Question about ventilation

[AbstractArt99]

Hi there,

I'm wondering how long does it take for the solvents in a painting to evaporate. If i hung a wet painting on my living room wall to dry will this cause a problem in terms of toxicity building up in my house? Do wet paintings need to be kept in a ventilted/uninhabited area until they are dry?

I read somwhere that solvents evaporate quite rapidly, like within 30 mins or something, but as i use OMS it is hard to tell by smell alone so I''m not sure whether to trust this information.

[dirtysteev]

Hard to answer your question about hanging your painting to dry. What size painting? What ratio OMS? Obviously one should err on the side of caution. If you have to question weather or not to ventilate than the answer is yes, ventilate. 'Oderless' does not mean safe to breathe, there are still harmful vapors evaporating into your living space. And remember a single fan in an open window isn't really ventilation, you really want fresh air coming in and bad air going out.

[DaveGhmn]

Seconding dirtysteev's suggestions. It's Fall in Oz, no? Is it feasible to keep windows open 24 hours for a couple days? (Here in New England, it's Spring, but open windows at night would not be very feasible).

[Red 9]

One night with windows open should be fine. I usually close mine a few hours after a painting session, but it wouldn't hurt to leave them open longer.

[AbstractArt99]

Thanks for the answers guys. I think I might leave them in the studio overnight and then bring them inside to finish drying.

[Ron Francis]

Originally Posted by AbstractArt99

Thanks for the answers guys. I think I might leave them in the studio overnight and then bring them inside to finish drying.

That was what I was going to suggest, 24 hours should be pretty safe.
The thickness of your paint will be a factor as well, but really I haven't seen any data about how long it takes for solvents to evaporate from paint.

[sidbledsoe]

Originally Posted by AbstractArt99

Hi there,

I'm wondering how long does it take for the solvents in a painting to evaporate. If i hung a wet painting on my living room wall to dry will this cause a problem in terms of toxicity building up in my house? Do wet paintings need to be kept in a ventilted/uninhabited area until they are dry?

I read somwhere that solvents evaporate quite rapidly, like within 30 mins or something, but as i use OMS it is hard to tell by smell alone so I''m not sure whether to trust this information.

I have not tested the evaporation rates in a painting, however I have tested three solvents by themselves, right out of the bottle. I tested turpentine (both artists and hardware store brand), Odorless mineral spirits (hardware brand), and sansador (artists low odor thinner). I let equal volumes in equal surface area and at the same temperature, dry and then weighed them for residue and just observed the drying rates. Of course turpentine went the fastest, OMS was much slower, maybe two or three times, and the artists low odor thinner was at least two times slower than the OMS.
Anyway the point is, it depends upon a number of factors, the type of solvent, the amount of solvent used, temperature, and paint thickness, etc.

[sidbledsoe]

Originally Posted by AbstractArt99

Hi there,

I'm wondering how long does it take for the solvents in a painting to evaporate. If i hung a wet painting on my living room wall to dry will this cause a problem in terms of toxicity building up in my house? Do wet paintings need to be kept in a ventilted/uninhabited area until they are dry?

I read somwhere that solvents evaporate quite rapidly, like within 30 mins or something, but as i use OMS it is hard to tell by smell alone so I''m not sure whether to trust this information.

I finally dug up some hard data on comparative solvent evaporation rates but keep in mind that it is not based upon paintings with mixed paint films, it is solely the pure solvent evaporation rates. You can imagine that the relative differences reflect somewhat roughly upon what they would be in a painting, anyway here it is from this site.
Their turp evaporates 10 mls in 2 hours
Their low odor solvent evaporates 110 mls in 3 hours
These are both in 55 mm open cups, both at 20C temperature.

[SSB]

People who are sensitive to solvents seem to feel them after the wetness and smell of a new painting go away, but that is a week or two. I think if it doesn't bother anyone it would be ok. We have all kinds of drying space in the house and full that could be poisoning us right now. I thought I read somewhere that the toxicity of solvents exists far beyond the smell and evaporation lifetime.