Oil painting is a wonderful medium. Since the 1950s water-soluble (actually water 'miscible' ) oils paints have been available, decreasing the need for smelly solvents. (To some they are smelly, to others they are nostalgia-inducing.) Options abound for the artist who wants more drying-time for their painting and to enjoy the 'paint-with-butter' feeling that an artist gets from putting oil on the canvas.
Paint brands I use:
regular oils - Rembrandt, Gamblin, Winsor-Newton artist colors
water-soluble oils - I prefer Winsor-Newton Artisan to most others out there. The concentration of pigment to medium make these paints' tinting strength on par with regular oils.
Avoid the DUO brand. These have poor pigment strength and muddy easily.
Must haves colors:
Your palette must include at least one of each primary color.
The choice for single primaries should be: cadmium yellow light, cadmium red medium, ultramarine blue.
Titanium white - a large tube, if you can.
If you're thinking you'd like to use an Impressionist palette, you'd want a warm and cool version of each primary.
These colors are:
cadmium red light, alizarin crimson,
cadmium lemon, cadmium yellow light,
cerulean blue, ultramarine blue.
Titanium white - a large tube, if you can.
Must have supplies:
a palette - either pad of palette paper (gray if you can find it) or a glass palette.
brushes - I like an assortment of hog bristle brushes in round and flat shapes.
'must have' brushes should include a size 2 flat and a size 6 flat. These should be long-handled.
Mineral Spirits or turpenoid. Try to avoid turpentine. It is super stinky and so bad for you.
A jar to put clean spirits in and another jar with lid to put dirty spirits in.
A surface to paint on. This could be a stretched canvas, a pad of canvas paper, or a board of some sort like Ampersand Gessobord. Do not get Ampersand claybord.
Paper towels or a box of rags from a home improvement box store.
A reference to paint from
some sort of easel - table or floor or consider a pochade box.
Should have supplies:
brushes - hog bristles in more varied sizes as large as you'd like and as small as you'd like in flat, round, and filbert shapes.
Mediums - these would be either a jar of Liquin, Artists Painting Medium, or both damar varnish and linseed oil. If you're using the water-soluble oils, make sure you get water-soluble mediums.
colors- there are a lot of them and they are fun to have on hand
Burnt Sienna, Raw Sienna, Viridian, Sap Green, Naples Yellow
Could have supplies:
brushes - a short-handled watercolor rigger. This is for picayune work. It comes in handy for things like your signature.
colors - a host of other colors come in handy
Prussian Blue, Ivory Black, Cobalt Blue, and anything else that gets you jazzed up to paint.
Paint brands I use:
regular oils - Rembrandt, Gamblin, Winsor-Newton artist colors
water-soluble oils - I prefer Winsor-Newton Artisan to most others out there. The concentration of pigment to medium make these paints' tinting strength on par with regular oils.
Avoid the DUO brand. These have poor pigment strength and muddy easily.
Must haves colors:
Your palette must include at least one of each primary color.
The choice for single primaries should be: cadmium yellow light, cadmium red medium, ultramarine blue.
Titanium white - a large tube, if you can.
If you're thinking you'd like to use an Impressionist palette, you'd want a warm and cool version of each primary.
These colors are:
cadmium red light, alizarin crimson,
cadmium lemon, cadmium yellow light,
cerulean blue, ultramarine blue.
Titanium white - a large tube, if you can.
Must have supplies:
a palette - either pad of palette paper (gray if you can find it) or a glass palette.
brushes - I like an assortment of hog bristle brushes in round and flat shapes.
'must have' brushes should include a size 2 flat and a size 6 flat. These should be long-handled.
Mineral Spirits or turpenoid. Try to avoid turpentine. It is super stinky and so bad for you.
A jar to put clean spirits in and another jar with lid to put dirty spirits in.
A surface to paint on. This could be a stretched canvas, a pad of canvas paper, or a board of some sort like Ampersand Gessobord. Do not get Ampersand claybord.
Paper towels or a box of rags from a home improvement box store.
A reference to paint from
some sort of easel - table or floor or consider a pochade box.
Should have supplies:
brushes - hog bristles in more varied sizes as large as you'd like and as small as you'd like in flat, round, and filbert shapes.
Mediums - these would be either a jar of Liquin, Artists Painting Medium, or both damar varnish and linseed oil. If you're using the water-soluble oils, make sure you get water-soluble mediums.
colors- there are a lot of them and they are fun to have on hand
Burnt Sienna, Raw Sienna, Viridian, Sap Green, Naples Yellow
Could have supplies:
brushes - a short-handled watercolor rigger. This is for picayune work. It comes in handy for things like your signature.
colors - a host of other colors come in handy
Prussian Blue, Ivory Black, Cobalt Blue, and anything else that gets you jazzed up to paint.
