I am painting my first figure with oils and am a bit bit miffed on how to get them to dry more quickly. Master Cato has given me a couple different techniques like drying in the oven at 200 degrees or under a 100 watt light bulb but those sound scary. I do respect Master Cato but was hoping to hear from people who regularly paint with oils and have found the magic trick to drying them. I have blue that is still wet after 30 hours and don't know what to do. Won't you please help a painter in need.

Master Cato told you the proper way to do it. Master Cato painted with oils for fifteen years. But quest, Grasshopper, quest.

I built a wooden mdf box with a sliding front about 12 inches square, fitted a 40w bulb to the inside and lined it with kitchen foil, all works a treat. My drying time is about 6-8 hours and the surface of the figure also has a matt finish at the end of the drying process, Cost to build about £5.
Cheers
Tommi

mike w&n do a water based oil called (artisan) when i use them they dry quicker than normal oil paint. ray

Mike here is what i have found using oils. Some colors like blue, black and deep cadmium red are better left overnight on a absorbing paper to get rid of the excess oil. Use oil colors quite dilluted. Use an absorbing undercoat (for example enamels). And last but not least use a drying oven. It will dry every color in 30-45 mins. Hope this helps.

I'm a oilpainter myself.
Blue is very hard to dry matt. Therefore i let the oil soaked out for about 1/2 hour on a indexcard. Then bringing the paint to my palette.
Just dipped the brush into white spirit just enough to let the paint go smoothly on the figure.
After applying i poot my figure into a drybox (just like Tommi) with a 60 W lightbulb in it.
The figure drye's matt into 6 -8 hours.

Marc

I recently bought a purpose built box with a 40 watt bulb, but prior to that I put my figures in a cardboard box with a glass dome over them and an anglepoise lamp with a 60watt over that. The daylight bulbs (Blue) are quite hot and the inside of the dome heats up to evaporate the oils.........quite a cheap stopgap option...depends how much of a handyman you are!?
Good luck
Keith

Awesome advice guys thanks a lot for the help. Looks like building the box is the safest and easiest thing to do. I really aprreciate your help. Hopefully my figure will be done in a week or so and I can post it for viewing.

Thanks again!!!

Well, the reason I choose to paint in oil is the low drying time of the oil, it's for me the charming part of it. You can blend part by part and have the time to correct. Sometimes I think it's ok, but looking after a couple of hours I'm then not so happy wit the result and I can corrected it..........but I must admit, I'm a very slow builder and painter

It was recommended to me to use a crock pot. So this Christmas I bought a $14.00 pot and it worked beautifuly. I have a piece of cardboard on the bottom and 2 supports to lay my figure on. I use it on low with the lid half off. Within hours it is dry. I also putthe paint on card stock to soak out some of the oil. I'm doing my 3rd figure now and second using this technique. I've gone from months to weeks. HTH
James

I was told about a crock pot before but no details were given. Thanks for the details, I have an old crock pot that I will experiment with before trying to build something. Thanks very much.

Check out this thread regarding speed drying oils:
http://www.planetfigure.com/forums/showthread.php?t=31188