One essential strategy is to figure out how to keep your water glass separate from your drinking glass. Try designating a specific place on the table for each and never mix them up. Also, only use drinking glasses with sealed lids while painting. That way, you won’t accidentally try to wash out your paintbrush in your tea, and you also won’t spill your tea on your painting.
You can choose to wear gloves to keep the oils on your hands off your painting as well as to protect your skin from irritants. Some artists also use hand rests that keep their hands off the paper or canvas. Keeping fingerprints and oils off your paint surface is also a great strategy for preserving your finished paintings, but it can be hard if you’re a tactile artist.
The key points are to:
- Keep your supplies separate from your food and drinks, and don’t make food in your studio. You don’t want to set yourself up for a situation where you accidentally ingest something.
- Don’t put your paintbrushes, pencils, or other tools in your mouth. Always lay them down on a rag or paper towel.
- Wash your hands thoroughly. Painting can be messy, but try to get all of the paint off your hands and out from under your fingernails after each session.
- Wear gloves or separate your hands from your work if you can find a way to work those strategies into your painting practice.
- Wear a mask if you’re working with ingredients or particles that shouldn’t be inhaled.
It’s also important to remember that dumping your leftover paint water down the same sink where you do your dishes is not a good strategy. Designate a sink to wash out your brushes that isn’t in the kitchen. Try not to wash paints with toxic pigments or paints with propylene glycol down the drain. Some of these ingredients can damage waterways and are not good for the environment.
Disposal isn’t easy. If you can gather paint sludge or scrapings into something like a paint container, let it dry, and then dispose of it like you would other household hazardous materials according to your local regulations, that’s definitely best. If not, wipe as much paint as possible onto a paper towel, let it dry, and then throw it away. You can also use a filter to separate the toxic pigments from the water before pouring the filtered water down the drain, or you can leave the paint water in an open container, let the water evaporate, and then dispose of the leftover dried paint in the trash. As an artist, it’s your responsibility to figure out a disposal method that causes as little harm to yourself, others, and the environment as possible.