Water soluble oils

I use Artisan water mixable oils and find they are an excellent medium. there is no smelly turpentine vapour, you can rinse your brushes in water and of course you can mix your paint with water. note that i say " mix " as the water cant dissolve oil paint. The oil in the colours and linseed oil are specially treated to mix with water which is the diluting agent. In taditional oils there is a hazard in inhaling turpentine fumes and other substitutes which have fumes and the W/M brush cleaning chore involves just water and soap only .Talens, Holbein and Cobra are other makes of water mixable oils which have followed the rising trend and I use Artisan because it was the first one I tried out some years agoYou can mix these oils with the usual oils I believe but then why would you ?...../>Syd

I know an artist here on the island - Murray Ince, who sometimes shows on the Gallery here - who swears by water miscible oils, and produces excellent results with them. I don't like them half so much as he does - they lack the intensity of colour of regular oil paints,and the price of them indicates that they're not of artists' quality. But - we know that much of the magic of painting lies in the hand of the painter rather than the paints they use. They're much healthier than traditional oils - the pong is much less all-pervasive. And I still don't like them..... When you ask how they compare with acrylics, especially reworkable acrylics (interactives) - well, you ask an awful lot! They should in theory be richer - in fairness, I think they are - and you should be able to work up thick impasto with the paint alone, without having to use additives like texture paste. Really,my only problem with them is a) they're not what I think of as oil paints, however good they are, and b) I have some concerns about their long-term viability, both in terms of adhesion to the surface on which they're painted (although I suspect they'll be fine in that regard) and with regard to lightfastness (about which I'm much less confident; although that would be true of student quality oils as well). In short - if you're worried about toxicity, or just can't handle oil paint fumes, water soluble/miscible oils offer an answer. I think it's a second-best answer, but then I'm not noticeably affected by the fumes of traditional oils nor subject to dermatitis, and I don't live with anyone else who would rebel at the whiff of turps and linseed. I use oils, of the traditional kind, and acrylics - don't use interactives and don't see a need for them. An awful lot of this is just personal preference - but there are some concerns about paint quality and durability; how valid they are is anyone's guess, because they've just not been around long enough for anyone to be sure. If you like 'em, use 'em - if you're one of those unfortunates who has strong reactions to traditional oil paints, you may not have much choice. But I don't see them replacing traditional oil paint for professional purposes anytime soon, since the intensity of colour just isn't there - and it's not there because the way they're currently made is very similar to student grade paint, in that a lot filler is added to the paint to bulk it out. (Whatever the manufacturers might say: the truth is shown in the price.)

Incidentally, I'm told they can take a long time to dry, certainly by comparison with acrylic; but that they're easier to blend (although they would be, if you think about it).

Eeek - Cryla is acrylic, it wouldn't take kindly to turps at all - I should imagine they'd immediately curdle on you if you tried, but over the course of a very short time, if they were workable, the paint would just break up as the turps attacked the resin. So no - George.... George.... don't do that.... If you can't bring the Cryla tubes to life with water or acrylic medium, I should throw them - half dried out tubes of acrylic aren't going to be stable, and they'll be miserably unpleasant to use. If in doubt, ie in your position, wanting to get on with a bit of painting but surveying a lot of frankly past-it paint tubes, I'd sweep the lot away, give them a lingering look of fond regret, and buy a ready-made pack of paints from Jacksons or Art Discount, both of which offer them. If you want to paint in oils, you can get a very serviceable set of Michael Harding oils, at the top end - but reasonably priced: Titanium White, Yellow Ochre Deep (fabulous colour!), Yellow Lake, Scarlet Lake, Ultramarine, Burnt Umber (and his Burnt Umber makes others look like coffee grounds twice watered down). And there are Cryla sets, and System 3, and Jackson's Own, Bromley's Own ..... I just think you'd find that so much more satisfying than trying to whip tired old, desiccated paint into life when all it really wants to do is lie down and die... I understand the landscape painting problem - my arthritis is too bad to allow me to go out with an easel, largely because I can't stand for long - but I can still go out with my camera and sketchbook; it would be very frustrating if I couldn't. Maybe - you could contact a nearby art club, and ask if there would be anyone who take you for a drive now and then, so you could both do a bit of painting and sketching? Or even advertise in the paper - or write a letter to the editor, if you've got a local paper - for someone who might be willing to do that. Have a care, obviously, that you don't choose some Lothario with a top-hat, cape, and strangely waxed moustaches...