Being responsible artist is being a good steward. A few years before I committed myself to dive deep in to oil painting, I have painted here and there with this medium. The very first time I painted with oil, I used turpentine. But it last only for a single painting session because I couldn’t stand the fume! I ended up donating a bottle of Windsor Newton turpentine to a charity shop. Since then I have been doing a research on how to oil paint free of toxic!
It made me cautious when I found out many stories of oil painters ended up with cancer or dementia early on. But a further research show me that toxic free practices with oil paint is safer and healthier than acrylic! Someone claimed that the masters mostly lived long. We started to have artists die young and of cancer so frequently in the 20th century. More likely because we are more careless with our materials and we use solvents and toxic pigments. If that statement is true and if I may add, perhaps it is our culture of fast-pace and comfort that we ended up relying on toxic materials to ease and speed up the process of painting.
Understanding which and what
Now, I thing it is important to know what is toxic and what is NOT. Oil paint is pigment and oil. Most pigments are non-toxic besides led, cadmium, cobalt. Even these ‘toxic’ pgiments are only unsafe when ingested or inhale. Now, tell me how can one inhales paint? Unlike solvent, this thick textured hardly able to be inhaled. And of course, eating them for a dessert is not reccomended despite their delighful colours! 😆 And unless you are reckless, painting and snacking don’t go together. Responsible painters would wash theirs hands every after a painting session and before they touch food! If you are still worry, avoiding contact with heavy metals pigments is very possible! Just don’t purchase them to begin with and find alternatives instead.
Solvents and mediums are the bad guys here! Avoid avoid avoid. Many artists can’t live without them and prefer to have set of rules when painting with them, such as creating elaborate ventilation system, extra careful with their storage system, and more. But the idea of having these toxic materials in the house is already unsettling for me, so I am certainly not one of these artists.
My toxic-free painting journey
Since I dropped my very first bottle of Turpentine to a charity shop, I have been avoiding solvents and I won’t miss them. I don’t use toxic solvent or medium at all in my paintings and slowly replacing toxic pigments with syntethic alternatives.
It does sound easy enough to do that, but practically it’s not. I have to figure out techniques that works for my painting without thinner, and spending longer ‘painfull’ time washing my brushes without spirits. The list goes on. Certainly comfort and speed are less attainable here, but my commitment to be toxic-free when it comes to my painting practices is for a greater cause!