Oil painting medium question

[Sheika L.]

Hi, I hope this isn't a silly question.

I've only very recently started using oil paint, within the last 4 months, to be exact. My painting instructor taught us how to mix our own medium using stand oil, distilled turpentine and cobalt drier. I've become very used to this but it can be expensive and a pain to mix.

I'm wondering if there are pre-made mediums that can be bought and if these are as good or better?

[Msegal]

Yes

I've always bought Linseed oil

[papervampire]

linseed oil or gamsol are popular choices.

I use a 50/50 medium of linseed oil with distilled turpentine, just mix a couple drops into the paint when you're mixing.

[Elwell]

Hi, I hope this isn't a silly question.

I've only very recently started using oil paint, within the last 4 months, to be exact. My painting instructor taught us how to mix our own medium using stand oil, distilled turpentine and cobalt drier. I've become very used to this but it can be expensive and a pain to mix.

I'm wondering if there are pre-made mediums that can be bought and if these are as good or better?
Any pre-mixed mediums you buy will probably be, ounce-for-ounce, more expensive that something you make yourself. The reasons for buying premade mediums, of which there are multitudes, would be convenience or because they can't be homemade (alkyds or copals, for instance), not cost.

[Si_Swe]

Really there are a lot of very cheap and non-toxic methods for cleaning brushes and watering down paint. I clean my brushes with plain vegetable oil and a cloth. Cheap, non-toxic and it works quite well. Linseed oil works perfectly well for water paint down if you can deal with the amount of time it takes to dry.

I paint in a mostly gestural and abstract manner, so if you're trying to realistically render, the way I work may be a bit too loose or sloppy for you. But I highly recommend starting to clean your brushes with vegetable oil.

[Chris Saksida]

I used lots of mediums, and ended up using good ol' linseed oil, it's cheap and works nicely, I love it.

[QueenGwenevere]

You don't really need to thin your paint at all, unless you prefer a thinner consistency. I usually prefer a thicker consistency, so I use the stuff just as it is out of the tube. If I need to thin it, plain old linseed oil works fine, and I can get big cans of it cheap at the hardware store.

(Be warned cobalt drier is toxic as all heck...)

[Sheika L.]

Thanks everyone. I didn't know you could just use linseed oil, I assumed it needed turpentine to thin it.

Si Swe - You're right, I use a medium for when I do more figurative and an attempt at realistic painting. It's too thick out of the tube for me unless I'm doing a looser more abstracted piece.

[dbclemons]

There are several commercial mediums on the market that include driers in them, usually labeled as "painting mediums." Depending on how you want to paint, you can discover that no medium or turpentine is necessary. Adding oil will not thin paint; just the opposite.

Start now reading all you can about oil painting, especially the principle of "fat over lean." Oils can be as simple or as complicated as you want it to be. Hopefully you have an instructor who can help you understand it all.