The fumes are def not good for you - esp the solvents.
The air purifier won't really help (except for dust).
One thing to consider is closing off the air vent to the
room and puting in a fan in the window blowing OUTWARD.
This would draw air in from the rest of the house.
You will have to make sure that if other windows in
the house are open that the fumes don't go in there
on days when it's windy outside. You can shut the
window most of the way when you're not in there
and run the fan pretty much all the time. (I've
done this for years, living in apartments with
the livng room being my "studio" - large painting
tarp covering the entire room).
Drying paint isn't especially toxic but the solvents
are notrious for giving you the "flashing black spots"
before your eyes. You shouldn't sleep in the room
where the paintings are drying. Once they're dry
they're about 100x safer. Again, the real danger
is long term - almost every artist has gotten some
sort of nerve damage over a period of 30 to 40 years;
eg, Titan, Degas, and especially Eva Hesse (she used
to sleep in the room where her art work was).
Also, if you are sensitive to the paints (or even if
not) using latex or other plastic gloves over your
hands is a good idea - cloth gardening gloves won't
work at all. When you wash up, you should use a lot
of a good degreasing dish soap (like Dawn Ultra) you
don't need to worry about all of that "kills germs"
stuff - the paint will do that (mostly). Dry your
hands with paper towels and dispose of them as well.
The paints are actually not really anything but
minerals ground up and disolved in a medium (usually
linseed oil, etc). Cadmium, Barium and Lead are
the most toxic and are all absorbed thru the skin
to some extent. Again it's a long-term accumulation
problem more than anything else.
Also, don't wash your brushes
out in the sink as it will eventually *guaranteed*
stop it up. Wipe the brushes as much as possible
thru a rag or paper towel - alternatively you can
just leave them soaking in solvent (provided it
doesn't get spilled). When removing the excess
paint from brushes, wrap the towel around them
and draw the brush thru so that the handle is
pulled out first and the tip of the brush last
- to avoid damaging the brush.
Finally, when you have the painting dry, if you are
doing any scraping of the paint - the dust is very
toxic. I used to do a lot of scraping (mainly after
studying Arshile Gorky's works) and always wore a
dust mask and was realy paranoid about laundering
my pants and shirt afterwards.
I'm not trying to scare you, but almost all of these
materials *are* toxic, and over the long term can
cause quite a few health problems. Breathing the
oil smells themselves is def one of the best features
of oil painting and not much trouble if you're careful.
A good book to look for is Ralph Mayer's artist's
handbook and there are specific books on "safe"
painting. Ideally you shouldn't eat in the room
where you paint - but we all do it anyway; go figure.
enjoy painting at its finest,
-- Frank. (btw, i work mostly in acrylics unless
i get a pre-paid commission; rare for my style)
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