Oil painting first gained popularity in the 15th century and is the process of painting with pigments with a drying oil as the binder. Today many manufacturers of oil paint include materials other than strictly oil and pigment to their tubed paints which act as stabilizers, driers, or fillers. Grinding your own paint ensures that the paint is free from these additional ingredients if that is your preference, and allows for the customization of many rheological properties of the paint. Additionally, hand-ground paint is often far more economical, particularly for the more expensive commercially available paints such as lead white!

In this video Toby Neve demonstrates his method of grinding lead white (also known as flake white) oil paint by hand. You will learn about the properties of various oils as binding mediums, the process of grinding oil paint to the desired consistency, and how to tube it. 

Please note that the handling of this particular pigment is to be done extremely carefully and always with the use of gloves and a protective mask. This technique can be reproduced safely with any other non toxic pigment.