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Oil and water

There can be no doubting that Murray Ince has written not only a useful and informative article (Leisure Painter, June 2018), but has also demonstrated how to produce outstanding paintings using watersoluble oils. The work featured in the article is some of the best in this medium that I have seen to date.

There has been much debate on the PaintersOnline forum of late, with a great many artists extolling the virtues of this relatively new medium, while others decrying it for a whole host of reasons.

One of the main reasons for its popularity is obvious I suppose – a dislike of the odours associated with traditional oil painting, mediums and turps. I totally understand this reason if you have health issues, and the introduction of water-soluble oils must have seemed like the perfect solution. For many though, health doesn’t seem to be the key issue; it’s simply a dislike of the smell of oil paint, particularly when working indoors. Fortunately, our great masters from the past didn’t seem to share this view, or you could argue that there was no alternative available!