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September 23, 2018 at 5:39 pm #462419
I have just completed my first proper test of clove oil for extending oil paint drying time. Although I have used it for a few years I’ve never tested it out properly with different pigments.
For this test I mixed several of my core paints I use (cheap, low chroma, high opacity) with walnut oil until they took on a slippery quality. I then applied each mix to two separate sheets of PET-G with a W&N clear acrylic gesso ground.
Each sheet was stored in an A4 sided clear plastic folder and sealed (so probably not air tight, but not open to freely moving air). They were stored side by side in a dark (but not totally light free) house temperature environment. Each night I would open both boxes and test if the paint had dried by drawing down a vertical line with the use of a rubber shaper tool.
One sheet was left as it is, while the other had a cotton wool pad placed inside and two drops of clove oil were added to it each night. So no clove oil was added to the paint itself and the paints on each sheet came from the same mix. I then recorded once a day over a period of 14 days for each sample when they had touch dried.
The results were surprising.. and interesting. I didn’t expect to see much variation in drying times in the same pigment between brands. If anything I expected that the stiffer brands which had more walnut oil added might take longer to dry.
Instead I found the complete opposite! The stiffer paints seemed to not have their drying time extended very much at all by the clove. I am not sure if this is due to the the presence of driers, or waxs/aluminium stearate in the paint to add body. Or maybe it’s for another reason as yet unknown?
I though I would share the results as they might prove useful to others. Next I want to examine the difference with clove oil present in the actual paint, as well as not replenishing the clove oil drops each day.
Photo of the folders used and test surfaces:
[ATTACH]859815[/ATTACH]Final results, stopped after 14 days.
[ATTACH]859814[/ATTACH]September 23, 2018 at 8:50 pm #699468Thanks for posting your test results.
You don’t say how thick the strips of paint are. They look pretty thin but I can’t be sure from the photo. I use at least a half a teaspoon of clove oil in a small cup with some cotton in it inside my totally air tight palette box and the nuts of all colors except Burnt Umber stay wet a lot longer than your test. I am assuming that you used thin layers which would dry significantly faster than a thick nut.
I would like to see the same test but with a good sized nut of wet paint rather than what appears to be fairly thin strokes of paint.
September 23, 2018 at 9:14 pm #699476Thanks for doing this
I was wondering what would happen if you mix two pigment with different drying time like venetian red and yellow ochre (very usual mix) would it dry 8 day?September 23, 2018 at 11:19 pm #699463Thanks for the information Richard, this is the kind of stuff we seem to not have enough of on the forums recently. Admittedly, I have been lackluster at doing such tests and posting results, far too busy with production and skill building to concern myself with new materials like clove oil at the moment. Super interesting results though, and good testing method, practically applicable result information.
- Delo DelofashtSeptember 24, 2018 at 1:57 am #699464It was not a deliberate test, but I removed a sheet of palette paper with a variety of paints on it from my Guerrilla Box (it’s not air tight either) recently where it had been stored with a couple of cotton balls with a two or three drops of clove oil each on them. I set the palette paper with the oils still remaining on it aside, exposed to the air, and because I was busy with a lot of things, I only got back to it yesterday. I’d say it had been sitting out for about a week. I was very surprised to find that most of the paints were still wet, not even skinned over. I was thinking of posting a question here in the Tech forum about whether the paints might be compromised in some way. If just the vapors from the clove oil could have this effect, would there be other long term and potentially negative effects if these paints were used on a painting?
I know this is a little different than your original topic, Richard, but it seemed close enough for me to comment here without worrying about being OT. If not, let me know and I’ll start a new thread.
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September 24, 2018 at 4:23 am #699471Contumacious:
They are normal brush strokes, and on the same Gesso I would use on my painting surface. I paint wet-in-wet so I wanted to see how long they would stay open on a surface rather than thicker amounts on a palette. I seal my paintings in a box between sessions, and although the box would be bigger I thought the drying times might be only a little less compared to these tests.
Amirbkt2:
I suspect that you are right and that the drying time would be somewhere between the two.
AnniaA:
No problem with posting about your results here. That is very interesting too! From what I’ve read the vapours from clove oil might damage the skin of the paint surface a little, but barely penetrate so the rest of the paint is fine. This is opposed to mixing clove oil into the paint.
The differences between the iron oxide blacks shocked me the most.
September 24, 2018 at 4:55 am #699472I asked W&N if they could say which paints had driers in, but they replied back:
Hi Richard,
Thank you for your interest in W&N.
Unfortunately formulation information of this type is considered as proprietary and therefore we are unable to do so.
Kind Regards
Mark Cann
September 24, 2018 at 10:02 am #699466If it’s okay, I’ll add my bit:
Totally unscientific, in no way meant to be a scientific experiment, but possibly informative for some people anyway.
Full disclosure: I do not know what I’m doing.A year or so ago I made me a small collection of dabs of my standard paints into a small relatively tight closing container. Just enough paint for probably 1, maybe 2, 4×6″ paintings. I enjoy plein air, but simply cannot carry much stuff. In with the paint I added a bit of paper towel, maybe 1/2” square and a few drops of clove oil. I used it once, then placed it into a plastic zip type baggie, and stuck it into the freezer. I didn’t get back to it for a long time.
The paint generally stayed in usable condition for several months. But I keep my working palette in the freezer anyway, and most paint stays good for quite a while, depending on the size of the dab itself, and if it is a slow drier or not. ie, burnt umber will get hard overnight-I rarely leave any on the glass.
So maybe it wasn’t just the clove oil at work, but also the freezer and the air-tightness of the container, too…FWIW, the paint on my little palette was right out of the tubes, and what I would generally expect to use for landscape here in the desert: Cad yellow lt, yellow ochre, Cad red lt, aliz crimson, ultramarine and Prussian blues, ivory black, burnt sienna & umber, indian red, chrome oxide green, white. These dabs were about the size of 2 pencil tip erasers, so not large.
This little box in it’s baggie stayed in the freezer several months. I took it out a few weeks ago to use the paint if it was still usable. If I remember correctly, most of it was, and I did use it without problems. There were some with skins, I do not remember which. But the lumps were so small, and time in freezer was so long, I was surprised any of it was still in good condition. I did use it for a study, don’t know I’d use it anything more than a study.
I added the clove oil specifically to retard drying time for “shelf life”, not knowing how soon I would be able to get out.
September 24, 2018 at 12:08 pm #699473That’s interesting too. This is why I am doing these little experiments to try to isolate what variables have an effect on drying rates, and what don’t.
September 24, 2018 at 12:53 pm #699469Contumacious:
I seal my paintings in a box between sessions, and although the box would be bigger I thought the drying times might be only a little less compared to these tests.
The test makes more sense now. I didn’t catch the fact that you store your unfinished paintings in a container – I only read it as a palette storage test – Doh!
September 24, 2018 at 1:08 pm #699467My working palette, a piece of safety glass, gets stored in the freezer, with no cover, just glass and paint. I do not paint everyday, sometimes weeks go by, or recently, a couple of months. Again, somewhat dependent on the paint itself and/or the size of the nut, it can last for a long time. This last time, I did expect to have to scrape it all off, but didn’t. Some did get a skin. Other than titanium white –mine is terribly slow to dry–and Cad Yellow lt, I do not remember what was on the glass.
September 24, 2018 at 2:31 pm #699474I’ve not tried testing in a freezer, as I don’t have a spare one besides what we use for food.
September 24, 2018 at 7:37 pm #699465Useful info, thanks for sharing.
My palette gets left for days before Ive finished with it sometimes so this would be very useful for me.
My clove oil just arrived after a recent tip from Annie so I will try it out as soon as I get time to paint again.C&C appreciated!
https://enigmahorsehairjewellery.co.uk/September 25, 2018 at 3:29 pm #699470Storage the palette in the refrigerator in an air tight container with some clove oil on a cotton ball extends the open time quite a bit more than just clove oil alone. The same would possibly be true for a painting in progress, but finding the space for a stack of paintings could be problematic. Maybe a free or really cheap refrigerator or freezer off of Craig’s list to keep in the garage just for art?
For me, the freezer keeps the palette wet even longer than the refrigerator, but you do have to wait for it to thaw before use. Some day I may do a palette test in the refrigerator and freezer with and without clove oil just for fun.
September 25, 2018 at 3:41 pm #699475I’ve heard conservators say that very cold temperatures are not good for storing a painting in between sessions (as opposed to a palette). I don’t know how true that is though.
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