It’s time to get serious, dull sometimes, I know, but this is about your health & having a practice long term that makes you & your family's well being a priority. It is also about our environment. Acrylic is made of plastic & to the best of my knowledge, cannot be removed by water treatment facilities. Take a guess where that ends up...
STEP ONE – CHECK PAINT COLOURS FOR HEAVY METALS
REMOVE heavy metal-based pigments and the paints that contain them: Here is what to look for, Cadmium red and yellow, lead white, cobalt blue and green, manganese and other heavy metal pigments or paints which can be easily replaced with similar non-toxic hues. Cadmium is a CARCINOGEN and can lead to serious health issues & lead is a NEUROTOXIN. Please read that again. An alternative option is to switch to natural, heavy-metal-free pigments and by mixing your own paints you avoid all the heavy metals, fillers, solvents, preservatives, toxic driers, and additives while ending up with pure, archival, and radiant paint, which will last for a thousand years in a glass jar and not fade or degrade. Like what the old masters used to paint with, but minus the toxic content, which may have given them an early death.
STEP TWO – REMOVE MINERAL SPIRITS, SOLVENTS & PAINT THINNERS
This is super important for oil painters. Any solvent or mineral spirit that you see that says “Odourless”, does not mean that it’s less toxic at all, it only means it has less odour. Talk with professional artists that have decades of experience and they will tell you the effects it has had with long term use on their health. I recently met a print maker in her 60’s with permanently stained hands, major health issues & head aches. She can no longer paint or handle traditional oil paints.
Here’s why .. paint thinners evaporate into the air, you then inhale and absorb the off-gassing chemicals, including benzene. Benzene is an odourless carcinogen & can damage your health including causing cancer. You absorb it through your nose, skin, and eyes and it goes directly into your bloodstream. Wearing a mask will not protect you. When benzene gets into your bloodstream and bone marrow (where you make your blood) your white count lowers and that’s where the serious problems start.
Alternatives are to use a natural seed oil for cleaning or painting with, in combination with natural pigments. Sunflower oil can be used to clean brushes, extracting it first with a rag, before using soap & water. Linseed oil can be used to paint with natural pigments. There are also eco solvents now available too which are non toxic & plant based, they can be used to thin paint and clean brushes as well. I have noticed that on hot days even the smell of an eco solvent can be strong, so I still recommend to always ventilate. You can also recycle eco solvent in a sealed glass jar and let the pigment settle to the bottom. Then you can pour the liquid off the top and reuse it to clean brushes.
STEP THREE – REMOVE ACRYLIC PAINT
This can be a challenging one for many artists, I get it, I once used them too, they dry quickly and are ready to go. BUT please hear me out ….
Acrylic paints are petroleum-based & contain many carcinogenic additives. The additives off-gas (VOC’s) and are breathed into the lungs as the paint dries, and also enter the bloodstream if they get onto your skin. You could wear gloves, but you are still inhaling it.
They are made with plastic chemicals which enter our waterways & create microplastics when washed down the drain, this has an impact on our environment & our ecosystems. Scientists are even finding micro plastics in our brain tissue & placenta’s of unborn babies. It’s time to get rid of it, if you have a plastic chopping board in your kitchen put it in the bin, because every time you use a sharp knife and leave cut marks on it, ask yourself, where did that plastic go …
An alternative is to make your own acrylic paint, and before you say I don’t have enough time, it is actually super quick to make. Find a non toxic medium, (preferably without plastic in it), I use a dollop of a plant based medium and a teaspoon of pigment and mix with a palette knife. It takes one minute and I rarely use a glass muller, only if I need to mix a larger patch of paint.
If you are wanting to use up what you have first or to save costs, a good way to do it is to introduce a product, one at a time. You can blend pigment oils with traditional oils, or pigment plant based acrylic with traditional acrylics.
The long term savings for having a natural pigment based practice are huge. Once you have bought the pigment colours you like, eg 15 of them (they are cheaper than ready to go paints) you now have the core ingredients to make a large array of different mediums. You can turn them into the following mediums by only purchasing a few ingredients for it, there is no need to buy all 15 colours in all the different mediums. You can make oil paints, plant based acrylic paints, water colours, printing inks, gouache, tempera, oil pastels, crayons, encaustic, wood stains, casein paint, glair paint, modelling clay, mural and house clay paint and drawing ink. And by only making what you need it wont go off.
STEP FOUR – VARNISHING REQUIRES A MASK
All artist and woodworking varnishes contain either toxic solvents or petrochemicals that off-gas VOCs as they dry causing a variety of health problems Even “Zero VOC” varnishes will contain acrylic polymer, which is a type of plastic. It can cause the same health problems as solvents, see above in step two. What is the alternative – plant based and solvent FREEEE varnishes.
STEP FIVE – NOOOO GESSO AS WELL
(This one is trickier as canvas’s mostly come preprimed)
Acrylic gesso, the most commonly used artist primer, is similar to acrylic paint in that it’s made with a petroleum-based resin and also contains a variety of carcinogenic additives including ammonia and formaldehyde as preservatives. Formaldehyde!! It off-gasses these fumes and also enters the bloodstream if on the skin.
You can replace it with traditional Gesso – the same recipe from the Renaissance except instead of rabbit skin glue you can use a plant fibre glue, with methyl cellulose.
Artist sacrifice a lot already for their practice, the last thing I want for any artist is to endure adverse side affects and major health issues because of their love to make & create. You were given a gift from the powers at be, and I don’t believe this was meant to harm you or your environment. I would like you to ask yourself, does this feel right, does this feel natural and let you inner guides respond.
Holly xo
