a guide to non toxic and eco friendly oil painting 🌳 no solvents! ✨ vegan art supplies

I've definitely found myself lost and confused in the world of oil paints in the past, they can be super overwhelming and even more so when you're trying to figure out how to avoid toxic and harmful products! In this video I go over why oil painting is harmful, alternatives we can use to reduce this, how to dispose of our art materials in an eco-friendly way, and some info on veganism in art!

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#nontoxic #oilpainting #vegan

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Instagram: @lharrisonart

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Filming: iPhone 11
Editing: Davinci Resolve 18
PC: Custom built

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Chapters:
0:00 intro
0:56 about oil painting
4:15 non-toxic alternatives
8:31 eco-friendly art practices
11:44 vegan art supplies
16:43 outro

[marcjasi]

This is a great video! If I may mention two points: About pigments, the Cadmium pigments or Cobalt, are used in oils as well as in acrylic and watercolor. Most of them are toxic when in powder form. When coming out of a paint tube, unless you eat the paint, in well ventilated room, you should be totally safe to use them in my experience, with gloves you are good to go. About oil to clean the brush, this is wonderful, but I would not recommend to use cooking oil, these are non drying oils, if it stays on your brush, its going to create a mess on your next painting. They also are not refine oils. Use only oils that are made for fine art, again, in my experience and opinion. Hope this helps. Great video thank you!

[candidcrafter]

This was very imformative. I don't see many people talking about eco friendly paints. I purposely chose watercolors to be as eco friendly as possible but this video showed me that oil painting can be non toxic and earth friendly too 🤗

[chloelikesihop]

Thank you for this! I have been a bit nervous to switch into oil painting from acrylic. I love the idea of having a longer working time and the feel of oil is so different but the clean up and the toxicity of standard art practices freaked me out. You answered so many questions I had and there were just so many great tips throughout the video. Seriously, thank you so much!

[HealTheWorldwithMJ]

Thanks for the video! Unfortunately watermixable oils are even more harmful to the environment because the paintwater ends up going down the drain.

Sennellier's 'Green for Oils' medium and solvents are completely nontoxic and plantbased. Also last a very long time because you can recycle (the paint falls to the bottom so the solvent on the top stays clear.)

Schmincke's Akademie Oils are heavy metal free and vegan.

💓🌍🐾🥰

[jivka]

Excellent work thanks for the information I’d been looking for. Vegan variety and right at the end you gave me the best answer Schmink normally blue - now the problem is how I get hold of them but no worries I’ll get around it….😂. I have been using w&n plus Daler-Rowne but as you know they are not exactly vegan friendly….now I have an idea and an option. 😀.

[hello-i-am-shai]

hii, thank youu :D!! i just started getting into oil paints but i had no idea if what i was doing was good for me and/or the environment so this really helped!!

[charlie]

From a chemist:
1. Water is "The universal solvent" so clearly "solvents" are not the problem. (But imprecise terminology is, allowing confusing and trade names to hide the actual composition of reducing, thinning and cleaning products).
2. The second most common solvents are alcohols: ethanol, methanol, propanol.
3. Vegetable oils are a solvent, including linseed, walnut, safflower, corn oil.

All solvents work by dissolving a pigment, a carrier medium and an oil or synthetic oil. Oil paints use linseed oil as their splvent. Acrylic paints are finely powdered acrylic plastic solids (polymetylmethacrylate) in alcohols and water, lacquer paints are pigments disolved in volatile petroleum solvents with tree pitch.
All solvents in common use are chosen by their high capacity to dissolve oils and fats. They are aided by emulsifiers like detergent and soap. Tgat is why your skin is dried by exposure to solvents and detergents: they removes your natural oils and fats from skin, muscle and brain. And, that includes water, an excellent defatting agent.
Water, alcohol, plant oils are all "organic" and solvents for oils and fats on your body. Petroleum oils are organic but solvents for lipids.
Heavy metals are neurotoxic. But human nervous organs are built on a fatty superstructure. Removing your natural lipids, fats and oils will disable your nervous system including your brain, its only a question of how quickly the damage occurs. Volatile lacquer paints harm quicly, acqueous acrylic paints harm slower. Vegetable oil paints are between them.
Use a barrier between yourself between ANY paint, pigment, reducer, thinner, or cleaner to keep the harm below the level your body can recover from.
Learn to speak organic chemistry.

[ratherpaint]

A very useful and interesting video. Excellent presentation. Thank you. I'm about to make the switch to water-soluble oils from water colors and acrylics (I've never used regular oils) but I haven't been able to find out if the fire risk is the same with them as with regular oil paints. I know that rags or paper towels soaked with paint or just oil can catch fire as the oils oxidize. But I haven't been able to find out if the risk is mitigated by the emulsifier or surfactant added that makes them water soluble. I suppose if I had a paper towel with oily paint on it, for instance, i could wet the paper completely before discarding it. In that case, I guess the paint would go through two stages of drying: first the water would evaporate and then oxidation of the oils would begin and you are back to a fire risk. Not a very satisfying solution. Any ideas?

[oDaisyo]

You managed to give the answer I’ve been looking for! I’ve been trying to find out how to clean your brush between switching colours and paint thinner alternative for months!! Can you also use vegetable oil to thin your paint for underpainting? Thank you x

[thehappypotter]

Thanks for great info! Now I know where to look for the pigment info, and I am very pleased to learn that Norma Blue is vegan-friendly. I have been looking for information about solvent-free oil-painting practices, as I want to change back to oils after having switched to acrylics for a number of years. Acrylics, however, are said to contain formaldehyde as a preservative and therefore there is a constant off-gassing issue. Have you got info on that?

[ossi]

Aaaaand another video about solventfree oilpainting without showing the sennerlier green for oil products.
I don't understand why they don't push their line more, because it seems to work fine, but so many people don't know them.
(if the dryingtimes are ridicolous you're using way to much of the medium)

& don`t forget... things like cobalt & cadmium don't suddenly become more or less healthy if you use another medium like watercolor or pastell.
(at least I wonder why always only oilpainters point that out)

[sujanithtottempudi]

Water mixable oils arent aame as oils. They are quite tacky despite their own mediums. I tried them a lot. They arent very saturated too