More and more people have started to take up oil painting after realising just how great of a pass time it actually is due to it being so relaxing and allowing you to express yourself. With so many beginners to oil painting being in the community right now, we have noticed a huge spike in the number of people reaching out with various questions about oil painting.
One of the more common ones that we have noticed time and time again is if you are able to use boiled linseed oil for oil painting or not. Due to the various types of linseed oil on the market being the most popular options for oil painting mediums right now, we can definitely understand why we see so many people reaching out and asking about boiled linseed oil.
Although raw linseed oil does have its drawbacks, boiled linseed oil has had hot air put through it giving it the “boiled” name. Not only does this process help with the consistency of the linseed oil but it can also help decrease the drying times for the oil when used as a medium for your oil paintings too.
Can You Use Boiled Linseed Oil For Oil Painting?
Although you can technically use boiled linseed oil for your oil painting sessions if needed, there are other types of linseed oil on the market that tend to offer better performance. These other types of linseed oil tend not to have issues with color fade, flaking or peeling from your canvas so we usually recommend them over boiled linseed oil.
We already have a dedicated article online going over how to use linseed oil for oil painting that goes over everything in depth for anyone new to oil painting. The short version is that arts and crafts linseed oil is usually the better option to boiled linseed oil in the majority of cases for oil painting.
If you have the budget available then you can use a refined linseed oil if you wish as it offers ever better performance than general arts and crafts linseed oil and superior performance to boiled linseed oil. That said though, you do pay for these advantages and this is why people tend to use arts and crafts linseed oil or boiled linseed oil for their oil paintings due to them both being cheaper.
How Do You Use Boiled Linseed Oil For Oil Painting?
To use boiled linseed oil as your medium of choice for oil painting simple apply a small amount of the oil to your oil paint to help with its hydration. A few drops per inch of paint out of the tube is plenty and it will make your oil paint considerably easier to apply to your canvas while also helping with drying times.
One of the main drawbacks of using boiled linseed oil for your oil painting sessions is that boiled linseed oil is usually designed for use in other areas rather than with arts and crafts or oil painting. Due to this, it usually doesn’t have a dropper with it and the boiled linseed oil will be open topped and let way too much oil out when pouring.
A quick and easy way to ensure you don’t add too much boiled linseed oil to your oil paints is to use a cheap dropper. This allows you to ensure that you only apply a few drops of the boiled linseed oil to your oil paint and will help prevent any issues with your oil paints.
Should You Use Boiled Linseed Oil For Oil Painting?
Just because you can use boiled linseed oil with your oil paints doesn’t mean that you should. In our opinion there are much better options at a similar price with arts and crafts linseed oil being the medium we usually recommend to our readers.
As we touched on earlier in the article, we feel that arts and crafts linseed oil is definitely the best option on the market with a nice blend of cost to performance. If you do have the budget available though then refined linseed oil takes the lead offering much better performance.
Some people actually prefer to use their oil paints without an oil medium though and we have our dedicated article going over if you need a medium for your oil painting. In our opinion though, oil paints are much easier to apply to canvas or paper with a medium, even if you do use boiled linseed oil while your oil paints will usually dry much quicker if you do use a medium with them too.
Boiled Linseed Oil Alternatives For Oil Painting!
There are a number of very popular alternatives that you are able to use instead of boiled linseed oil as your medium of choice for your oil painting. We have our ultimate guide to oil painting mediums that we would highly recommend if you are a beginner to oil painting as it goes over the best options with many of them actually being the same price or cheaper to boiled linseed oil.
We also have an article going over 11 less common oil paint mediums that you may already have around your home too. These tend not to perform as well as the more popular mediums but if you already have them in your home then it can remove the cost of using them and help keep your budget as low as possible.
One mistake that we do see beginners to oil painting make on a regular basis is that they will use water with their oil paints. Water is not a valid medium when it comes to oil paints and will usually cause more issues so always stick to one of the mediums covered in our articles link above.
Conclusion
That brings our article going over using boiled linseed oil for oil painting to a close. Although you can use boiled linseed oil as a medium for your oil paints if you wish, there are definitely downsides to the process and we would highly recommend that you use an oil medium that has been specifically designed for use in arts and crafts for the best possible performance out of your artwork.
