Safety First

                                   

encaustic painting on canvas By Eiman Muiny 

Speaking bout studio practice won’t be complete without taking into consideration safety rules.  in spite of the fact that it is serious matter when you must have the sufficient knowledge about everything belong to what you buy or touch or inhale or watch. 

I’m an artist painter, ad I should say, through my years of practice I have learned from my mistakes that artists should take full precautions to handle working in the studio. 

The internet has already packed with information about the hazards of some of the artists materials, and if you are an artist practitioner living in Canada you should have attended one of these workshops that teach studio safety. 

The issue that arises in the artists community especially between youths and beginners that sometimes they are risking their lives even though they know what’s good and bad for their health but unfortunately they continue carelessly making art the same way because they only care about the outcome of their work. When you are newly entering the art world you become obsessed with everything you see and experience and you become addicted to try everything you see around you and the curiosity rises to the top which by the way effects your creativity and fuel your imagination and energy, and that’s great. And you can make the most of your training and practice because in the first place art institutions studios are equipped and designed specifically following safety rules, gloves, masks, ventilation system, constantly cleaning and discarding unnecessary and unwanted items, organizing and labeling materials and dangerous substances. 

Working in oil painting, print making, encaustic ( painting with wax), sculpting even painting with pastels, all of these methods and its materials need a special studio environment and work space designed ( including the light ) to keep the artists healthy and to facilitate the work process. 

I’m going to give you one example of what do I mean when talking about safety rules. Few years ago, I was into encaustic painting or painting with wax. I really enjoy working with this medium and I found it very challenging to be able to paint portrait and landscape with wax. Furthermore, painting abstract has endless possibilities for different type of application on the canvas or on the wood, and it’s amazing how you can turn wax to a piece of art. However it involves high toxicity by frequent touching and inhaling the melting wax, where cleaning hands won’t be enough to take the residue particles from the skin. So the process is to heat the wax and turn it into liquid then start mixing it with either pigments or oil painting colour. So the ideal way to do that in which some of the professional encaustic painter does,  is to mix the wax with the colour inside a wooden box with an opening for two inward gloved hands in the front of the box, you. Insert your hands inside the box and mix the heated wax with colour. In this way artists won’t touch or inhale the volatile mixture. More important have installed few ventilation fans on the walls and above the working areas with an opened windows. if you think I exaggerate talking about working in safe and healthy environment inside the studio, I’m not, it’s a serious matter and artists should be aware of what art they want to male and how they want to make it. And yes safety first.