Basic Equipment for Oil Painters
Painting in Oils can be a daunting task if you've never tried it before. This short article is aimed at those of you who want to dip a toe in the vast ocean of oil painting techniques...
In this article, we'll go through the following basic equipment checklist:
Paint (of course!) Brushes (natural or synthetic bristles) Palette (or something to mix the paint on) Painting mediums (turps and linseed oil) Canvas, or boards to paint on.First you'll need some paint. I gave a recommended range of colours in an earlier article ( see "Colours for Your Palette"). For a full set of the colours I listed there you'll probably have to pay about £25. Alternatively you can buy starter sets of basic colours for about £20.
You'll find there are two different types of paint: Artist quality and student quality. The student quality paints are much cheaper than artist quality and are recommended - remember, you'll waste a lot of paint at first!
Next, you'll need some brushes. Brushes for oil paint need to be firm and springy. Watercolour brushes are not suitable. Again, there are two types: Natural or synthetic bristles. Natural hog hair is the traditional choice for oil painters, but do consider using the synthetic varieties. Pro Art 'Sterling Acrylix' are economical, long lasting and (very importantly) maintain their shape no matter how you treat them. Buy the biggest brushes you can. Check the brushes before you buy them for wayward bristles. Think BIG: Small brushes will encourage you to be miserly with paint, larger brushes will make sure your painting doesn't get too finicky.
Just to add a little more confusion, brushes come in four shapes: Short flat (or 'bright'), long flat, filbert and round. We'll ignore short flats and long flats. You'll only need two round brushes, a small size 2 for detailed drawing and a medium size 6. Filberts are flat chisel-shaped brushes that taper slightly towards the tip. Choose six filbert brushes: Two each of three different sizes. Remember to choose the biggest brushes you'll think you'll use. For example, I tend to use brush sizes 4, 6 and 8.
The diagram (above) shows the four types of brushes: Brush A is a filbert, brush B is a round, brush C is a flat and D is a short flat or bright.
You'll also need a palette to mix paint on. You could buy a traditional wooden palette but they are expensive. I mix colours on a small sheet of glass. In many ways glass palettes are ideal: They're cheap and the glass is easily wiped clean of paint at the end of a painting session. If any paint dries hard you can remove it either with a brillo pad or with paint stripper. Disposable paper palettes are also available from artists supplies shops.
Straight from the tube most paints are thick and buttery. So most artists use a medium to thin the paint slightly and make it easier to work. The two most common media are pure distilled turpentine and linseed oil. Turpentine (turps) is essential. If you thin oil paint from the tube with turps you will make the paint more transparent and quicker drying. If you mix the same paint with linseed oil the paint will increase its transparency and gloss but will dry more slowly.
Finally, you'll need something to paint on. Canvas is the traditional choice, but for the beginner it tends to be expensive and difficult to prepare. Go instead for the primed artists' boards that you can find in most art shops. They are cardboard with a canvas like surface, prepared specifically for oil painting. My recommendation is always to work big, so buy the largest board that you can. Alternatively, buy some hardboard panels from the local DIY store and paint them white with matt emulsion. They provide an excellent painting surface and are ideal for beginners, but bear in mind that the emulsion paint won't last more than a few years without yellowing, so use emulsion paint for practice paintings only.
That's it, you've got all the equipment you need to start painting. All you need now is something to paint.