Why you should Stop Using Linseed Oil for Painting and Transition to Walnut Oil | David Molesky

David Molesky is a figurative painter who stopped using linseed oil to avoid the toxicity of solvents. He lays the case for walnut oil as a viable - and perhaps even better - alternative.
👉TUNE IN: 28th of July at 2pm Eastern Time, David will do a live demonstration of the walnut oil technique via School of Apelles on Telegram for all our members there.
Learn how you can become a member of the group chat on Telegram:
/ 52426345
Topics discussed in this episode:
• The advantages of painting with Walnut oil
• How to paint "fat over lean" without turpentine
• Using chalk in the different layers of paint
• Using a palette (range of colors) that is more lean in itself
• Painting wet-in-wet without turpentine
• The problems of different varnishes and how people varnish
• How to varnish properly
• Defatting your canvas if it has been standing for a while
• How to size your canvas properly
▶ Full video (1 hour 4 minutes): / caveofapelles
🎵 Full audio: caveofapelles....
This episode was filmed and edited by Bork Nerdrum.
The centerpiece was a "Man in the Forrest" (2007) by David Molesky.
SHOUTOUT to our TOP SPONSORS!
Fergus Ryan
Shaun Roberts
Matthias Proy
Eivind Josten
Børge Moe
Dean Anthony
Alastair Blain
Anders Berge Christensen
Erik Lasky
Iver Ukkestad
Jack Entz Warner
Jared Fountain
Jon Harald Aspheim
Marion Bu-Pedersen
Maurice Robbins
Misty DeLaine
Richard Barrett
Stacey Evangelista
Trym Jordahl
Yngve Hellan
Would you like to get premium access? Become a patron:
/ caveofapelles
Subscribe to our newsletter. It is the only way to make sure that you receive content from us on a regular basis:
bit.ly/2L8qCNn
Check out our other channels:
/ schoolofapelles
/ culturewarsnow
Podcast available on SoundCloud, iTunes, and Spotify:
/ caveofapelles
spoti.fi/2AVDkcT
apple.co/2QAcXD6
Visit our facebook page:
/ caveofapelles
Rumble:
rumble.com/use...
For inquiries - [e-mail]

[@jparks6544]

This is a PERFECT example of artists trying to talk and understand science and FAILING so miserably. It's absolutely painful to listen to that interviewer. No clue about chemistry what so ever.

[@sebastiansahlin4472]

So do you have any better sources that you recommend?

[@jparks6544]

@@sebastiansahlin4472 Not this video.

[@hurdellift]

Your comment is a PERFECT example of a non-artist trying to understand what the artists are talking about and FAILING so miserably. It was absolutely painful to read your comment. No clue about alchemy what so ever.

[@metanoia1022]

I had a feeling too haha. Let’s forget this video

[@vanessamichel9382]

​@@sebastiansahlin4472 yes look natural pigment channel. A good book is also The new oil painting. You want someone who can explain with fact not with assomption. You can use linseed oil without solvent just fine.

[@jennybohner3144]

Linseed isn't toxic. I prefer the slipperiness of walnut oil but it forms a much weaker film than linseed, so I go for linseed. Odourless mineral spirits is a solvent and therefore hazardous, and even more dangerous because you don't realize how much you're breathing. I became hypersensitized to solvent over ten years even though I used it for only a couple of hours a week. Haven't been able to use it for twenty years now.

[@e.g.1218]

What do you do for your underlayers? Just thin layer of pure paint?

[@jennybohner3144]

@@e.g.1218 Hi! I use a stiffer brush to spread the paint around and a small amount of linseed for the first part of the painting. I try to work alla prima and in warmer weather because heat helps the paint to flow (It's so annoying when you can't use sovents. They work better than anything else, but gotta look after my lungs........oh well.)

[@MissRayneNerdiiChicK]

@@jennybohner3144 I'm trying to start oil painting(am an acrylic user) and I refuse to use toxic materials. This is super confusing. I was wondering, in your opinion, is it okay to just use oil paint and linseed oil to paint?

[@LanaMariee]

How do you dispose of your rags covered in linseed? I’ve heard of self combustion and it turns me away from it

[@jennybohner3144]

@@LanaMariee I dont use much and all of it goes into the paint film. I googled disposal and it appears you can dry the rags out before disposing of them if you use a lot of oil. Perhaps you could use safflower instead? It may be safer.

[@megana.3979]

When you look up “linseed oil toxic” everything says “not toxic” so maybe just stop using turpentine? Only use the linseed oil

[@xaderp]

Sun-thickened linseed oil, you can just put linseed oil in a cast metal pot. The metal makes the linseed oil thicken faster. Traditionally it would have been a lead pot. Put it in direct sunlight, stir once a week until it becomes thick as honey. Then use it to make Tempera Grassa. It can be thinned after adding the pigments by eggwhite and spittle. Clean brushes with shampoo for head flakes, no more need for turpentine, much faster drying then walnut oil, buttery texture.

[@ossi2635]

Sennelier green for oil is also a good way to use oil colors savely.

[@z1522]

Just in the brief years during art school, I'd noticed my eyes becoming sensitized to turpentine fumes, a very common issue. Basic mineral spirits is an adequate brush cleaner, but terrible thinner for paint, as it turns it to mud, totally unlike turp. Nowadays, I believe advances in turp substitutes have solved that problem, and beyond, modern alkyd mediums like Liquin, perhaps combined with so-called "water-soluble" paints, make a range of techniques analogous to old methods far easier, with controllable curing times, glazing, gel thickeners, lead free and lower cadmium pigments leading to even more versatility in applications while being safer as well. Learning to use new materials should not be a hindrance, but facilitator, to greater freedom in the long run, whereas perpetuating the conceits around "Old Masters secret" methods and materials limits artists. My forty plus year old Liquin canvases are still flexible, have not yellowed, whereas various "student grade" whites using alternative oils have severely yellowed where I substituted. Modern materials can work as well or better than the old stuff, more safely, and artists have no reason to become garage chemists, cooking, grinding, mixing blends that may end up more dangerous, and with dubious permanence or longevity, for the sake of being a precious poser, mistaking the tools for the quality of the finished works. No one really cares that your trite, lifeless portrait or still life used home-distilled exotic nut oils. Get over yourselves.

[@notthestrawman3005]

wood turpentine and gum spirits of turpentine( distillate of evergreen sap) are two different materials. The former is quite toxic and very strong smelling, the later can be used as medicine in small doses and smells much different. probably not economical as a painting solvent though. Just putting that out there.

[@vegasastras9194]

Why can't you mix all those oils and use the mixture as a medium instead if using one of them? Surely the mixture will have all the advantages of each one separately.

[@ombeth]

Do you guys realize that nearly all tubed oil paint on the market is made with linseed oil? So are you suggesting that we stop buying tubed oil paint and start making our own using walnut oil as a base? Because otherwise you are still using linseed oil when you mix your paint with walnut oil medium. And the ratios vary slightly as you paint, so wouldn't it still be prone to cracking? The logic being putting forth in this video doesn't really make sense.

[@simonsafos2089]

I think the argument was focused on the uniform quality in which walnut oil dries rather than paint cracking but yes, I was also like huh?? In other videos he does in fact batch his own chalk ground with a bit of pigment in it using walnut oil but it's unlikely that anyone makes all of their tubes of paint lol. Some companies make walnut based tubes which is a cool for its non yellowing qualities. To account for its slower drying time, using alkyds mixed with walnut oil as a medium could also work but I'm still experimenting.

[@chrisgriffith1573]

Williamsburg paints are walnut oil, and so are Blue Ridge Oil. There's two off the top of my head.

[@AcridMonkeysphere]

M. Graham oil paints are almost all walnut oil based.

[@romulusbuta9318]

@@AcridMonkeysphere I wanted to say this....but you did it before me 😊

[@Lalupin464]

@@chrisgriffith1573williamsburg uses linseed, and they also have a separate line of colors ground in safflower. Blueridge primarily uses a linseed-walnut blend.

[@victorkreig6089]

The Cave never disappoints

[@GnaReffotsirk]

It's not how long you heat the oil, it's the number of times it is heated and cooled.

[@neirinski]

Linseed oil releases VOCs while curing or “drying”. Every modern oil painting medium contains some type of petroleum based solvent or alkyd, both of which release VOCs while in use and while “drying”. There is no none toxic oil painting, just levels of sensitiveness that each painter ends up with.

[@kopiec6565]

Something releasing VOC doesn't automatically mean "toxic", for something to be toxic there has to be harm and you can even eat linseed oil with no harm done so no, its not toxic. With regards to mediums where oil is mixed with solvents or alkyds then thats a different conversation but linseed oil itself is not toxic

[@GeoffBeggs]

Linseed oil does not release VOCs while drying (oxidising). Some mediums do, but you don’t have to use a medium at all.

[@dead_lantern_gamer]

Why you should stop using Turpintine and use Odorless Mineral Spirits for clean up and start researching oils

[@beanstaIkjack]

Odourless mineral spirits are for people who aren't very bright.

[@robertchilders8698]

l had to guit using Terpentine because California outlawed it !! Now I have to use a much more toxic replacement! Miss my old , natural turpentine!

[@dead_lantern_gamer]

@@robertchilders8698 Gamasol? Odorless Mineral Spirits? Californian as well....I just don't like how I can't get a gallon of it, I have to keep going back and getting tiny bottles, thanks alot EPA.

[@zein9227]

David Molesky seems to confuse a lot of information here and doesn't really know what he is talking about when he talks about the chemistry behind the drying oils and solvents. He is talking about the toxicity of turpentine. Turpentine is one of the worst solvents for oil painting and very outdated. If it's not very purified high grade turp, it can weaken the paint film and is highly toxic. It wipes the slate clean on your brain. Generally speaking, you should never use it. Odourless mineral spirits and other white spirits are toxic, too, you just don't smell them so much. Unless you have a very good ventilated studio, you shouldn't use a lot of solvents, anyway. A very good, non-toxic alternative is spike oil which is actually a solvent even though it's an oil. It smells very strong but there are no carcinogens in it. Another alternative is safflower oil with alkyd resins like in Gamblins solvent free gel. You could also temper your oil paint with a tiny amount of punic wax which saponifies the oil a little bit and makes it water soluble for cleaning. It's technically becomes a wax oil tempera. The same is possible with carboxymethyl cellulose which creates a tempered oil paint that is water soluable.

[@Heronjim]

I don't use linseed oil because turpentine is bad for you but I still use linseed oil 🙄

[@chrisgriffith1573]

SO -you use it but you don't? Ok... ?

[@oink8520]

does linseed oil have turpentine in it though? i have just purchased a bottle of linseed oil and im not sure if its toxic or not :(

[@CatherineMellon]

It does not have turpentine in it.

[@Heronjim]

@@oink8520 No

[@KoshNaranick]

so what books did he reccommend?

[@charlesreidy2765]

Do you have to use a paint brand that has a walnut oil base, like M. Graham? I like their paint, but most of my paint is other brands.

[@johnbloom1109]

Walnut oil takes a lot longer to dry. The fact that linseed oil dries on the surface first is an advantage in my opinion. It means less dust, hair, etc, on the surface of the painting while it dries. Walnut oil is also a lot more expensive and does not produce as strong of a film as linseed. There's no real evidence that the old masters used solvent and lean to fat is out dated in my opinion. I've never heard of an oil painting cracking because the layer below it contained more oil. Sure, if you try to paint raw umber over impasto made using Quin Red you might get cracking but in normal conditions I don't see how a painting will crack from using more oil since linseed, when dry, is very flexible.

[@2magma.command]

Does walnut oil have less odor than linseed oil?

[@BeatriceTheSenegal]

Yes, less smell with walnut.

[@mariocinquemani3134]

That dark varnish Apelles used, had LEAD probably

[@Kyle-j7h]

I’m allergic to walnuts

[@zioko4588]

I have normal students grade oil paints. They have propably linseed oil in them inside. Can I use them with the walnut oil as medium?

[@Jacobis90]

Do not use them at all. Buy artists grade, hell steal them if you can

[@Jacobis90]

Do not use them at all. Buy artists grade, hell steal them if you can

[@GeoffBeggs]

There is nothing dangerous about linseed oil. You can use either linseed or walnut oil as a medium - or try not using a medium at all.

[@geohabilis]

I completely stopped using solvents after reading Tad Surgeon's book ''living craft'' : trying it.

[@kitcat123ful]

theres differnt kinds of linseed oil. I use cold pressed raw linseed oil thats completely nontoxic and just like walnut oil...

[@ltwig476]

I use both cold pressed linseed and refined walnut. They are different. When I know I'm coming back to work wet in wet I use walnut. When I'm covering over something that will take additional coats I use faster drying linseed. I can carefully paint over linseed later the same day, it's tacky. No way for walnut. I even mix separate tubes, one walnut the other linseed and there is so many other things to consider. When I started mixing my own paint I learned a lot more. Pigments themselves dry or set faster. Under a microscope they can be more granular vs glass like flakes. There is much higher oil separation with different pigments. This is why paint manufacturers use only cold press linseed in their studio grade to keep from adding other binders. All in all Grumbacher does the best at keeping unnecessary fillers out of middle grades. But different manufacture's colors vary so much you shouldn't get stuck on one brand. I advise trying many brands and a bit of high end Old Holland or Michal Harding before learning to mix your own paint, for a better understanding of what you really want a paint to do. Researching all the alchemy behind artist oils and mediums is much a waste. It's better time spent trying out and noting which mediums work better with which pigments. Then there is the style of paintings that you are doing at a certain time period. I typically have an impressionist landscape going and a figurative abstract at the same time. I commonly use 2/3 palette knife 1/3 brush strokes. I need a lot of flexibility of texture and paint flow.

[@GeoffBeggs]

This is poor advice. There is nothing toxic about linseed oil. There is something toxic about turpentine. The video is basically: “I found that looking at flowers and rinsing my mouth with bleach caused severe mouth ulcers, so I stopped looking at flowers”.

[@JoseColin-f3o]

What? ... ... ... I'm more confused now😖...then again, it may just be me😏

[@30yearsoldiam1]

Very uninformed…these two

[@romulusbuta9318]

👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏

[@drewliedtke3415]

The best medium to use is poppy oil. It doesn't yellow over time like linseed and other oils. This is why most old paintings have yellowed over time; they used linseed.

[@beanstaIkjack]

Poppy oil dries brittle and cracks

[@johnbloom1109]

Or it could be the lead white that they used. Or the fact that most old paintings are not exposed to enough sunlight.

[@ashflowers8016]

@@beanstaIkjack i think the cracking depends on if your using it correctly.

[@beanstaIkjack]

@@ashflowers8016 It depends on the surface you are working on... If you are painting on wood or hardboard then its fine to use but since it dries brittle I would avoid using it on canvas.. but you can do what you want!

[@robertchilders8698]

That's good to know! How about Saff flower oil?

[@BrianReplies]

Just use lavender spike oil instead of turpentine and the problem is solved without all this shenanigans.