Solvents! A blushing return....

This is for Alan Bickley, really.  He mentioned the other day that he and I have different approaches to solvents and oils; which I had forgotten, but yes we have. Or had. For while I still maintain that you can do without any solvent at all, thus dismissing the principal claim in favour of water-miscible oils - I have gone back to Turpentine, with my Linseed and Stand Oil (apart from anything else, Stand Oil is very hard to use on its own; it's one thing if you buy it in a bottle, but if you make your own, it can assume the consistency of hardening treacle, rather than the ideal honey consistency).   All the same, using Turps has advantages - especially in staining canvases, and loosening up those initial oil sketches.  If you're going to buy thinners - solvents - at all (oil, obviously - is it obvious to all? - is not a solvent), I don't think there's much of a good reason not to use the most traditional one, which is gum turpentine; its aroma is such that you know you're using a toxic substance; whereas low-odour thinners, including Zest-it (one of the least toxic) don't offer a warning by advertising their presence. So yup, I've gone back to Turps - which at least means I won't now have to update my e-book.....  I thought, basically, what am I trying to prove here?  Whom am I trying to impress?  I could have snuck back secretly, but such is not The Jones Way. The only snag is that Royal Mail, Parcelforce or whatever they call themselves now, won't deliver Turps, because they think it's a fire hazard: not inside a thick glass bottle it isn't - nor will the fumes leak out and kill your postman - this country is strangling itself in rules and regulations that are more toxic than the products they're supposed to protect us against .... Fortunately, some couriers are less chicken-livered. 

Yes, I read your review of these paints - and fascinating reading it was: all oil painters should take a look. On the brand itself - I have minor raves, and minor criticisms: they've brought back a genuine Manganese Blue, they've introduced a "Lowrey White"; both good developments.  Their Flake White - to substitute for the real thing - a) isn't a lot like Flake White, in either appearance or performance, and b) is extremely oily.  Plus - some of their paints contain Zinc; which remains something I'm not happy with**.  However - the good outweighs the bad, and the colours are fabulous. At the moment at least, I prefer Michael Harding, and Rublev, with carefully selected Daler-Rowney Artists' quality oils, several Jacksons' own, and my life is an expensive one to maintain, because I've gone right off student quality paints - these are the dangers of trying superior brands: once you do, you realize what under-pigmented, thin gruel you've been working with previously.... But!  I've known several painters who never budged beyond Georgian and Winton paint ranges, and still produced paintings that made me envious - it's not all in the medium. ** There's still a lot of controversy and debate about Zinc Oxide, PW 4: there was (is?) an interesting article about it on the Jacksons website.  I used a very small quantity of Zinc White in an oil sketch this week (I'd forgotten I still had some), to add a transparent white which I was finding it hard to achieve otherwise.... My inclination is to avoid it and any paint mixed with it; and it's generally accepted that we avoid it in all but the upper layers of a painting - but you can't do that if it's mixed with Titanium White, which it usually is, or Naples Yellow Hue, which isn't always even marked as a Hue colour: it's a complicated life being an oil painter, unless you decide you're just going to trust the manufacturers and use the paint they offer.  Well I would, if I believed they always know best: snag is, I'm not a bit sure they do - if they did, they wouldn't still be offering colours like Alizarin Crimson, at least without warning what'll happen if it's used in tints; still - caveat emptor, as your local Roman centurion would have it - up to us to learn all we can about our materials, if we're concerned about them lasting.