Tips & Techniques: The Glove

I spent my first years of airbrushing without a breathing mask, during which time I undoubtedly knocked a year or two off my life. That might not be a bad thing--after all, when people tell you that doing Unpleasant Habit X will add so many years to your life, they forget to remind you that you'll be adding those years to the end of your life. So you'll get to spend more time as an elderly person--probably sad, ill and alone. So, you know, I may have done myself a favor. But, there were still possibly going to be a few sad, lonely years left. So when I switched to oil painting full-time in '98, I decided to go without protecting myself for a good, oh, 11 years. Hopefully I didn't overdo it and shave off everything after, say, 40.

You see, oil paints are made of all sorts of nasty things. All that color you see, yeah a good lot of it is toxic when in its wet state. Once dried and varnished it's harmless. But in its wet state, toss in various petroleum distillates and other chemicals, and an artist has a long-term health issue at hand. I don't know how bad--lots of oil painters lived very long lives over the centuries, even those who used more toxic pigments than we use now, with less protection and worse medical care. Still, I know that by now I've probably eliminated most of my sad winter years and will probably die before then. So, time to protect.

Back in art school, I tried painting with gloves. That's the easiest way to minimize exposure (wide open windows also help, which I already do). Painting with latex gloves is, shall we say, unsatisfying. I could never get used to it, so I never took up using them. Barrier creams leave a film on your hands, which when you place your hand on your painting, gets on the surface.

However, a rather simple reinvention of the wheel later, and I am now able to protect most of my hands. Witness my hand (I've always loved that phrase in contracts):

Michael Jackson had nothing on this

The solution: cut off the thumb and two fingers with which I actually hold the brush. This way, the glove doesn't interfere with my touch, but the rest of my hand is protected. This is notable because quite often the pinky-side of my palm is resting on a painting that may be wet with painting mediums. The other finger isn't really needed as I paint, so is covered up too. I'm a pretty clean painter, generally, but inevitably I get a little dirty. I find this to be a good compromise, and I'm all about doing the 20% of the work that solves 80% of the problem. I still get some stuff on those three exposed fingers, sure, but overall my exposure has been very much limited. And, I look way cool, to boot!

I reuse the same glove until it inevitably tears, then abuse the earth by putting it in landfill. After I think 2 days, it might look like this:

Stuff which would've otherwise sat on and maybe seeped through my skin (many pigments won't penetrate) included: Chromium Oxide, Cadmium (safe via skin contact), Cobalt (ditto), Ferric Ferrocyanide, Gamsol, and Liquin Fine Detail. Besides reduced skin exposure, it makes for less junk to wash off my hands before eating, which is the other and more damaging way nasty stuff can get in your body over the years. After all, oil-bound pigments probably love to attach themselves to other oily things you might eat, like potato chips or whatever.