Is it Safe to Oil Paint while Pregnant? Yes

Mary Cassatt, "Sleepy Baby," 1910 

Note: This post should not be taken as medical advice. I am not a doctor, and while my own doctor has given me the go-ahead, this post should be taken only as my opinion.

After "coming out" about my pregnancy I have gotten all types of questions/comments about painting:

Are you still going to paint now that you are pregnant? Yes.

NOTE: I have rewritten this post on my new blog. You can read it here: 

https://www.katherinegriffinstudio.com/post/is-it-safe-to-oil-paint-while-pregnant-yes-and-some-advice-for-the-new-artist-mom-dad-from-an-old

I wrote the original while I was pregnant with my first baby. Now ten years later I have advice for new art parents as well. Or you can continue reading the old post below.

Well, I guess you are going to have to stop painting now that you will have kids, aren't you? Nope.

Are you aware of how hard it will be for you to paint when you have a baby? Yep, I know it will be hard.

At least with the new baby you don't have a job to worry about, right? Nope, I do.

Well you don't make money at it, so it isn't really a job, right? Nope, I do and yep, it is.

Thanks world for making me feel good!

The truth of the matter is that there are LOTS of moms who are successful artists. Kind of like how there are lots of moms in all professions. Painting is not some special space where moms are irresponsible if they continue to do what they love. That being said, there are some elements to painting that every pregnant artist should be aware of.

How to make your painting space pregnancy and baby friendly: 

1. Always maintain good ventilation, even in winter.

2. Eliminate all solvents. This is key and easy.
                a.  Cleaning your brushes without solvents is healthier and cleaner.
                b. Use non-toxic Gamblin's Solvent-Free Gel or M. Graham's Non-Toxic Alkyd as a medium.
                c. Be aware that although some solvents are odor free, such as Gamblin's Gamsol, they are still very toxic and should not be used while pregnant.

3. Minimize the use of Cadmium, Cobalt, and Lead while pregnant.
               a. If using Cadmium paints, wash your hands regularly or use gloves.
               b. Replace Cadmium with Azo pigments. Azo pigments have almost the same base color as the various Cadmiums, but without the toxicity.
               c. Cobalt is an easy pigment to replace and is so expensive it is usually not a part of the general palette. All the same, take a look at your paints just to double check.
               d. Never use lead-based paints while pregnant. Happily there are now more than enough options that this should not be an issue.

4. Never allow baby to sleep in your painting space. Be aware of the amount of time baby is spending around your paints and place baby in a different room when possible.

If you have any tips for pregnant ladies that I didn't think of, leave a comment. For more Tips and Techniques, take a look at my main Tips page.

Loving Life's Designs: A Mother's Day Card

My sisters are extremely creative and have a really great site called Loving Life's Designs. They currently are revamping the entire thing, making it something really amazing. I am super excited for both of them, and for me because they are letting me participate. Yay! I have broken the twin barrier!

They commissioned me to make a design for an up-and-coming Mother's Day card that they will have for free on their site. Initially I came up with three different styles, then I created different lay-out options for their chosen style. Below are the roughs of those lay-outs:

There are some balance issues with some of the designs that will need to be worked out if picked for the final card, but overall, I am pretty darn happy with myself.

Watching Paint Dry: How to Get your Painting to Dry Faster

As deadlines approach, sometimes finishing a painting seems beyond reason, forget giving it enough time to dry.

Below are some quick tips to help your oil paintings dry faster:

1. If you know that you'll be rushed for time, try using more thinner than oil in your medium (while maintaining the Fat over Lean rule).

2. A professor once mentioned that you can dry a painting in the oven on the lowest setting. She always warned us that it will make the entire house smell and that you risk burning the painting, though. So maybe not the best option.

3. A blow dryer. Be prepared to sit there for hours.

4. A space heater. This is my preferred method when I need a painting to be dry a day before it wants to be. Select the lowest heat setting and let it go for hours.

5. Put your painting under the rear window of a warm car. The warmth inside the car will help heat the layers.

Even though these methods can help speed up the drying time, they will by no means take a wet, thickly painted canvas and make it dry by morning. Remember, oils do not dry by dehydration, but by oxidation. Adding additional heat helps to increase the rate of chemical reactions your painting is undergoing. Always remember to maintain a well-ventilated area and to have patience.

Warning: Never use the above methods unless you are completely finished with the painting. Trying to force drying time between layers can lead to cracking and a lot of swearing. Trust me, I know.

For more tips about painting, take a look at my main Tip and Techniques page.

A Thank You: To my Hogle Zoo Patron, plus Some Small Announcements

Monday I raced, in really horrible weather, up to Hogle Zoo in order to retrieve my two paintings from their gallery show and I had a little surprise when I arrived. Over this past weekend one of my paintings sold!

I didn't think of getting the person's information until after I left. I will have to call about it. I would love to send them a thank you note, but for now thank you secret patron. I love you. (Also sorry about the crappy frame, the whole thing was a little rushed.)

Also, I haven't been painting for a while. Mostly because for the past two months I have been glued to my couch in a never-ending surge of pain, nausea, and sickness. The reason? This very, very little one:

You can see its little hand and scary Darth Vader smile. Other than that it is just a little blob, but it's my little blob and that is exciting to me.

This week I am officially 13 weeks and out of the first trimester! I am so happy about this, as the past few days I have been feeling wonderful. For example, yesterday I opened the fridge, ate a grape, and didn't instantly regret it. Progress!

Good bye, diet of cheese sticks and eggo waffles!

Some additional progress is that my paints have stopped smelling so badly to me that it makes me want to throw up. However, over the past six weeks of feeling so sick and so depressed (my couch also now has some serious depressions), I really started feeling down about painting. I have always felt like there is something lacking about them, like there needs to be more, but this self-loathing pity party got so bad that I was ready to completely give up. The purchase of my pronghorn was just the boost that I needed.

Now I am ready to hit the ground running, finish up the owl and goldfish, and keep going.

The Art Institute of Chicago Recreates Van Gogh’s Famous Bedroom in More Ways than One

JULES ANTOINE (1863-1948) ATTR. – Vincent Van Gogh in conversation with friends, Paris, 96 rue Blanche, December 1887 Melanotype, direct positive and reversed image on blackboard (carton photographique), 86×112 mm, “Gautier Martin” stamp, recto. Vincent Van Gogh in conversation with Paul Gauguin, Emile Bernard, Félix Jobbé-Duval. André Antoine is standing between them.


Today Vincent Van Gogh's painting are so prolifically reproduced that he heavily falls into the happiest of kitch categories. I say happily because yes I do love my Van Gogh mug and no I don't feel like it lessens his works. Beyond just being on my mug, Van Gogh has also been making headlines with the possible above photo of him, a new Art Institute of Chicago exhibition, and an animated film made entirely of oil paintings.

The Art Institute of Chicago is a really great place. If you ever find yourself wondering around the Windy City, skip the American Doll store and stroll on over. For this new exhibition they have recreated Van Gogh's Room, brought all three of his bedroom paintings together in one locale, and done some really great restoration work.

One of the interesting things that the Art Institute discovered is that Van Gogh's rooms were not originally painted blue. Below is the full story from Sci Friday's March 4th show. The images below the story are the images they reference throughout the segment.



Left = currant painting                                             Right = digital restoration

Blue Paint Fragment                                                 Backside Purple Paint Fragment 

Vantablack: Can an Artist really own a Color?

According to articles by The Guardian and Quartz magazine, yes an artist can.

Vantablack is the "new black" as of 2014. It is considered to be the blackest black, as it reportedly absorbs 99.96% of all light that hits it. In fact, the science behind Vantablack was originally created by a team of NASA engineers who developed a "blacker-than pitch material to help scientists gather hard-to-obtain scientific measurements" and "observe currently unseen astronomical objects, like Earth-sized planets in orbit around other stars." The black was further developed and named by the British company NanoSystems to make stealth satellites stealthier, as it is like looking into a black hole. And now the artist Anish Kapoor (you know, the guy who made the giant, reflective bean in Chicago) has all painting rights to it. As you can imagine, this has gotten a few people up in arms. According to the Guardian:

Painters are outraged that Anish Kapoor, the British sculptor who designed the blood-red Orbit tower for the London Olympics, has exclusive rights to the artistic use of this revolutionary new colour. NanoSystems has confirmed that he alone can paint [with] Vantablack.

This new black isn't exactly a paint, however. According to Quartz:

The thing to remember is that the coveted super-black substance is actually not paint but very tiny tubes composed of carbon, explains former NASA optical physicist John Hagopian, who now runs a startup developing carbon nanotechnology for engineering purposes. The super black is actually “grown” in the lab, the matte black effect coming from seeing a dense patch of these tiny carbon nanotubes which absorbs nearly all light. 

I personally am not super disappointed by the fact that I will never be able to get my hands on a black almost as black as a black hole. I mean... it would be cool, but using it seems a little too difficult for my tastes. Again according to Quartz:

For artists itching to use the scarce super-black substance, Hagopian cautions that applying the material is not as easy as picking up a can of paint. The process involves a gas mask and a special enclosure for the “complex chemical vapor deposition,” and inhaling the fine carbon-based material can be as hazardous as inhaling asbestos.

All-in-all, a black this black is pretty cool. Here is a video by NASA explaining how the black is grown (also, at the end of the video it says that they are getting ready to put this into space, but that actually just happened. Since the production of the video in 2013, the paint has been sent and used at the International Space Station):

To read more about Black pigments or just pigments in general, check out my main Tips and Techniques page.

Pig Head: Final

I sat down today and wanted to paint something from start to finish. This is what I came up with:

I think that I like him. If anything, I enjoyed painting him. So much, in fact, that I think I am going to paint like this for the next little bit and see if I can't get the style of it to morph into something that I really love.