joeI received this from Myrna last night, “Darrell, I can’t seem to mix the oil back into the paints. I didn’t know oils were so hard to use. It seems that on some of the paint tubes I open, I squeeze out paint and a lot of oil comes out as well. Why does this happen and what do I do to mix them together again?”
Well Myrna, there are two types of oils used in the making of oil paints. One is a ‘binder’. It’s job is to mix the paint color pigments together to create the paints we use in our craft. The second is a ‘lube’ paint whose job is to allow the paint to flow out of the tube. It does not mix with either the pigments or the binder, so its an ideal lubricator for storing paints into plastic or metal tubes.
I would add that the lube oil is not paint. Again, it’s sole purpose is to move the paint out of the tube. So if you squeeze some paint out and see the lube oil, do not try to mix it into the paint. First, it won’t mix (why its chosen to be the lube oil) and secondly disposing of it will be better. When I find a tube that has the lube oil coming out in quantity, I first squeeze the paint out on newspaper and using just the palette knife, transfer the paint from the newspaper to the palette, leaving the excess lube oil onto the newspaper.
Darrell