Mixing oils

Alex writes,

I love the M. Gra­ham water­col­ors, so I am going to start there, but, I won­der: Can I use lin­seed oil with them as a brush cleaner with­out degrad­ing the qual­ity of the wal­nut oil? (Lin­seed is SO much more cost effective.)

Thanks, Alex. I’m not aware of any tech­ni­cal rea­son not to mix lin­seed with M. Gra­ham oil paints (which are ground in wal­nut oil). M. Gra­ham would much pre­fer that you buy oil from them, but inex­pen­sive lin­seed will work just as well and is exactly as nat­ural and non­toxic (don’t buy boiled oil or other hard­ware store lin­seed oil).

In fact, two of my favorite paint mak­ers—Robert Doak & Asso­ciates and Blue Ridge Artist Mate­ri­als—grind their paints in a linseed/walnut blend. You might want to check them out. M. Gra­ham is of mid-range qual­ity while theirs is high-end, but not all that much more expen­sive. All three brands are extremely smooth and brush­able. You could mix paint from all of these brands together with­out any problems.