Is oil painting safe? Solvents, ventilation, oily rags and toxic pigments

TUREFF• •0

Oil painting is safe to do at home with a few habits in place. The risks are real but well understood: breathing solvent vapour, getting pigment into your mouth, and, the one people least expect, rags soaked in oil catching fire on their own. Here is what to know and what to do.

Solvents and ventilation

Solvents such as turpentine and mineral spirits evaporate into the air you breathe. Breathing the vapour can cause headaches, dizziness and irritation, and long-term exposure is something to avoid.

Ventilate: paint with a window open and air moving through the room.
Use less: keep solvent in a small lidded jar and pour out only what you need. Let the sludge settle and reuse the clear solvent rather than refreshing it constantly.
"Odourless" is not harmless: odourless spirits have had the smell removed, not the vapour.
Go solvent-free if you can: many painters thin with oil or a solvent-free medium and clean brushes with oil and soap. Water-mixable oils are another option.
Never heat solvents, and keep them away from flames.
Avoid painting with solvents in a bedroom or a small closed room, and keep them well away from children and pets.

Oily rags can catch fire by themselves

This is the most important point in this guide. Rags, paper towels or tissues soaked in linseed oil or other drying oils can spontaneously combust. As the oil dries it reacts with oxygen and gives off heat. Spread out, that heat escapes. Crumpled in a pile or bin, it builds up and can reach the point of ignition, hours later, with nobody near. Fire services have traced house and cottage fires to exactly this. What to do with oily rags:

Never leave them balled up in a bin, a pile or a pocket.
Soak them in water and keep them in a closed metal container, then dispose of them according to your local rules.
Or lay them flat to dry outdoors or on a non-combustible surface, away from anything that could burn, until they are stiff, then dispose of them.
Deal with them at the end of every session, not "later".

Oil-based paint left on a palette and wiped onto paper carries the same risk in smaller amounts.

Pigments

Some traditional pigments contain toxic metals: for example lead in lead (flake) white, and cadmium and cobalt in some reds, yellows and blues. In paint form, ground into oil, the main dangers come from getting it into your body:

Ingestion is the big one: eating, drinking or smoking while you paint, touching your mouth, or pointing a brush with your lips.
Dust: dry pigment and sanding dried paint are the most dangerous situations, because you can breathe the particles in. Do not sand oil paint, and be very careful if you mix your own paint from powder.
Skin: wear gloves or a barrier cream if you tend to get paint on your hands, and do not clean paint off your skin with solvent. Use oil or a hand cleaner first, then soap and water.

Colours labelled "hue" use a substitute pigment that imitates the original, often to avoid an expensive or toxic one. Read the label: many paints carry health warnings, and reputable makers publish safety data sheets.

Cleaning brushes safely

Wipe as much paint off as possible with a rag or paper (and treat that rag as above).
Rinse in a little solvent or, solvent-free, work some oil through the bristles.
Wash with soap and lukewarm water until the lather is clean.
Reshape and leave to dry.

Disposing of paint and solvent

Do not pour solvent or oil paint down the sink or onto the ground.
Let used solvent settle, decant the clean part to reuse, and take the sludge and any unwanted solvent to a household hazardous waste collection.
Check with your local council or authority, as rules differ.

A studio safety checklist

Window open, air moving.
Lidded solvent jar, small amounts.
No food or drink at the easel.
Oily rags into water in a metal can, or laid flat to dry.
Wash hands before eating.

Painting in a small flat and worried about fumes? Share your set-up in the comments and ask for ideas.