"Ask John" - Water Soluble Oils

Artist Andy Basacchi of Toronto writes...

Hi John:

I have been using artist quality oil paints for some time and understand that there are water soluble oils. Can you provide me with your opinion on using water soluble versus oil?

Thanks.  Andy Basacchi

Hi Andy;

My experience with W/S oils is that they do have some advantages, particularly if you have a negative reaction to some of the oil solvents, (even the so called odorless solvents). When I went to the Arctic in 2006 I decided to take my W/S oils as we had no guarantee that we could find solvents when we arrived, and we could not carry them on the plane. I found them quite similar to regular oils with some slight differences. They felt slightly less 'movable,' (with the exception of the Holbein "Duo" product), and they were much dryer coming out of the tube. and needed some lubrication to make them more fluid. For me, the use of the medium was not as successful as I'd like, and I had to be careful not to add too much water.  The cleaning process was obviously simpler with just water. I am adding a couple of images with me painting on board the Academik Ioffe with my W/S oils.

In my video "Delphiniums", I do a small demonstration on using water soluble oil paints.

I hope that this answers your question about W/S oils.
Best Regards. John.

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