July « 2013 « A Pigment of Your Imagination

I have just completed stage 3 of the sun/stand oil referred to in previous posts (see stages 1 and 2). I had to wait longer than I thought, and just beat the monsoons. We had a dust storm yesterday and about three drops of rain, but I had brought my oil inside by that time. It took three weeks in 112-117 degrees (Can you say “hot?”) instead of the two weeks I anticipated to get the desired thickness.

Remember that linseed oil starts to degrade and break down at about 350 degrees F, and art supply linseed/stand oil is heated to as much as 470 degrees F for expediency, making it a very slow drying oil. My oil might have made it to 120 degrees maximum and the oil traces beautifully, will dry quickly in my artwork, and has the viscosity of warm honey:

At first, I thought a funnel would be necessary to get it into my small-mouth bottle, so I lined one with a small Ziplock sandwich bag (corner snipped off), to keep the sticky oil from ruining my funnel:

It turns out that the lip on my bowl poured in a beautiful, dribble-less stream, so I was able to dispense with the funnel idea. I simply poured the new stand oil back into its original linseed oil bottle, using a Q-tip to drag the last of the stand oil out of the bowl and into the bottle–I didn’t want to waste any of the good stuff. I ended up with the bottle half full of good medium after filtering out the moisture and impurities during the prior stages of the refining process.

I can tell you that this oil will do its job extremely well as a binder–I had a very hard time trying to clean it out of the bowl. I first tried olive oil, and then a Scotch Brite scrubber. Neither would budge its strength around the oil line where it had been sitting for weeks. Finally, I soaked the bowl in very hot soapy water and then scraped it off easily with a single-edge razor blade.

You could stop right here with this process and be happy with conventionally using your lovely, perfectly refined stand oil, an “unobtanium” at any art supplier; OR, you can continue with me on the path of adding marble dust, making glair, etc., a process I will be outlining in additional posts.

A great price on “art supplies” like alcohol, nitril gloves, and petroleum jelly can be found at Masune First Aid and Safety, www.masune.com. An excellent price on a box of 100, individually wrapped single-edge razor blades can be found on Amazon, http://www.amazon.com/American-Safety-Razor-66-0089-disp-100-Pack/dp/B000KKMY5O/ref=pd_sim_sbs_hi_1

Until next time…

The Arizona Renaissance Art Guild does one-week workshop intensives three times per year, and in addition, we get together to paint all day on the third Saturday of every month. If you are in the Phoenix Metro area and are interested in finding out more or possibly joining our colony, please let me know through this blog. ~Marsha