Hello!
I’m planning on mixing my own oil paints in my studio without the use of additives. I have prepared a fair amount of research about the tools that I need and the measures I need to take, but my only concern is mixing toxic pigments.
I am completely fine with handling toxic substances, but I have a family who I would prefer not to be exposed to any of them. I do not know if lead white is a heavy or light pigment, or if the pigment simply goes into the air at the mere motion of spooning it onto a mixing palette.
If for some reason I cannot grind toxic pigments because of health concerns, I was wondering if I could purchase some lead white without additives. Even though the pigment would separate from the oil over time, I thought that I could just mull the color together with the separated oil for it to be usable again. I have also heard about painters somehow grinding the pigment into water, and then into oil, but I do not know where to find the sources to learn more about this.
To anyone who answers this: thank you so much! I have many technical questions to ask, but I do not know how frequently one should post on these forums. I hope somebody can help me with going about with this.
Hello there,
First is, I’d advise you to reconsider. I cannot see how it’s worth it.
What is a good justification to use lead white pigments in oil today? In stability, lead carbonates will be reactive. There are safer ways not more costly to make a souple ground and semi opaque to opaque whites with good drying. I think it’s an antiquated pigment that should remain with historians. Artists can still achieve everything they would want to achieve using more common modern pigments, they don’t need to go that route.
Depending on where you buy it and how it’s treated, and how you handle it, its lead availability will vary. Each time you will touch powder and colour, will be like smoking a cigarette and rolling a dice. Hopefully you’ll be fine, but you might be unlucky. And you will contaminate waters a little bit.
That said,
Lead white is a very heavy pigment. It won’t fly around like an organic pigment.
But like every dust, it will stick about everywhere. Mixed and saponified with oil, it will also wash everywhere.
So you would need to have dedicated tools, gloves, and washing station. All your tooling handling lead should be marked and stored separately for lead handling.
Like washing brushes, keep your pots and buckets separate and to settle. Please, never wash lead contaminated water down the drain. Depending where you live, recycling centers might care or not about lead contaminated materials, so all used gloves, aprons and rubbish you bring them might end up contributing to water pollution anyway.
I’m not aware of processes to wet pigments first in water and then in oil when making colours. Pigment can be washed from impurities and then dried in manufacture, but that’s something else.
I hope this helps a bit. Work safely.
@lussh Thanks for the response!
I choose to use lead white because I’m aiming to capture certain visual effects within my artworks. Titanium white and zinc white are not a part of that vision, so I cannot include them within my painting process. Though thanks for the concern; I already weighed the pros and cons of all three of the pigments.
I already have my studio separated by what tools are used for lead-based items. I currently paint with commercial lead white, so I already take certain precautions to mitigate any health concerns with handling the pant. I do not wash any toxic pigments or substances down the drain, but I solidify any solvents or oils with some cat litter. Then, I dispose of it. The center that I dispose my toxic items at informed me that they were okay with me doing this.
Though I have a few questions about some of the statements you said:
1) What do you mean by organic pigments “flying around” everywhere? I’m actually planning on grinding some quinacridone magenta and pthalo blue paints, and although they’re not toxic, I didn’t know that they could be particularly light. How does one handle very light pigments? If it’s quite cumbersome to handle them, I’ll probably only get safer organic pigments to reduce the headache.
2) What do you mean by pigment dust having a tendency to stick everywhere? Does pigment dust behave similarly to charcoal or graphite dust, where you just need to wipe the dust off of the surface? I believe chalk pastels could be another good comparison, but I’ve never used pastels, so I don’t know if the behavior of the dry pigment could similar to the medium.
3) What do you mean by “(The lead white) mixed and saponified with oil, it will also wash everywhere.”? I’m having a difficult time understanding what you mean by that statement.
4) Is there an increased importance of having my solvents and oils settle down when they are imbrued with toxic pigments? I already do that currently for the purposes of changing out old solvent for new solvent, but I do not know if I am missing something from that statement.
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