I wanted to work with oils for a long time, probably years.  I set out looking for different kinds of paints to try, to experiment with.  As intrigued as I was with oils, I was also terrified of them.  What about the fumes, the clean-up, and the slow drying time?  I had used oil products when we built and refinished butcher block counters and on a few other projects, but I always bought brushes specifically for the purpose and I disposed of them after use because I was scared of the clean-up.  I finally decided my desire to try oil paints as a fine art medium outweighed my fear of the clean-up.  I was going to learn how to use and how to clean up artist’s oil paint.

I painted a landscape, so I got past that initial hurdle.  I was still scared of the clean-up so I let the paint dry on the cheap wood palette and also threw it away.  This was ridiculous.

Oil paints are one of the most well-used and beloved mediums of fine artists for many centuries, so surely it’s not as scary as I’m making it out to be.  And that turned out to be true.  I had built it up in my mind as something complicated, difficult, and beyond my ability to learn.  When I agreed to paint 100 landscapes with Michelle Wooderson as a part of the 100 Meadows Project, I knew that I would have to approach how to clean up artists’ oil paint with curiosity instead of fear.  With an openness… I can do it, and it won’t be hard.

Having a community of people on the journey with me helped immensely so we could ask each other questions and share what we’d learned.  The book Daily Painting was also the best resource I found on brush soaps, clean-up, and other information a beginner working with oil paints might want to know.  Shockingly, this was absent from most other art books and online tutorials I read and watched.  I think once you’ve been doing something for years, you forget the questions you had as a beginner or, perhaps, if you learned oil painting in a college program setting, all of this was taught and you assume others already know it.  Either way, there wasn’t a lot of information answering the questions I had like what to do with dirty solvents, how to clean a palette, and how to safely dispose of dirty rags.

So, if you are intrigued by oil painting but have that same block I did, I made a video answering all of those questions from cleaning brushes to cleaning oil paint off your skin to cleaning out your solvent container…

Here are the products I mention in the video and use regularly to clean up artists’ oil paint… (They are all linked even though the text isn’t bright blue.)

• gloves (completely optional, but nice if you’re messy)
• ziplock bags
• Gamblin Gamsol
• Airtight Solvent Container
• Paper Towels ( I like Scott Shop Towels)
• Baby Oil
• baby wipes
• Murphy Oil Wood Soap or another oil-based or grease-cutting soap (for cleaning brushes)
• palette knife (I like THIS set)

I also want to share why I love oil paints above all other fine art mediums.  To me, it is the most forgiving.  You can scrape it off again and again without ruining your surface.  Even paper and graphite will eventually reach an unsalvageable tipping point.  You can blend oil paint beautifully and the colors are rich and lustrous, much more than acrylics.  I also love the texture of oil paint.  You can mix it anywhere from inky thin to a thick emulsion that holds brushstrokes and marks beautifully.  You can almost sculpt with it.

If you’re joining us for the Index Card Art Project (you can find details HERE) and want to try oils, I hope this will give you the encouragement and information you need to go into it confidently.