Traveling with Oil Paints

Posted by Mary Welling-Bonney Feb 20, 2008

Oil paints are great to work with because they are so slow to dry. The look of an oil painting just has that special something you can't find in an acrylic painting. But if you love to take your paints on the road it can be a real headache.

For years I only took acrylic paints when we traveled so that I didn't have to worry about drying time and oil paint getting on the car, the luggage or the storage container. There was also the smearing and smudging that occured when the canvas bumped or rubbed into something. It was so frustrating.

One of the greatest inventions of our time (In my opinion) is the water based oil paints. They are oil paints but they use water as the thinning agent and dry like acrylic paints. You need to use more of an acrylic approach in your painting because of the faster dry time but are able to have a true oil painting as your finished product.

There are times when we are traveling but I need to work on a painting. If it needs to be done by a deadline and it was oil, I had to stay home and finish it. Now I have the freedom to take my painting on the road.

Check them out and experiment. You might find you have a new favorite too.