A good studio starts with good ventilation. Whether your studio is your living room couch or a huge loft, you need to have good air circulation. The air should be changed 10 times per hour. having an open window, with a fan blowing out, or an outtake fan pulling air out is the best way to work indoors. (working outdoors if you can, of course is only an improvement on this).
Most concerns with studio safety comes from solvents. This has lead to the belief that that oil paint is a toxic paint, and many people choose acrylics instead. This simply is an outdated misconception. The pigments used in creating paint are powdered and can be added to a binder to create paint. in the case of Watercolour paints, the binder is gum Arabic which is a tree sap, in Acrylic paints its a polymer, which is basically plastic, and in oil paint its linseed oil. Now lets for the sake of argument say you had a tube of each of these paints, with the same pigment. Which one would you rather (or your kids or pets) eat?
The one that you wouldn't want to eat is the plastic, I'm guessing.
So how is it that oil paints are more toxic? you cook with oil.
But when people start using solvents with their paint, this opens a whole new can of worms. you can wash acrylics with water, but oil paint needs turpentine right...? not necessarily.
On the 20th century the Odourless mineral spirits began becoming available for p
eople to use. Gamblins "Gamsol" is a 100% pure odourless mineral spirit.Turpentine Evaporates 5 times faster than OMS, so you can work around OMS longer without facing the affects that these chemicals have on the human body.
The other thing is, you can actually wash your oil brushes off, in more oil! That's right, wipe off your brushes then wash them off in vegetable oil. the vegetable oil will actually break down the linseed oil and get it off your brush with NO chemicals. I've heard many artists switch to this way of painting and have eliminated any solvents from their studios all together.
Now having said all that, Not all pigments are innocent. Cadmium's are pretty notorious for being a cancer causing pigment. Until recently though there were paints made from mercury and lead. Thank goodness most paint lines have stopped that, but you should always read the labels of your paint tubes. Most paint brands list the pigments used to create the colour, and you can find a pure pigment that way as well. Winson & Newton has a colour composition chart for their line of oil paints. I also stumbled on this neat Colour Index guide that looks pretty thorough, but my favourite resource is Handprint.com's Complete Palette.
So now that you know not all pigments are safe and innocent, what can you do? A lot! To protect your skin, don't use your hands to paint unless you wear gloves. That's why they make non toxic kids paints too by the way. Letting your children paint with artists paints is a very bad idea. Use a barrier cream when you paint. this stops anything from absorbing into your skin, and don't eat your paint :D .
To protect the environment, and your local water supply, never wash solvents, mineral spirits or pigments down any drains. Of course all places are different, but most places have water treatment plants that purify, and either recycle or dump it into the ocean. Some pigments are ground so finely that they can't be filtered out, so that ends up in our oceans, rivers, fish, sushi, tummies, and tumors. This also harms the wild life out there too, so beyond what you eat, we should be compassionate about the quality of life of other creatures as well. Humans do far more damage to the earth than we really should and we should take all steps we can to reduce that.
So having said that, what the heck do you do with your paint? There are many options. my very favourite is to use the Peel-Off Palettes. These are the best thing I've ever seen! when dry, acrylic paint peels right off, effort free, and the thin spots of paint can be picked up with the ball of paint as well, like an eraser. Oil paint can easily be wiped out, but I've also experimented with the peeling off aspect of them for oils as well! I found if i spread galkyd over the paint it acted like acrylics, and peeled right off. Solid paint in the garbage is way safer than liquids down the drain! Second to this option of disposable palettes. I don't like this, since it creates so much more garbage, but a lot of lazy or impatient people like them (grumble grumble). They are better than washing down the drain though. There is also the simple solution of using an airtight container to store your paint when not in use. then you never really throw out paint except in the solvent.
or water.
When you've got used paint solvent that you want to get rid of, there is a simple method you can do to reuse your solvent. You need 2-3 glass or metal jars with lids. When you paint, pour your dirty solvent/oms into a can, and let it settle. Once its settled, pour to clear oms off into a new jar. you can then reuse it until it no longer becomes clear. you can then throw out the sludge in your garbage, and take your OMS/Solvent to the recycle facility and recycle it with motor oils.
So there are some studio basics for your safety, and the safety of this ball of dirt we call home :)
Paint on :D
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