my garage. I'm hoping not to have much waste from my new water mixable oils. Most cities have hazardous waste once/year for paint, batteries, light bulbs, etc.
pour into a container of sand kept for this purpose. An art school should NOT be allowing students to tip chemicals down the sink!
Simply paint with a knife. Then you have it. No messing around with dirty mixtures cause the brush was not clean. Nothing. Pure joy of painting.
Knife has its problems, it can never be gentle as a brush. Good luck getting something soft
Helpful video. Thanks a lot!
Thank you! My question about using WMO Winsor & Newton - how to keep the rule “fat over lean”? 1st layer (under paining) I put with water, but on the top of this I need to use Linseed oil all the time, because this paint is very sticky. So, how to avoid cracks? Thank you, I would appreciate your answer.
But how to clean brushes during paint session ?
What about beating your brush?
Beat the devil out of it...
How would you clean the brushes?
Very helpful indeed....thankyou
Any thoughts about Lavender Spike Oil as a solvent as a substitute for mineral spirits?
I considered this at some point when I first started, and I didn't try it for various reasons : 1. it is quite expensive, 2. people were commenting they got sick of the smell of lavender which is very strong, 3. Mark Carder explains in a video that you don't need any solvents to paint. So I started to paint only with oil. Even on large canvas pure paint is fine. other than paint, I use safflower oil, and stand oil. I don't need to speed up drying time. If I didn't have headaches using odorless mineral spirits, I would probably use it sometimes, to help spread paint on large area or getting a different visual effect, but I don't miss it at all, once I ve learned to paint without. The versatility of oil paint is the only thing I need : adding layers over dry paint, or blending with fresh paint. using the thickness of stand oil, or diluting with a bit of safflower oil to decrease the concentration of pigments. using a lot of paint, or just add a touch ... etc
Far too expensive though that is not a problem for some. The guy you want to look into for that product is Marc Dalassio. He has a YT channel and he has good reasons for using his LSO medium.
Lavender Spike Oil had the same problematic compounds in it a Turpentine and other solvents healthwise. I bought some from Chelsea Studio and it is really, really strong even in open air. It's not real pure Lavender Spike Oil but synthesized version.
turpentine always makes me sick, now i use milk paint citrus solvent for thinning the paint and to make it dry quicker, its labeled as non toxic and it seems to behave similar to turpentine and mineral spirits.
What about water mixable oils for a foundation or underpainting?
personally i like the smell of the toxic fumes lmao
Turpentine is the best smell. All the "safe" stuff smells bad.
🤪
Read Dr Daniel G Amen's "Change Your Brain, Change Your Life" book all about brain health. Specifically the parts where he talks about solvents
Can you please tell me is winsor Newton paint are toxic?
Been painting in oils since a young age 40 years + and to be honest never has a problem with fumes, the oils colours have a mild linseed sent as does my boiled linseed oil, the final varnish is mild too, i only varnish after about 8-12 months anyway, as for cleaning brushes with white spirit and turpentine i dont use it, i use fairy washing up liquid or decent bar of soap with red hot water.
Theirs also plenty of odourless decorators spirit available (uk)
Is it true that mixing oils into paint makes it very long to dry? (Weeks to months)
How do you layer Geneva paint?
He paints alla prima, Geneva paints are very slow drying.
Just keep your turpentine covered while painting. This reduces toxicity by a considerable amount.
When underpainting with acrylics, follow the directions. Just don't thin the acrylics too much with water or there won't be enough binder left in them and later on when you paint oils over them, the drying oil paint will simply peel off the canvas because the acrylic will have dried flaky without enough paint binder. Years ago I lost the best oil painting I've ever done in my life due to this mistake.
Or you could use water soluble oil paint for your underpainting stage
But in all seriousness that’s why a lot general public use studios steer clear of anchoring their educational programs with oil painting classes. The one studio I teach in uses water soluble
I still think about Bob Ross
I just use linseed start to finish
Thankfully I can't use solvents, which I wouldn't have said before watching your video. Thank you.
Can't you just use guesso with an acrylic color for the base? Instead of having to worry about toxic fumes
And we don't speak about other arts like sculpture for example! Modelling clays are toxic synthetic materials to the touch (despite the "clay" in the name, nothing natural in that!) and even more at the moment of baking them to rigidity them, releasing fumes but people still using it massively.
I wish there was this video before I bought all that toxic stuff like mineral spirits and venetian turpentine.
Mark Carder大哥酷
What about cleaning out the brushes while you're painting? That's where the toxicity lies, wiping the brush dry with paper towels. I had to quit using oils for that reason.
There is nothing toxic about wiping a brush with a towel.
Nice . But you haven't spoken about cleaning your brushes during the procedure. You know, thinner and other liquid and its fumes !!!
Painting with oil paints needs a ventilated place
He's lying you are going to have to break out the fumes sooner or later, but do like he says, nice day? paint on your porch. Create a well ventilated room with good air coming in and bad air sucking out!
Toxic fumes are what make it fun!
🤣
Every artist will swear by this
Waiting on my Genevas, @DrawMixPaint @MarkCarder👩🏼🎨😁
Mark, youre on the safer track to just tell everything is toxic.