This is my first thread at wet canvas. I would like to share my painting technique without using solvents and discuss your expirience with solvent free oil painting. As my wife is a painter too and we share a studio we both are sensitive to solvents with headache and dizziness. My wife gets nosebleed immediately when using turpentine as solvent.
We got not the results we wanted when we tried water mixable oils because of the paint quality. So we adapt our painting style to our needs.
The painting style is a kind of alla prima painting in parts. We paint a picture part by part mostly in one layer. We found that this works best with opaque and stiff paint, so most paints are Old Holland and some are Blockx. The layer of paint is very thin and the paint is diluted with linseed oil when needful.
Suggestions to this subject are welcome!
Here a short WIP. Feel free to ask for further informations!
Size of the painting is 40" x 40"
The scetch on canvas is relative detailed because i normaly do no corrections after painting a part. Done with a pastel pencil and fixed
The background painted with oil diluted paint
The arm and the hand painted ar one step. This painting session took 7 hours.
The hand as detail view. You can see that the layer is very thin with paints directly from the tube. I bought this canvas for the first time but it is a bit rough and made fine blendings difficult.
The decollete painted. The background is overpainted with oil diluted paint in a cooler tone so the skin color gets warmer.
The upper part of the dress.

The hole dress. The dress was painted with looser brushstroke and a mid size bristle flat. The paint was diluted with linseed oil.
The face painted. This session took also 7 hours.
Detail view of the face. Here you can see the blended paints in the thin layer. I found that OH paints are the best choise for painting in this style.
The finshed painting with hair and finger of the right hand. I did no more layers or corrections at this picture and signed it finally.