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How to Save Your Oil Paints from Drying Out

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I paint in spurts of energy. Some weeks will be prolific. Others, not so much. I've tried most of the recommended ways to save my oil paints from drying out. Covering them with plastic wrap and refrigerating to freezing them. None work for me for more than a couple of days. So I have been searching for a technique that meets my needs and I think I found it.

As I mentioned earlier, we are talking about saving paint , I have not found a good way to save my paints when I have to leave my work for an extended period of time. But I have discovered a way to deal with it somewhat. There is a product called clove oil that can be found at any of the herbal outlets. This oil absorbs oxygen and will not allow your paints to dry out as quickly as they would otherwise. The downside is, if there is too much clove oil in the environment of the paint, the paint itself will absorb the oil and will never dry out. So basically the trick is, how do you put the oil and the paint in an environment such that the oil does not absorb any of the clove oil.

To do this, I found small jelly jars. These are very prevalent in Europe but not so much here in the US. I ordered mine from Amazon. You can either clean out the jelly jars or wait until you finish the product and then wash out the jelly jars to use for your paints. I take the lid off and use the lid to hold the paint. Then, I use the jar itself to hold the clove oil. The way I accomplish that, is to place a small piece of tissue or paper towel, into the jar itself. Make sure the piece of paper is large enough that it will not fall out of the jar. The friction itself will hold the paper in it's place. Then take a small cotton swab put one drop of clove oil on the swab and touch the swab to the paper inside the jar just enough to transfer a tiny bit of clove oil to the paper.

Now, when you you have finished using your paints, place the jar onto the cover such that the paint is at the bottom and the jar itself is on top of the cover. This will hold your paints for about a week. Sometimes more, depending on how much clove oil you transferred to the paper inside the jar.

Different paints have different drying times. The blues dry the quickest, the yellows take a little longer and white generally last's the longest.

I would appreciate any comments, suggestions or other methods to maintain paint dryness over long period of time.