oil paints on the wall?

Question

I love to use oil paints on canvas, and i want to paint a mural on the wall, i was worried about this, because of the length of the time it takes to dry, and also because the wall has been painted with acrylic paint..can you put oil over it? Any suggestions would be great! thanks

Answer 1

Many artists paint oils over an acrylic under-painting. I believe the oil will eventually start to crack off, but it should have a fairly long lifetime if it is inside. If the acrylic paint on the wall is thick enough, sand it down a bit to give just a little "tooth". Don't cake the oil paint on super thick and it should last many many years. Murals do not typically last for hundreds of years anyway.



The time it would take to dry could indeed be a big problem. Start at the bottom and go up. This way the paint at the top will be the last to dry. Unless you cake on the paint really thick, it probably would only take a few days to be dry to the touch, depending on your climate. The fumes left behind by using drying agents will last longer than the time it would take the paint to dry if you do not. If you plan on using dryers or medium, it would be safest to close off the room and keep it well ventilated for several weeks after-wards. I would think it would be best to go without any medium or drying agent. It might be a little stinky for a week or so, but you wouldn't have to close off the room for weeks.



If you have children (or grown-ups) who may lick the wall, using oil paints would be a bad idea. There are really horrible things in oil paint that just happen to make great colors. If not, go for it, just be careful and you should enjoy it for long time.

Answer 2

Acrylics and oils are quite different. Oils will actually bleed into the wall. Acrylic just coats onto the wall. Find out from your local paint store if you can prime over the acrylic to paint in oils or not. They may have suggestions that some artists may not know about. Personally, I would use Kiltz to prime the wall, and once it dries use some sort of paint base to allow to work quickly with the oils. Do more research on this before you truly attempt it.

Answer 3

No, you can't. Apart from the problem of keeping the mural protected for weeks, even with a medium that speeds up drying , oil over acrylic invariably cracks and peels off. You'd have to prime your wall with gesso glue, latex or emulsion paint.



You could use acrylic paints for your mural, but the paint that is normally used these days is emulsion. You only have to remember that it lightens up to 2 shades when drying, as opposed to acrylic and oil, which both get darker.

Emulsion has also the advantage that it dries fast and is way cheaper than the other paint.

Answer 4

The gesso that canvases are primed with is acrylic, not latex. Latex is a rubber based paint, acrylic is plastic based. Both suspended in water. Yes you can use oils on the wall. If you put a little Liquin painting medium in the paint it will dry much faster. You can put oils over acrylic but not acrylic over oils. That is where you will run into trouble...... By the way, Watercolor dries lighter, acrylics dry darker, OILS STAY THE SAME !

Answer 5

I don't see why not, but you may want to repaint the wall with latex first. I've never tried it myself with oils, but always wanted to. Good luck!

Answer 6

ok im not proffesional abt all this but in art class right now...we're making these masks and our teacher keeps telling us that after each layer of paint we use spray over that layer with a this layer of....hair spray...its like how u use hair spray to keeps ur drawings from smudging when ur useing pencil or chacoal....but yea you can use the pain over and over in one spot and it wont hit the bottom layer and mess it up...abt the drying proccess..im not so sure....lol use a blow dryer lol jk you get the joke tho right lol bu ti mean it abt the hair spray...im not very sure but thats what my....(lets just say she's realy really old) art teacher says