WHERE TO START

I’ve decided to make a post for beginners and give you my take on what supplies you should get to start painting with oils.

Materials you need for oil painting:

• Oil paints

My favorite brands are Gamblin Oil Colors and Nevskaya palitra; and I have some tubes of Winsor & Newton artists' oil color and Michael Harding. 

When you’re just starting out, you can get some less expensive paints but I recommend staying away from student-grade sets of paint because even though they may seem like a good deal, these are very poor quality supplies.

Colors: Burnt Umber, Cadmium Yellow, Ultramarine Blue, Cadmium Red and Titanium White. These 5 colors make up a traditional limited palette (a palette of just essential colors) It is very powerful and with it you can mix a vast majority of colors you see in the world around you, including flesh tones and such.

I recommend this palette because I think it’s the most simple and universal one and you can go from here - you can add to it later or adjust it to your liking as you go; but it’s a great starting point!

• Surface for painting

There are so many options as to what to use as a surface for oil painting.

For beginners, I suggest getting either a pre-stretched primed linen or cotton canvas (which you can get from pretty much any art-store)

I like to do oil sketches on paper. For that I usually use 250 - 300gsm paper with linen texture that I prime with acrylic primer (you can use gesso as well) before painting. The brands I can recommend are Hahnemühle and Canson.

• Paint thinner and medium

I use linseed oil as a medium.

I don’t use any solvents in my painting process. I only have some odorless mineral spirits in case I need to clean the palette or brushes if they have some dry paint stuck in them and it’s hard to get it out otherwise. (Usually I just wash my brushes gently with soap and warm water and it works great)

• Brushes

I mostly use round detail brushes in sizes 1, 0 and 00; and synthetic filbert brushes of different sizes. I like synthetic brushes because I believe they are more durable when it comes to painting with oils (especially if you decide to use solvents). 

Detail brushes:

Filbert brushes:

I use brushes from various brands, such as Kolibri, Winsor & Newton, Pinax, etc.

~~~ The ones with the black handle that you may have seen in many of my painting videos are the “long flat series 279” brushes from Rosemary and Co.

• Additional materials

These are: palette (I recommend using a glass palette), palette knife, paper towels that you'll use to wipe the brushes, and finally some kind of an easel or a stand to hold the painting.

Set up your work area and you’re ready to go!