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Originally Posted by Michele Rushworth
. . . think I'm still better off just continuing to use paint straight from the tube . . . accelerate drying . . . by using a space heater and a fan. Seems safer than a lot of the different mediums and additives that are out there!
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So long as your paint is high quality, there's no question that's a sound approach. Paint definitely dries faster when it's warm and dry, and air movement speeds up the process, so controlling the studio environment to hasten drying time is certainly an option.
The biggest problem for those who buy mediums is assuring the quality and contents of "store-bought" mediums. (e.g. the "imitation" copal medium mentioned above) As far as "safety", we tend to do a lot of hand-wringing over "archival permanence", but the truth is that it's really, really hard to force painting materials and mediums into failure. Even the worst materials and practices generally have to age 50 to 80 years to become visibly obvious.
Speaking of copal, the term is as non-specific as saying "use apples". There are a number of resins collected commercially from Mexico, Central America, Africa and Indonesia all identified as "copal" although different species have quite different characteristics. Congo copal was the standard for clarity and hardness in the days when natural resins were used to manufacture the bulk of varnishes used for home and commercial finishes. Owing to the on-going political strife in that region of Africa, it hasn't been commercially available for many years.