Choosing The Oil Paints For Oil Painting

By Author: Anthony Keith Whitehead
Total Articles: 21
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This article concentrates on painting in oils. There are a great variety of makes of oil paints to choose from and a corresponding range of price and quality. When beginning to paint, there is an understandable tendency to go for the cheapest. Why spend a lot of money on paints one might subsequently not use again?

Buy Cheap, But…
If you just want to try the medium of oil paints out, by all means buy the cheapest. But... In fact, there are one or two big buts. If you are going to buy the cheaply, keep the costs down by trying to buy a good make but in small tubes. Many oil paint manufacturers supply these. That way you will still have good quality materials – and although you may not notice it at first, there are a significant differences. Moreover, having bought cheap stuff, you might find reluctance in throwing it away when you decide to stay with oil painting – which I sure you will do!

The smallest size tube is around 21ml and the next around 38ml. Very often you can get a small boxed selection of colours. This is very useful because they will have been selected for ones which are more frequently ...
... used by painters, so you will avoid buying colours which will be rarely used.

Incidentally, when you come to buy supports (the things you paint your pictures on) avoid buying very large ones: 8” x 10”, 12” x 10” are the sort of size it is useful to start out with. Larger ones can come later. You will also be able to find plenty of cheaper supports on which to start out, including cotton canvass stretched over a timber frame, primed and ready to paint on. You can buy a few cheap brushes to begin with, those which are round or flat or filberts which are flat but with the corners taken off (which are very useful): a couple on the small side, say, no 2 or 3, and a couple of medium ones, say around 6 or 7. Cheap brushes will not last very long anyway. You can often find very cheap sets of brushes.

A Useful Economic Law
One of the great laws of economics is that (most of the time) you get what you pay for. I know because I used to be an economist! More expensive oil paints are so priced because they use better ingredients in their manufacture. The same goes for brushes and for supports. So if you buy cheap… Don’t be surprised at what you get!

In The Beginning
At the start of learning to paint in oils (and with a few books and practice you can teach yourself a good deal without expensive tuition) you may not be aware of the differences between alternative qualities of paint. (The differences in brushes will be much more apparent). But they are real, and trying different ones will later bring an awareness of this. So when you sense the commitment to painting is growing, try some more expensive ones.

Kinds Of Oil Paints To Begin With
Many professional artists use oil paints produced by Winsor and Newton. Ignore the cheaper student type and buy Artisan Oils.. W&N Winton’s Oil gives a good paint quality at reasonable prices by using alternative pigments, which are cheaper than traditional ones. The colour range is more than adequate for beginners. And they can be bought in sets with, say, six smaller sized tubes of 21ml.

Daler-Rowney Georgian oils are another relatively economic range, which aims to attain a high standard. Tube sizes are 38ml, 75ml and 225ml, but start with the smaller ones. Again, sets are available, including starter kits.

If you decide on something more expensive, try Daler-Rowney and Winsor & Newton Artists . These will cost around twice as much because they are of a professional artists quality. Of course, when better pigments are used in producing an oil paint, generally the colour is better and its appearance will last much longer.

Subsequently…
It is surely true that “we all have to start somewhere”, but it is equally true that with practice and determination your abilities will continue to increase over time, even though you may not notice this happening at first. As you begin to advance in skill and technique there is a considerable range of oil paints you can move to. The “Rembrandt” brand is excellent and claims to be particularly brilliant in colour; “Michael Hardin” oil paints are rated by David Hockney as of “first quality” --- and if he thinks they are…