Oiling out

[Marvin Mattelson]

Enzie,

I do not use the stand oil and turpentine mixture you attribute to me for the purposes of oiling out. If you recall, I used only cold pressed linseed oil, in the workshops you attended, when I oiled out my painting prior to scumbling.

I try my darnedest to avoid turpentine in the studio for toxicity reasons and I even use walnut oil for cleaning brushes so as to avoid the less dangerous (than turps) mineral spirits.

I do, however, add literally one drop of turpentine to one drop of linseed oil and 1/3 of a drop of clove oil to the paint I use to create my wash-in under-painting in the workshop.

What I said at the workshop was that I sometimes may add a very small amount of stand oil, thinned with turpentine, to the linseed oil, if the pure linseed oil beads up over the surface I want to unsink. This very rarely ever happens, by the way.

On another note, nothing good can result from adding clove oil to keep the piles of paint wet. It's my understanding that it can lead to darkening and, if painted over, cracking.

[Enzie Shahmiri]

Dear Marvin,

Please accept my appology you are absolutely right!
I edited the initial post to avoid confusion.

Just as you said, I have been following this for the wash-in as well

Add literally one drop of turpentine to one drop of linseed oil and 1/3 of a drop of clove oil to the paint I use to create my wash-in under-painting in the workshop.

and strictly Lindseed oil for oiling out between dried painting stages.


Ahh, I hate aging it makes you say and do things that you later wonder about?! LOL

Thanks for the note on Clove Oil, I shall retire it and use it as potpourri!

[Marvin Mattelson]

Enzie, I wasn't absolutely sure if the senior moment was your's or mine.
Take care.

[Richard Bingham]

Originally Posted by Marvin Mattelson

. . . I try my darnedest to avoid turpentine in the studio for toxicity reasons . . .

Hailing as I do from ancient times when common liniments (specifically Dr. Sloan's and Absorbine Jr.) contained turpentine and a spoonful of turps was not an uncommon "cure" for kids with pinworms, it's hard for me to view it in the same light as nuclear waste and DDT. Triple distilled turpentine is used by the cosmetics industry in the production of milady's makeups, powders and nostrums, and by other makers of such things as "pine fresh"cleaning compounds and air fresheners.

Combined with linseed oil in paints, turpentine produces reactions which improve drying and film strength. MS does not. Turpentine is sovereign for compounding various resin varnishes. When MS is substituted, cloudy mixtures result.

All this aside, perhaps issues of "toxicity" which so concern us lately have more to do with the fact that the "turps"commonly available now is not at all good stuff?

"Pure gum spirits of turpentine" is the sap of living conifers tapped for the "turpentine" which is then distilled for the "pure spirits", leaving rosin, colophony and pitch as by-products. Today's hardware/paint store turpentine is a vile liquid produced by crushing stumps, limbs and other forest waste into a mash, then steam-cooking it. Reeking of creosote as it does, it would be well to avoid using this poor-quality, nasty solvent for any purpose. Good turpentine smells like a pine forest after a rainstorm, and it's still available (though costly).

As with all organic solvents, including the various "-oids" and "-sols" and "-tines" marketed just especially for us arteestes (!) citrus oil terpenes and MS, (both "stinky" and odorless) common sense dictates one should not leave open containers of solvent lying about, nor should one swim in it, or ingest it.