how do i save left over oil paint so the paint doesn't dry up?

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packerluis14

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i'm trying to learn how to oil paint using the Bob Ross technique and i want to use a palette to put my paint on. But the thing is once you get the paint out of the tube you can't put it back in and the paint is really expensive to just waste the unused paint. I want to know if there is a way to preserve the paints so they don't dry up and get wasted??
 
I used to store the left over oil paint in a plastic paper and keep it in the refrigerator.
 
Well, in my Art class my teacher told us, when we have left over paint in a tray (I can't think of the precise word right now), to cover the tray with a type plastic wrap. The type of the stuff you'd wrap your food in a tray so it can stay good longer. This method worked very well for my Art class.

I hoped this helped! =]
 
You can cover your oils with plastic or foil but the thing about oil paints is that they're just a drop of turpentine away from being less viscus.


You can mix Linseed Oil into Oil Paints to thin them and change their viscosity and you can break oil paint down with turpentine or white spirits.

If the paint gets really dry (Technically Oil Paint doesn't "dry" but that's besides the point) or hard the turpentine might not do much; however you have to be a SLOW painter. A puddle of Oil Paint will be wet for quite some time; it won't dry fast like Acrylic.

If your palette is small you can keep it in an airtight container and try to get as much air out of it as possible and keep it sealed. Oil Paint hardens via slow chemical reaction with air so if you keep it sealed it'll be wet for weeks.
 
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