Painting is not always about how to create beautiful and artful work. Sometimes, the process of creating painting itself will provide a recreational aid. Some people find peace from the process of painting just like what people can get from benefits of story telling and benefits of writing for mental health. And the inseparable component for painting, of course is paint. There are some kinds of paint we can use, such as acrylic paint, water paint, and oil paint. Each type of paint has it own advantage and disadvantage. Thus, this article would like to discuss about the benefits of using oil paint that you should know. It will give you the point why you should choose oil paint over the other kinds of paint.
The Characteristic of Oil Paint
Oil paint is different from any other paint for its character, source, and pigmentation. In term of character, oil paint is oil based paint with slow dry performance. It usually contains the following components:
- Fatty acids
- Linoleic acids
- Alpha linoleic
- Oleic acids
- Iodine
The oils are usually derived from either synthetic or natural ingredients. Long ago, people use natural oil from linseed oil, hemp oil, poppy seed oil, walnut oil which known for its benefits of walnut , sunflower oil with its benefits of sunflower oil, safflower oil, and soybean oil with its benefits of soybean oil . The choice of base oil is usually related to the color result of the paint. It is also known that oil paint is richer in term of color. It is because the same pigment with the different carrier oil may give different color. In addition for the color, oil paint usually employs various pigments either natural or synthetic such as:
- White (zinc oxide, titanium oxide)
- Red to yellow (cadmium pigments)
- Earthy color (sienna, umber)
- Blue (cobalt blue, Prussian blue)
- Madder root
The Benefits of Using Oil Paint
There are some benefits of using oil paint that worth your attention. This way, you mau drop your choice on oil paint when it comes to the versatile painting. Here are the benefits:
1.Easy to work with
Compare to pastels and watercolor, oil paint is easier to use. It doesn’t move or run when directly connected to canvas. You can also use some tolls other than brush, such as blade. In addition, you can also easily make correction on your painting by using blade. So, you can leave your canvas clean for your artwork.
2.Adjustable
Oil paint also offers adaptability adjustment in term of color application. it is easy to shift the color whether you want it thick or light. You can also easily blend the colors on canvas to make your own shade. On canvas blending may only be possible to oil painting, as it is difficult to be done when you are using watercolor or acrylic paint.
3.No worry of drying
When you are using water color, you need to quickly work on your canvas or paper as the paint is quickly dried. The same thing is happens to the paint tube. You need to quickly put the cover on after take some color, as the exposure to air can make the paint dry. But it doesn’t happen on oil paint. It takes a lot of time to dry.
So, you can even make some change and adjustment on you canvas after some hours, as it still manageable to blend the color. You can also casually leave your tube open and re-use it whenever you want it without worrying of the fast drying.
4.Mix very well
The number one pint why people love to enjoy oil painting is the capacity to effortlessly mix with the encompassing paint. You can make highlight just by applying particular way of brushing or stroking. So, you are able to not only play with the color blending, but also the stroking techniques to make awesome painting.
5.Stay true color
Not to mention the result of the oil painting. It has the most stay true color over all the paints. Watercolor and acrylic may fade after time, as it use water as the solvent. But it is different with the oil paint. The color will remain tight and stay true for long time, as oil and canvas make tighter bond time after time.
Precautions on Using Oil Paint
It is true that oil paint employ vegetable oil as the base. It means that the natural ingredient will be considered as safe during the usage. But some synthetic ingredient addition especially for the pigments may emerge some risk during the usage. Therefore, you need to consider some things as the precautions in getting the benefits of using oil paint.
The first is about the toxicity. Compared to the other types of paint, oil paint is the highest in term of toxicity. The toxic may come from the vapors, fumes, and of course form the paint itself. The sharp odor of paint indicates the toxicity. This is also the reason why you might feel a little bit hurt on your eyes when you are working on your oil painting for a long duration. The pigment itself is considered to be carcinogenic, and the direct contact to the pigment is quite dangerous as it may absorb to your skin and further into the bloodstream.
The second, it is the fact that oil paint is highly flammable. It regards to the use of solvent which poses one of the greatest risk in oil painting. When solvent is used, the paint will be combustible, so it is important that you should make sure that you avoid the source of fire during the process of painting.
Recommendation on How to Use Oil Paint
In regard to the precautions in using oil paint, here are some recommendations about how to get the benefits of oil paint:
- Choose odorless solvent to minimize the vapor and fuming toxicity.
- Keep the studio well vented to make sure the vapor of the oil well circulated.
- In any condition, avoid flame from your paint, canvas, and solvent as they are highly flammable.
- Make sure you minimize direct exposure to the paint. In order to do so, you can wear protective gloves, face mask, and goggles to minimize the risk of toxicity.
- Clean hands immediately after you work with the paint to prevent paint particle abortion into the skin and bloodstream.
That’s all the benefits of using oil paint, along with the precautions and recommendation on how to use oil paint properly.