Technique

I've been trying something a little different in the studio. For my birthday, my dad gave me a new set of acrylics. I know, I'm the luckiest girl ever. So I have been following his painting technique and laying in my paintings in acrylic first, then using oil paint over the top. It's faster because it dries almost instantly and it's a little easier to do tight edges. In the paintings above, the green one is oil on acrylic and the pink one at the other end is just acrylic.

I'm trying acrylic on a bigger piece I'm working on. What's nice is that I can change the composition without having to wait a few days.

I've also been using it to lay in some more complicated compositions.

Toxic Issues

On the Gamblin website I found some information:
Managing solvents is the key to studio safety. Oil painting studios are immediately safer when artists remove strong solvents, especially turpentine, from their painting processes.

I've been trying to answer Nigel's question, are all alkyds toxic? Everything I look up says that Walnut Alkyd Medium by M. Graham is "Certified to be NONTOXIC!"


I received some good advice from Jeff Hein today. His classes and studio are strictly non-toxic due to allergies he has developed. He said he's heard a lot of stories lately about studio related illnesses. He rarely cleans his brushes so he doesn't really need turpentine at all. Jeff claims that his brushes hold up longer if he sets them to soak in a tray of mineral oil when he's not painting. I'm going to try it. The walnut oil is great for that too but it does go rancid after a while.

Painting in the dining room isn't so bad, especially with pretty fresh flowers on the table. Thank you Batty, they are so beautiful that I think I might paint them. It made me feel all warm and nice and taken care of.

This Citrus Thinner is still toxic, just less then turpentine. I actually didn't even open it today. Most of the time I can paint with out it.

The Walnut Oil works just fine for cleaning my brushes while I'm working. The thing that messes me up is when I forget to wipe it out of the brush and start painting again. The Alkyd Medium is just going to take a little time to get comfortable with.

The main two foods I've been living off of are gummy bears and Detox tea. They just seem like foods appropriate for cleaning out the body. Well, maybe only the clear gummy bears.