Title: Painting and Drawing | Office of Environmental Health and Safety
Headings: Painting and Drawing
Painting and Drawing
Introduction
Chemical Safety Basics
Pigments
Pigments vs. Hues
Hazards
Precautions
Water-Based Paints
Hazards
Precautions
Non Water-Based Paints
Hazards
Precautions
Airbrush, Spray Cans, and Spray Guns
Hazards
Precautions
Dry Drawing Media
Hazards
Precautions
Liquid Drawing Media
Hazards
Precautions
Staff

Content: For Visual Arts, provide a copy to Margie Carhart. Pigments
Painters use pigments in oil paints, acrylics, watercolor paints, gouache, encaustic, poster paints, casein paints and tempera. Sometimes commercial paints such as oil, enamel, epoxy paints and automobile paints are used. Paints are pigments mixed with a vehicle or binder. Both inorganic and organic pigments are used as colorants. Dry pigments are especially hazardous because they are easily inhaled and ingested. They are used in encaustic, paper-marbleizing and in the fabrication of paint products, and will be discussed more thoroughly in the section below on pastels. Pigments vs. Hues
Most paints used in Visual Arts
(link is external)
do not contain metal pigments and are considered non-toxic. These are most easily identified by the product name. If the paint is described as hue, such as "chromium yellow hue", there is no (or too little to be concerned about) toxic metal contained in the product.