HOW TO MAKE OIL PAINT DRY FASTER

Oil paint notoriously takes a long time to dry. From six months to a year if not longer for thickly painted paintings to dry fully enough to be varnished. Over the years artists and paint manufacturers have created mediums and additives to speed up the “drying” or curing of the paint film. But what are the risks? And what would an artist who is following the traditional methods of the past painters do? Lets find out…

WHY OIL PAINT TAKES A WHILE TO DRY

Oil paint is a slow dryer or curer (correct term) due to:

1. Being in many layers of paint with varying thickness (Sometimes very thick)

2. The paint Pigment can have an effect on the speed of the paint drying

3. The way oil paint dries is through oxidisation and begins to cure as a reaction to air. Meaning it dries from the outside in and so will take a while to dry fully (Some paintings with thick layers will have uncured paint inside the outer cured layer)

HOW OIL PAINT DRIES FASTER

The answer is you can add a medium but also the temperature of the studio can also alter this.

Add Cobalt Siccative to your paint or use a medium that contains a dryer or create a medium with this added to it. (It is probably better to create a medium or buy a premixed medium with a dryer in it as the other ingredients in the medium can counter balance the effect of the dryer which can speed up drying but also over use can cause the paint film to become brittle and crack or flake later on)

Examples of Mediums:

C Roberson Cobalt Siccative - Cobalt naphtenate/white spirit. Low odour dilutant alternative, to be added sparingly to oil colours to accelerate drying

C Roberson White Siccative - A strontium-based siccative, milder than cobalt driers. Add sparingly to oil colours to accelerate drying, particularly recommended for pale colours.

Please Note: There are brands that do mixed mediums with this in it. Michael Harding and C Roberson have Glaze mediums with it in it. However glaze mediums are usually used in the later stages of paintings (from my understanding ) so the other option is to look into making other mediums or research mediums from other brands.

I personally am making the switch to brand products that stay in the lane of traditional painting supplies that do not use alkyd resin in their mediums and/or paints. So I would not know what else to utilise as alternatives as a pre mixed medium to be more traditional as an oil painter.

MY TRADITIONAL OIL PAINTING THEORY

Traditional painting is probably more about letting the paint dry in its own time which goes against the current quick fast mentality however quick fast doesn’t last in my opinion. So it really depends on how you look at oil painting and what you need from it. 6 months to a year is a long time to wait for a painting to dry to varnish. While waiting about a week or more to be able to paint again in the same area without interfering or smudging the paint can be problematic. However it does open up the ability to paint more than one painting at a time.

If you are someone looking to stay in the traditional old masters realms of oil painting always check the ingredients of the mediums and products you want to use. You may have to compromise on somethings . Gessos and primers for example are leaning to being more acrylic resin based so research is needed to find the one that would suit your needs and again it is worth researching the brand and what they say about their products. And always read the Safety Data Sheets!