Tips for using water-mixable oils - OutdoorPainter.com
Christine Lashley, “Water Lilies in Summer,” 2016, oil, 24 x 24 inches, private collection

I get a wide variety of responses — everything from rude negativity to nods from those in the know — when people discover that I paint with both traditional and water-mixable oils.

by Christine Lashley
(Check out her “Paintings that Sparkle” art video workshop here)

I paint with both water-mixable oils and traditional oils, and I get a wide variety of responses when people discover this. Everything from rude negativity (“what crap is that?”) to nods from those in the know (“I use them too, aren’t they great?”). It’s rather funny, as most art supplies don’t have groupies or naysayers like this … the lovers and the haters of water-mixable oils.

You would think there would be a safe middle ground, but unfortunately, outright suspicion of water-mixable paints (oil and water shouldn’t mix, right?), or rejection of new science as bogus, can make artists retreat to tried-and-true materials. But technological advances have given us: lightfast pigments, more colors, and safer paint than ever before. The Old Masters would kill to have our paint choices, I’m sure. So let’s take another look at water-mixable paints with an open mind.

Water-mixable oils (also known as water-miscible or water-soluble) can be a great asset to oil painters if you know some secrets to get started. I’ve had more than one artist friend confess they tried them, but “tossed them all out,” wondering why anyone likes them at all. However, you will see why many artists are very excited about these paints, when they’re used correctly.

What’s Not To Love?
Water-mixable oils sound great: artist-grade pigments, easy cleanup, no solvent needed. They also dry faster in general than traditional oils and are thus great for travel, or underpainting with “lean” layers.

Looking Past the Label: A Little Science Lesson

Yes, they are “real” oils, just like traditionally formulated ones. Water-mixable paints in the tube contain no water, only oil/binder, pigment, and additives such as resin or emulsifiers. The big factor for most people is understanding how this “oil and water” idea even can work. However, there is solid science behind the paint, which has been around since 1990.

Different brands of paint use different elements to allow the oil and water to mix — either a fatty acid molecule in the oil has been modified or removed to allow for binding with water, or an emulsifier has been added. Sometimes it’s a mix of factors. This is not necessarily a scary thing or “too new” to use without question (like genetically altered food); oil and water have been mixed for centuries to make creamy things like mayonnaise, or tempera paint, with egg as an emulsifier. Also, we must remember that artists for centuries have been experimenting with new ways to paint. Someone invented oil painting in the 15th century, after all … it was not always around.

Tips for using water-mixable oils - OutdoorPainter.com
Christine Lashley, “Near Dupont Circle,” 2017, oil, 12 x 16 inches, collection of artist

Benefits Of Water-Mixables:
Better For Your Health: There is no need for solvent. Simply use water as your “solvent” to thin the water-mixable paints and for cleanup. You can tone your canvas, wipe areas out, or create a “watercolor” thin underpainting. Solvents are not healthy, as all have a warning label, including so-called “green” versions.

Newer OMS solvents (odorless mineral spirits) such as Gamsol still gas off harmful vapors — you just can’t smell them, unlike turpentine, which has a powerful smell. Allergies to solvent can develop suddenly or gradually over time. You may not even know you have a sensitivity (this can appear as headache or fatigue, or more severely as hives, lightheadedness, or shortness of breath). Interestingly, solvent as a paint medium/thinner has not been in use all that long in the history of oil painting … so perhaps we should be taking a look at the archival nature of solvent in oil painting as well? But that’s another article, I think…

Faster Dry Time. Water-mixables dry in about half the time of traditional oils. The paints actually have two dry times: For thin watery mixes (like a watercolor wash or canvas tone), the water evaporates rapidly and the paint is mostly dry to the light touch in five or 10 minutes. You can still rewet areas to wipe out or remix. At this stage it is possible to start more direct painting, or layering with thicker strokes. To let a thin tone or grisaille layer fully dry (via oxidation), wait at least until the next day. The thicker the paint application (the less water used), the more your dry times will increase. Paint that contains a lot of oil already, such as cadmiums, can take longer to dry.

How to paint with oil - Christine Lashley
Check out Christine’s six-hour art video workshop, “Paintings That Sparkle,” here!

Cleanup Is Very Easy: Just use soap and water. Also great for travel.

Excellent for Layers/OK to Intermix With Other Oils. Because the paints dry quickly, if you know you like to layer, you can start your artwork with water-mixable oil paints and then move into more full-paint layers, or on to traditional oils (since the dry time is longer with traditional oils, they are therefore “fatter”). You can inter-mix traditional and the water-mixables if you are painting directly. Once you cross over about a 20 percent ratio, the water-mixable quality gets lost. You can also intermix brands of water-mixable paints.

Although manufacturers say it’s safe to intermix these paints with other media (watercolor, acrylic, alkyd), I would be cautious here. I believe, after researching this paint, that with too much mixed stuff, it is hard to control the dry times of the paint layers. The only trouble I ever had with these paints was when I used Alkyd Titanium White and Quick Dry water-mixable gel medium for heavy applications of pastel whites — fine cracks developed after a few years, in a few studies done on panel.

Traditional oil paint still has its place, especially for those who like a long time to maneuver wet paint on the canvas. Currently my favorite way to work is to start with water-mixable in one or a few colors, and then switch to traditional oils for the longer dry time. I still paint without any solvent when using traditional oils and use a variety of techniques to get by. I freeze my brushes for the next paint session (used paint is still in the brush). If I need a clean brush, I’ll dip it repeatedly in oil to free excess pigment.

Drawbacks of Water-Mixables:

Avoiding Sticky Paint. If you are not careful with how you use the paints, they can become sticky and very unpleasant to paint with. Avoid using the paints with a small amount of water, as they don’t thin very well with just a few dots of water. Instead, a little water-mixable linseed oil or water-mixable medium will work wonders to make the paint more spreadable. On the other hand, it’s fine to thin the paints with a lot of water (to make a puddle that looks like milk) to start your drawing or block-in stage, grisaille layer, or to tone the canvas. Remember that this watery layer should only be an underpainting. Layers that are too thin will not stand up to the ravages of time and are not archival. Some paint brands, such as Cobra, are inherently more creamy right from the tube, thus avoiding the sticky range for the most part.

Paints can freeze more quickly in winter conditions if you paint outside in the winter.
Rain Texture. Paints will not work well in the rain or mist (obviously) — although rain can create some interesting texture effects, and that could be a good thing.
Paints can dry with a more matte finish, but a simple varnish layer, or working with a medium or a touch of oil will fix this.

Tips for using water-mixable oils - OutdoorPainter.com
Christine Lashley, “Sheridan,” 2017, oil, 12 x 12 inches, private collection

Will These Paints Last?
Remember these are “real” oils (not alkyd or acrylic), and we know oils last for centuries if they are painted on a proper surface with good techniques (“fat-over-lean,” etc.) and cared for. Studies so far show these paints to be very archivally sound. I will say that, although current and past scientific studies were referenced frequently (I did talk to a technician who worked in a lab), no manufacturer provided me with actual papers or concrete published studies with hard data. So I’d say more sharing can be done in this arena.

On a personal note, I have a painting that was done with Max (Grumbacher) paints on canvas in 1998 that has a paint film in perfect condition with no cracks or color distortion (I keep it to remind me about my early oils). It’s been carted around the country in several moves and stored in less-than-ideal conditions in the back room or unheated garage.

Brand Comparison/Reviews of Water-Mixable Paints:

There are several major paint manufacturers of water-mixable oil paints: Grumbacher (Max — nice, great colors, but can be stiff), Holbien (Duo — very nice, a bit more expensive) and Winsor & Newton (Artisan — can be smelly, contains only “hue” colors, and has somewhat less pigment load, also can remain sticky when dry), and Royal Talens (Cobra — newer brand, very nice buttery consistency, yet some colors are “off” such as the too-pale cadmium yellows and a too-strident French ultramarine). Newer brands have come on the market: such as Weber (sOil), Lukas (Berlin), Daniel Smith, and Reeves, but I have not tried these. Each brand seems to have its quirks. I use a mix of Max, Cobra, and Duo paints.

(Full disclosure: I don’t work for any paint manufacturer and currently do not have any contract with any company to promote its paints.)

As you can see, there is more to explore with water-mixable paints, but they do offer a wealth of choices and opportunity for the artist of today. Perhaps in time these will be the new way to paint with oils, and we will scorn the old days when people painted with that awful toxic solvent!

Connect with Christine Lashley at christinelashley.com.


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54 COMMENTS

  1. Thanks for the helpful tips! I recently heard a podcast with the Gamblin folks who dismiss water-mixable oils and said that manufacturers have to remove pigment to add the component that makes them work. Curious if anyone has noticed a significant difference in pigment load vs. traditional oils.

    • Thank you for your comments. I’ll have to check out the podcast. It’s interesting that Gamblin seems to know about this, when most maufacturer’s are very proprietary of their recipe. When researching these paints for my article, I did speak with a person who worked for Grumbacher and he was involved with chemical lab anaysis and behind-the-scenes company studies of the paints for 20 years; and he said the water mixable paints were fully loaded with pigment. I’ve done some tinting swatches myself with French Ultramarine + white in water-mixables such as Duo, or Max vs. traditional paints such as Vasari and I have found the water-mixables to perform fine. I also visited the Smithsonian’s conservator’s lab to see a study on water-mixable vs traditional paints (Grumbacher) and the spectral analysis of pigment load (for naturally aged samples, artificially aged samples, and new samples) did not detect pigment differences in the samples. In fact, a few water-mixables were more strongly pigmented than the traditional oils. The theory was it might be the modified oil used in the paints. This study is not published yet with all of the data and is still in progress. In the Getty publication mentioned at the end of the article you can see that there are similar findings.

  2. I found that water- mixable oils take far longer to dry than regular oils. i did prefer lukas and grumbacher when I did use them. They seem to work better on panels than canvas

    Anne kiefaber

    • I wonder which brand caused you trouble? Early versions of Winsor Newton water-mixables often remained sticky to the touch, even when ‘fully dry’ after months. I think they have reformulated the paints currently sold. The brands I mention in the article are very reliable after almost two decades of me using them. Panels offer a great support – make sure they are not oil-primed as this does not seem to work as well.

      • I had the original W&N ones and experienced this. It’s taken about 20 years for me to try WMO’s again. This time Holbeing and Cobra. Much better experience, but still struggle with tackiness.

    • I too found that they dry verrrryyyyy slowly using Cobra. New to oils on a whole because of sensitivities to smell and solvents. The Gamblin quick dry gel seems to make them sticky for me. Frustrating if you like to use a multilayering technique. If one were to stay with them, liking to layer what would a reasonable dry time be for their use in plein air or studio?

      • I’ve never had the Cobra paints get sticky or not dry, so I’m not sure what the problem is. I have not played with the mediums (except the solvent-free gel, which is NOT water-mixable but allowed to mix freely with any oil paint up to 20%). I think with layering it’s best to use water at first, so your layers are thin. Try contacting a Cobra representative with your questions. I just met with Jeff Olson from Cobra and we had a very in-depth chat about the materials. I’m sure someone would be happy to address your concerns specific to your technique.

  3. I love seeing and reading articles on water mixable oils. I have an allergy to oils after using them for many years and now cannot be in studio workshops where students are using oil solvents. I have found Duo first and now introduced Cobra because of limiting colors. I have a few Max colors as well. I ageee that Cobra is creamy…it has more oils and when squeezed out of the tube the oil needs to be mixed into the pigment more than Duo or Max. For those I mix some water mixable linseed oil to get them creamer. A friend of mine got Smith and she is very happy with them. I highly recommend these products for artist who have reacted to solvents and want a safer product.

  4. Great article and comments. I have been experimenting with water-mixables for over 13 years now, and I agree with everything written in your article. For the past 3 years I have been painting exclusively with Cobra. It has taken me a while to get used to their color range (such as Madder Lake instead of Alizarin Crimson, etc.) but overall I am very pleased and “not tempted to go back” to traditional oils. I use water as my thinner, and sometimes a bit of the Cobra painting medium which is very nice. The clean up for both studio painting and Plein air is so easy–I think easier than with traditional oils and solvent. I use a small spray bottle like one would use with acrylics, and I use a glass mixing palette and its amazing how quickly it cleans up. I also freeze my paints over night between paining sessions and the paint lasts a lot longer. One thing I have noticed about WMs is that the pigment does not sink in your brush washer can like traditional oils do–it just stays suspended in the water. So I simply dispose of the water in my brush washer can after each session. For Plein air I carry bottled water for my “solvent.” Very convenient. I’ve also found it helpful to use a brush that is a bit stiffer and holds up with the use of water, such as the Silverbrush Bristlon, a very nice brush. And it helps to use brights especially in the beginning stages of the painting. I am very happy with the Cobras and couldn’t image going back.

    • After years of “experimenting” to find “good’ brushes, I have found that Princeton Aspen brushes work quite nicely with COBRA paints — far superior to the popular handmade English brushes that use a glue that does not stand up to water.

  5. Great article, Christine! I’ve been using water mixable oils exclusively for 22 years and they have really improved over that time. If I really need paintings to dry for a show I put them in a small space and run a dehumidifier. That dries them faster than a heater. I also freeze my palette over night. I like that the paints are hues rather than heavy metals such as cadmiums because I had a toxic load of heavy metals from applying composite silver and gold leaf which are made of aluminum and copper, etc., so I try to stay away from the more toxic paints.

  6. Thank you so much for this article. I tried wms when they first came out and never really learned to used them correctly. Can’t wait to try again ,especially since they have improved! You have inspired me! Thanks again.

  7. I read that paper in the reference. Although it is true that emulsions have been used for a very long time in the form of egg tempera, and that these have proved very archival indeed, that doesn’t say anything about WMOs, since the chemistry involved is completely different. The only thing in common is that water is added, but the water evaporates, it is what is left behind in the paint film that matters. Unlike OMS, the emulsifier does remain, and the paper mentioned that Artisan oils become tacky after a while (and remained so), possibly due to migration of surfactants to the film surface. It also says that Artisan was the softest paint film they tested – softer than their student grade oils, and unlike the latter did not continue to harden beyond the first year. After 2 years it was still softer than the artist grade oils were after just 4 months. This seems hardly a ringing endorsement. It was noticeable that even though they tested against artist oils and alkyds too, most of the comments compared them with the Winton student grade paints.
    Not all paintings need to last 500 years, of course, and I can definitely see the appeal for en plein air studies, but in general I’m staying away from them, after a brief flirtation with Duo several years ago, when I found them annoyingly tacky.

    • Thanks so much for your comments. It’s important to keep learning about the materials we use and being safer in the studio. I also still use traditional oils as I mentioned in the article several times, but am happy to be 100% solvent free with the addition of my water-mixable under-painting. The Getty study is many years old now and and I was part of the newer Smithsonian study that is still under review. I reference the Getty paper to show early research. Artisan has modified their pigment now as have other brands. Each brand has a unique way to make these paints, it’s not just one way. If you have found that you are fine with OMS I’m glad for you, but some of us chose to educate ourselves further. And remember the driest paint film is not necessarily the most archival… a paint film on firm surface (that does not expand and contract) and is painted fat-over-lean is the one that lasts the longest.

      • I have paintings that I have done with Artisan that are going on 20 years now and when I hear sticky and tacky I have zero experience with my own work being that way. Colors are still just as vibrant. Perhaps its just the way the paint is being applied by individual artists, idk I find oil becomes tacky when too much medium is used etc. I took an 8 year hiatus and just got back at painting last summer. Now I have some of the newer WN Artisan mixes you are talking about. But again I don’t notice any diff texture wise besides less smell maybe. Some of the older Artisan tubes have dried a bit over 10 years or more, but a little oil medium added gets them back to new. I used to do figurative work and now just nature stuff with a more loose brush work. But I have always used Utrecht mix synth and WN cotman water color for fine detail.

  8. I’m a beginner painter and took a workshop that provided us with WMOs. I’ve been painting for a year and recently varnished some of my regular oil paintings with Gamvar. I planned to varnish the 5 month old workshop painting as well but was surprised to find it still felt tacky. One of the things touted about WMs at the workshop was the faster drying time. If the tacky feeling never goes away, can/should I ever varnish this?

    • You can varnish it, yes, but 5 months sounds too soon. You can get away with that for alkyd (because much of the polymerisation of the fatty acids has already happened at the time of use for alkyds), but it is too soon for oils. When they say ‘dry quickly’ they don’t mean that it has finished polymerising, they mean that it has set enough so you can put a new layer of paint on top without lifting the lower layer. As the paper referenced shows, in fact, WMOs seem to take longer to cure than artist grade oils. The tackiness, according to the paper, was not that the paint hadn’t polymerised, but that the surfactants may have migrated to the surface. When I used them some years ago, I left it the normal time (10 months – 1 year) before varnishing. Oils cure not by evaporation, like water-based media, but by combining oxygen from the air into the matrix of fatty acids, cross-linking them. When you varnish you cut off access to the air.

    • Thank you for your reply… great blog post. It’s so important to keep furthering our education of materials. The web is a great resource for this. I just met with a Cobra representative and they are committed to continuing to improve the line (that is already excellent). Nice to hear!

  9. I paint extensively with palet knives. Any experiences or suggestions using palet knives with WMO’s.
    Thanks for a great discussion.

  10. Hello Christine. A very informative read on Water Soluble Oils. I SWITCHED and totally dig them! I use mostly Cobra as I enjoy the creamy feel. My Question is- Do you know if Traditional Oil Varnishes can be used to finish with or are they not compatible? Sprays and or Brush ons?

    • Hi Jeff, you can use traditional varnish. Remember these are oil paints. Varnish has it’s own issues however… most in-depth conservators and researchers of art materials such as George O’Hanlon and Virgil Elliot (they have a FB page on artist materials with threads you can search) state upfront that there is no perfect varnish, as they all will degrade with age. With that said, I use UV Krylon Archival spray. This can be removed if needed later and yellows less with age. Plus the UV filters it provides might be helpful if a clients places the art work in bright light.

  11. I’ve used Daniel Smith Water Soluble Oils for the past year or so and they work the best for me. They also make several water soluble mediums to use with the paint. When I paint in PleinAir I use the water soluble linseed oil for a medium but when I paint in the studio on a larger painting I block in I mix an emulsion of water and a small amount of water soluble linseed oil. As the painting progresses I add a little more water soluble linseed oil to the water and the final layer mostly water soluble linseed oil as the medium. When the painting is dry I varnish with Gamvar Satin varnish. Some of the Daniel Smith pigments are a little stiff but adding some medium solves that problem.

  12. Hi Christine. Thank you for the very helpful post. I understand that the brands use different technology to make oil paints water soluble. You mentioned that you use a variety of brands of WSOs. Do you use them all in the same painting or limit yourself to just one brand at a time? Can a water soluble linseed oil or painting medium made by one company (Holbein Duo for example) be used with other brands such as Grumbacher max or WN Artisan too?

    • Yes, from people I’ve talked to at the companies, technically all brands are intermixable. However, a note of caution: when I visited the Smithsonain’s conservation lab during the water-mixable study, the conservators I spoke to said it’s better to limit cross-media and mixing of things (including alkyd and traditional oils which most artists consider fine). I think in general conservators would suggest to stay within the brand and write what you use on the back panel. When they work on paintings in the future (nice to presume we will be collected by museums, right?) they said this was the best for conservators. Artists that experiment with mixed media are a nightmare for conservators. This was why they were doing the study… to learn more about how to conserve the water-mixable paints.

  13. I have gone whole hog into water mixable oils. I started back in the late 90’s and eventually gave away most of my traditional oils. I have read that Duo paints are non-toxic and that is a plus. I will admit it did take a bit of time to adjust to the paints as they are a bit different than traditional oils. Also, some brands work better for me than others. I found Winsor & Newton too stiff and sticky. I am not keen on the Linseed oil manufactured for these paints as it remain sticky on the canvas for a long time. There are, of course, the nay sayers who caution users of water mixable oils because they have yet to prove their archival strength since they are still new. I remind them that I’ve been in the art field more years than I care to admit and can remember when acrylics were the new kids on the block. In any case, I have converted many of my students to this medium and they are overjoyed with these paints.

    • Hi Carolyn, yes there are many people who dismiss the water mixable paints without doing any research. This is why I cited the Getty study and visited the Smithsonian conservation lab and talked to manufacture’s lab technicians about the water mixable paint and how it works. Just like traditional oils (or any media) there are ways to use it best for conservation purposes. Duo does have a non-toxic (cadmium and cobalt free) selection of hues, however, for those who like those pigments you can still buy them. Most brands will have heavy metal substitutions as these pigmented paints are more expensive. Do note that traditional oils that contain no heavy metals are non-toxic also, it’s painting with solvent that is the issue here. The solvent’s fumes create the problem of toxicity, especially in a closed-in studio.

  14. Thank you for the great article. I started with winsor newton paint, added some holbein paint for greens and other colors. I have also started using the Daniel Smith paint, and find it to be richer and a doesn’t seem to dry on a covered palette like the holbein paints do. I believe in the future I will be using more of that paint, because of the juicy value.

    Thank you!
    Dennis

  15. Thanks for your in-depth information.
    I’ve been using water mixable oils for well over a decade now and wonder why there aren’t more artist using them. I’ve used traditional oils in the beginning and, for myself, never really felt a considerable difference between the two. Other than the solvents.
    Thanks again

  16. Thanks for this in-depth article. I’ve never tried water mixable oils but I’ve been interested in them off and on. I have a good amount of money tied up in oils but it sounds like I can still use them. I do start losing my voice after I paint for some reason. It must be the fumes. So I wear a mask now. Not sure yet if it helps.
    I did read where you mention waiting quite a few months before varnishing a painting. But if you are working on a commission, how do you handle such a wait time with a client?
    I’m hoping to attend your workshop May 29.

  17. Hi Christine, Thank you for your info.
    I am a beginner and started with Winsor&Newton (cheapest), with linseed oil. I have problem to use all HUE colors – they don’t mix well with other colors, I can’t get right results. Besides that, it’s very sticky/ stiff. Another problem- I paint very slow, need time for remodelling. So, is it good idea to mix with Holbein, which dries faster, than Winsor? Or with other brands?
    Thank you, best regards, Alla.

  18. I did a few paintings with Daniel Smith water mixable oils and really liked them. Same colors as I remembered my traditional oils having. A bit frustrating to have it dry so fast. Recently I tried a walnut oil based range called M Graham and I do not like them at all. I got so frustrated! The colors just don’t seem vibrant at all, just OFF. Can’t seem to do my usual wet on wet technique with them either. Also using the walnut oil to clean the brushes does not work well at all. So I am done with those, what a waste of money. I will be purchasing more Daniel Smith and some that you have reccomended. Thanks!

  19. I didn’t remember commenting on this in 2017 until I saw my comment, but after reading everyone’s comments wanted to add that I have a few paintings painted with Artisan water mixable oils from 1998 still in my possession, and they’re just as I painted them. I have one 6’x3′ painting with a black background that has minute cracks in thin layers of black in one area. However, I usually varnish a couple weeks after dry, so it could be from that. Also, the paints have improved over the years. I wouldn’t say I’m allergic to gamsol anymore because it doesn’t bother me when my students and husband use it, but am still using water mixables. I found out that I had a lot of heavy metals from applying composite silver leaf made of aluminum, and I also had parasites in my liver. I recovered from my health issues by doing chelation, foot baths, green smoothies, juicing, eating vegan, Reading “Medical Medium”, and going to a chiropractor who does QNRT, Nuerolink, etc.

  20. I really enjoy this piece and hope you will update it with more brands as this keeps evolving. I am also curious how you paint without solvents when using traditional oil paints. Have you written about this?

  21. Thank you for the best article on this subject that I have read. As a retired paint chemist, now an aspiring oil painter, I think you were accurate without being overly technical. The only issue I have is that while these products seem fast drying to you, they seem painfully slow drying to me.

    When I paint with regular oils I often use alkyd white with Liquin as a medium and it’s usually tack-free overnight. With Cobra or Winsor Newton products, in our humid low country climate, it takes a week or more. I don’t bother to cover or refrigerate my glass pallette because the unused paints don’t skin over for days in my studio.

    I doubt that the surfactants which make these products water-miscible are good film formers in their own right. Not only are most surfactants perpetually oily or sticky, they create stable water-in-oil emulsions which trap water for some time.
    However, when you add a lot of water to the paint, as for an underpainting, the emulsion inverts to an oil-in-water emulsion. Then the water is in the continuous phase of the emulsion, and is free to evaporate rather quickly. Your advice to avoid using small amounts of water as a medium makes sense to me.

    If it wasn’t for the bad health effects of solvents, no one would bother learning to use these products. However, that’s reason enough for me to put in the effort.

  22. I love the Water Mixable oils. Less smell and Murphys Oil soap and water for clean up.
    However, there is one major thing not covered in the article. Water Mixable oils do not adhere to OIL PRIMED surfaces as strongly as regular oils will. I was looking in storage for a work I had done and found it but it had scratches on it. It was an oil primed panel probably a year old. Since it was damaged I took my thumb nail and attempted to replicate the scratches. Yep! I was able to very easily scratch the thinner paints.
    So, I used an oil primed panel and several tubes of all my selection of Water Mixable paints: I painted thin and thick swatches of Holbein Duo, Lukas Berlin, Daniel Smith and Cobra. I allowed them a month to dry. Sure enough, it was really easy to scratch the thin paint to the panel’s surface of all four manufacturers. Harder for the thicker paint as the paint layers were adhering to each other. Back to Gessoed panels.

  23. For those who simply must use traditional oils there is a substitute for Gamsol, etc. thinners.
    The Art Tree House sells a Biobased Artist thinner (Soy bean based) that seems to work quite well for thinning colors and cleaning brushes, all without an odor. Their description suggests, “A small amount improves paint flow and dispersion, leaving a solid paint film.” I rarely use traditional oils so I am still working on my first small bottle.
    Other manufacturers may have similar substitutes, I have not looked further.

  24. Uggghh…I’m new to wm oils and I used way too much wm lindseed oil on my first coat! Is it ever going to dry to go in and do the detail?? This will be to sell and ship as I’m opening an Etsy store late September?

  25. I have a bunch and really want to like them but I really struggle with the consistency. They get tacky really quick in our local dry hot temps and I can never get the right mix of water down. Still trying. It’s blending on the canvas and long thin I guess details. Still trying, perviously I used spike lavender, but weally want the water based paints to work. Holbeing and Cobra are the ones I’m using.

  26. I’ve only recently got into using WS oils and just love them. Many years ago I had tried traditional oils but gave up on them due to health issues with solvents. So for many years I resigned myself to doing watercolours only – not that watercolours are a lesser choice, but I wanted to have additional medium choices. I don’t like acrylics much as I find them too ‘stressful’, e.g. pondering over a painting while holding a wet brush results in paint dried on the brush! But I’ve found that judicious use of the WS oil mediums really does change the experience of WS paints. I think I’ve got just about every variation of WS mediums on the market and they all offer different utility – some are great for early stages of a painting, some for middle, some for late stages. I paint in layers, so I’ve found an understanding of how the mediums work really adds to the painting experience with WS oils.

  27. I know this is an old thread but here’s my 2 cents. You can clean brushes at the end of the day while painting with regular oils using soap and water, just like with WS. No solvents are needed for brush cleaning. The big difference is that with WS you can clean out brushes while you are painting with water. You don’t have to hold a bunch of brushes in your hand for different colors and values. In return you loose the ability to thinly block in using quick drying turpentine. You have to be careful about using water to thin a lot of the WS paints like it was turpentine. I don’t use WS thinners like Artisan because then that’s right back to using solvents. I just use acrylics for blocking in but I’m sure that everyone who uses WS paints has their own methods.
    Also now that European stores can’t ship Cobra paints to the U.S. they have gotten very expensive here- twice Jackson’s price in the UK.

  28. Coming late to this party but I’ve a query someone might help with. I use water mixables ( currently Cobra) because of health reactions to regular oils and their accompanying chemicals. I would dearly love to find the equivalent of Winsor and Newtons Artists Oil in Cobalt Turquoise Light in a water soluble. Its such an exquisite colour but hard to mix a clean equivalent. Or can I use that oil with my water mixables when I want that specific clean turquoise?

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