If you use oil paint frequently, you probably know that this type of paint can be really expensive, and wasting a lot of it on a daily basis would cost you a lot of money. For those who used water based paint, this may not be a problem, but for the artists whose main tool is oil paint, then not preserving oil paint would be just pouring money down the drain. So, what can you do with leftover oil based paint, and what are some useful techniques for preserving it?
There are several ways in which you can preserve oil paint successfully so you can reuse it. The most common way for dealing with leftover oil paint is freezing it since the low temperature will slow down the evaporation and oxidation. This is a successful way to prevent the drying of the paint.
If you do not know what to do with those smudges of yellow and red that are out of their tube, you have come to the right place; as I always try to find ways to preserve leftover paint. Also, we are providing some variations of the preservation methods, so you would have the option 
to choose one that suits your needs the best.
Table of Contents
What Can I Do With Leftover Oil Paint?
Firstly, it is very important to remember that you should not throw leftover oil paint considering that it is a quite expensive type of paint (and how you dispose it is very important for the environment as well). You may not work with oil paint so often, but if you begin to do so, you would definitely want to learn a way in which you can reuse the paint that has been left unused during work so it does not become completely dried paint. The most important thing is that oil paint is salvageable in most cases, meaning that oftentimes you can restore it and save yourself a lot of money.
Throwing leftover oil paint once might not be concerning, but if you do this every time you paint, you will end up wasting more money than actually putting them into use. Luckily, there are ways in which you can preserve oil paint and then restore it, so you will stop wasting your money.
Most of the methods are useful, but they do not always work, therefore, you will have to try what will work for your type of paint. However, one of the most common and successful ways of preserving oil paint is freezing it. This is a technique that works in most cases, so you should probably begin with this one and then try something else.
How To Freeze Leftover Oil Paint
Freezing oil paint is the most common, and usually the most successful way for preserving paint. This way you are sure that you can reuse that same old paint, and at the same time save some money instead of throwing it away. There are different types of oil paint brands, but if you work with some serious high-quality paint, then you are probably aware of how expensive it can be.
Therefore, the best way to stop wasting it is to freeze it. This is actually a very convenient way for saving some oil paint, and it is quite an easy one. This is due to the fact that oil paint, i.e. the oil in the oil paint has a low freezing point of around -20 degrees.
So, putting your oil paint inside a freezer will not freeze it, but preserve it considering that normally, home freezers are usually set to around -17 degrees. When you put oil paint in the freezer, what actually happens is the process of slowing down the oxidation and evaporation. This way, you preserve the paint, and you can easily reuse it any time you want by just bringing it to home temperature.
However, if you intend to do this, you should make sure that your freezer is not set at a temperature below -20 degrees. A lower temperature than this might damage the paint and make it fragile, so ensure that your freezer is set in the right way to enable the process of successfully preserving the oil paint.
You will just have to wrap your palette in plastic wrap and put it inside a freezer. However, this might not always be possible if your freezer is small, or if your palette is quite big.
How To Make A Freezing Palette For Leftover Oil Paint
If your freezer does not have the ability to provide space for your palette, then you can easily make a freezing palette that will serve to freeze your oil paint since your regular one is quite big. A possible solution for this is to use some A4 stationary cases which can easily get into your freezer and preserve your oil paint. Stationary cases can be quite convenient since they close up, making sure that nothing in the freezer will touch the paint.
You can sort out your paint in different cases, so you will know each time which paints to unfreeze. For instance, you may work on several projects at once and for each, you may need different colors. So instead of unfreezing all of them, you can group your paints in several stationary stacks and take the one you need at the particular moment.
Other Ways In Which You Can Preserve Leftover Oil Paint
If you need another method to preserve your leftover paint, you can try some of the following techniques that may work for you. These are also simple, however, they might not be as successful as freezing. Therefore, you will need to try, but you should not expect that they will always work.
Put Your Paint Palette Under Water
In order not to allow your oil paint to dry up, you should put the whole palette with all its excess paint underwater. You will need a container or tray big enough that will cover the whole palette and keep it underwater. This will not let oxygen come to the paint, so no oxidation will happen for the time in which the palette is covered with water.
This is a good way to keep oil paint wet, and ready to use when you need it. However, if you leave the paint inside the water for a long time 一let’s say a week一, the slime will start to grow around the paint. This means that you will have to clean the piles of slime that will grow around the paint.
Also, if you have a wooden palette, you should not expect this method to work. Wood does not work well with water, meaning it will eventually rot. In other words, you will destroy both your palette and your oil paint, meaning that the method will be completely useless.
In addition, you will run the risk of losing the adhesion features from the unused paint, meaning that it will not be applied easily on a surface later on. In other words, your oil paint might not have the ability to stick on the surface anymore, so it would be destroyed and no longer useful to you.
Put Your Oil Paint In A Plastic Box And Add Water
For this method, you will need small plastic boxes with compartments in which you can transfer your paint. These boxes are usually used for sewing tools, so you can find them in stores that sell sewing kits. When you transfer your paint inside these boxes and add water, you will not allow air to enter and start drying the paint.
These departments in the small boxes are convenient for sorting colors as well, meaning you can use each of them for a different color. To complete the method completely, first, you will need to scrape the usable paint off the palette, and put it in a separate compartment. After that, you will have to pour water into each compartment.
This is usually a successful way for preserving oil paint, but it might take a little bit more of your time considering that you have to do the scraping, which sometimes is not as quick as you might expect. If you use a lot of different colors, expect that you will need a certain amount of time for each of them.
Wrap Your Palette In A Plastic Wrap
This is an easy and simple method considering that you only have to cut a piece of plastic wrap in a suitable size, and then place it over your palette. You will gently have to press the plastic in order to exclude the air from the paint and prevent oxidation. This is a good technique since it does not include water, so you are not running the risk of losing adhesion features.
Nonetheless, it might get really messy once you will start unwrapping the plastic and starting to work again. Also, a lot of quality paint might get stuck on the plastic, meaning you cannot use it anymore. And lastly, it is not a very environmentally friendly method since it wastes a lot of plastic.
Variation Of Freezing And Plastic Wrapping
This method is a variation of both freezing and wrapping the oil paint in plastic wrap. For this method, you will just have to do the wrapping as explained above and put the palette in the freezer. This way you will not waste much paint considering that when frozen it will not get stuck on the plastic.
Use Clove Oil To Stop The Drying Of The Oil Paint
In order to preserve the oil paint, you need to try ways in which the paint will not dry out. Clove oil might help you to achieve this. You just need to add a few drops to each pile of paint and make the oil paint resistant to drying. This is a very simple method, but it might not work every time considering that there are different types and brands of oil paint.
Use Linseed Oil On The Oil Paint
Another method that involves oil on oil paint is spraying some linseed oil on the paint. You can spray a thin layer of this oil over the paint and then cover the oil paint with a plastic sheet. This might reduce the oxidation process, and prevent the paint from drying out.
However, if you use this method, you should expect that some of the consistency of your oil paint might be lost. The oil paint will still be good to use, but you might see some changes once you apply it to a particular surface.
Can Your Ruin Oil Paint By Using Preserving Methods?
Usually, the methods for preserving oil paint are safe for its features, and they do not destroy the quality. However, sometimes, you may notice some changes, especially in the consistency of the paint. That is understandable considering that the oil paint is exposed to different factors once it gets out of the tube, so you should not expect that any of the preserving methods will work without affecting a little bit of the paint.
However, the changes that might happen are not grave, meaning that the paint is still quite usable, and there is no reason to waste paint instead of preserving it.
You should remember that there is always a way to preserve your oil paint, so you should never just throw it away if there is a certain amount left on your palette. When you throw paint, you are wasting money, and oil paint is quite expensive. Therefore, make sure that you always try something in order to preserve it.
Sources
- 8 ways to keep your oil paints from drying out
- How to Save Left Over Oil Paint
- Master Pigments. Orpiment, Auripigmentum, King’s Yellow, Arsenic Sulfide. Artstor