There’s a specific kind of excitement that comes with a fresh syllabus. New sketchbook, new brushes, that first studio session where everyone’s claiming their spot at the easels. If you’re heading into a painting class this fall, whether it’s your first studio elective in high school or a serious oil painting course in college, your supply list probably has one line item that nobody explains well: solvent.

It just says “odorless mineral spirits” or “thinner” and leaves you to figure out the rest. So let’s actually talk about it.

Why you need a thinner in the first place

If you’re working in oils, you’re not just squeezing paint straight from the tube onto canvas. You’re thinning it out to control consistency, cleaning your brushes between colors, and breaking down old, dried-up paint at the end of a session. That’s what a solvent does. It’s not optional equipment, it’s part of your daily kit, right alongside your palette knife and rag.

The problem is that the classic choice, turpentine, is strong, fast-evaporating, and has a smell that lingers in your clothes, your bag, and honestly your memory of the whole semester. In a shared classroom with twenty other students working at once, that adds up fast.

A milder option for shared studio spaces

This is where something like Eco-House’s 115 Extra Mild Citrus Thinner earns its spot in your kit. It’s a medium-strength, general-purpose thinner made with purified mineral spirits and orange peel oil instead of harsh chemical solvents. Two things make it worth knowing about before your first class:

It’s slower to evaporate than turpentine. That sounds like a small detail, but it means your paint stays workable longer while you’re mixing and blending, so you’re not racing the solvent to get your color right.

It’s built with classroom use in mind. If you’re in a studio with limited ventilation, working next to other students for hours at a time, a milder solvent isn’t just more pleasant, it’s a genuinely more comfortable way to spend a semester.

One honest caveat worth knowing: it’s not suited for dissolving hard resins like dammar or copal. If your coursework has you working with those, you’ll want a stronger solvent for that specific step. For everyday thinning and brush cleaning, though, it’s a solid daily-use option.

Building the rest of your kit

While you’re stocking up, a few things pair naturally with your solvent:

• A closed glass jar with a brush basket insert, so you’re not left swirling brushes in an open cup and breathing more fumes than you need to.
• A stack of lint-free rags, since you’ll go through more than you expect in the first few weeks.
• A small palette knife, for mixing and for scraping your palette clean at the end of the day.

None of this needs to be expensive or complicated. The goal for week one is just having what you need close at hand so you can focus on the actual painting, not on hunting for supplies mid-class.

A good habit to start now

However you set up your kit, get in the habit of working in a ventilated space and keeping your solvent jar covered when you’re not actively using it. It’s a small routine, but it’s one your future self, and your lungs, will thank you for by finals.

Fall semester always brings that reset, the feeling of starting clean. A little thought into what’s in your solvent jar is a simple way to make sure the whole semester feels that way too.

Maya
Eco-House Studio