Get To Know Your Oil Painting Supplies

1. Welcome!: Welcome to the mini chorus on oil painting materials. My name is Kristin Chronic, and I'm so glad that you're joining me in my messy studio. I am a professional painter and I've shown my work in museums and galleries. I sell it online and I paint weddings live at the event. If you were anything like I was, you are curious about oil painting. You may have noticed that you really like the way it looks, but you just don't know where to start. I've been there, I remember feeling overwhelmed and disheartened when I would even think about that corner of the art store. I did not go to art school. I learned to paint through willing artists, showing me the way. And that's exactly what I'm here to do for you. Your goal is just to nurture a hobby or become professional. I'm here to help you if you have nothing but time on your hands or you have to squeeze in a creative practice during baby naps or after a long work day, I made this for you. Painting and oil may not be intuitive at first, but with a little guidance and practice, you can learn to make lovely paintings of your own in this very forgiving medium. I have painted nearly every day since 2014. The one thing I have discovered is that learning to paint oil is like taking a really long walk or tending to a garden. Not a fast process, and the best way to partake is to simply enjoy each step. There is no rush and the creative journey never end. Most likely, each time you step to your canvas, you encounter a new challenge. When that happens, meet the challenge with courage and grace, Knowing that you have already accomplished so much by simply showing up. The first step is to just get started to do that. You will need a few supplies. The purpose of this mini course is to introduce you to the bare minimum you need to explore oil painting. Each video in this lesson will cover one topic with a just get started action step. There will also be further recommendations of each. If you are interested, we will discuss paint mediums, brushes, palettes, surfaces, and various studio and safety notes. At the end of this course, you can find a downloadable book that summarizes the following videos with the Just Get Started supply list. As well as further recommendations on where you can purchase, as well as any extras you may want to consider. Are you ready to dive in? Let's get started. 2. Class Project: The class project for this skillshare course is going to be to share one of the paintings that you make. This is a foundational course that will give you a lot of information about paint mixing and color theory and values. It's up to you which one you want to share. There will be a full demo that you can follow along with both in a black and white image as well as a full color image. Once you have your favorite piece done, go ahead and share it with the class. I cannot wait to see your work. 3. Space Considerations: The first thing to think about before you purchase anything is where you will physically practice your painting. Whether you are painting inside your home at a separate studio or on your dining room table, there is a space set up for everyone. If you have kids or pets and you are painting in the home, it may be beneficial to have a space you can close the door to. I personally have kids and a dog, and I paint out of a spare bedroom in my home. If you do not have any extra rooms, that is just fine. I will offer some suggestions on how to modify and keep your furniture and curious loved ones away from your paint. 4. Oil Paint: What You Need: The person was, Obviously that you will purchase when starting an oil painting is your paint, which is also the most fun. In this lesson, you will become familiar with the makeup of oil paint, some simple yet versatile palettes, brands to consider when buying your first couple of tubes of paint. Just get started. If you want to get started at the minimum investment, go ahead and get a yellow, a red, a blue, and a white. You can find the exact colors I recommend in the book. The budget friendly option is to purchase them in student grade quality. For gambling, that is 1980 student grade is a little bit less potent than professional grade paint. It's a great place to start if you want to save a little at the beginning. However, it may not last as long. In its essence will paint is very simple, It's pigment suspended in oil. Because of their commitment to safety and their simple approach to oil painting, I will be teaching everything using gamblings, artist colors, paints and mediums. They are not sponsoring this. Rather they are truly the brand that I've come to trust and adore after years of painting and trying different things. There are many wonderful other brands out there and I will reference them in the book if you are interested. I will be teaching everything using gamblings, artist colors, professional grade paint, introductory set. They offer a set that I will use to teach from if you would like to try a few more colors than just the primaries. And the introductory set is in your budget, that's a great place to start if you would like to add to that. I would also recommend the following colors to round out your palette. A cadmium yellow medium, manganese blue hue, and a burnt sienna. Once again, it comes to the titanium white. If you wanted to try something a little bit different, you can also try the radiant white. It's a softer version of radiant white that I find to be a little bit more workable in the E book you can download at the end of this course, I will make recommendations for a few other palettes if you're looking for some variety. 5. Mediums for Oil Painting: You're going to learn about is oil painting mediums. The purpose of this lesson is to familiarize you with what those bottles do and when to use them. You can use mediums for a variety of purposes, but the most common is to thin down paint, to clean your brushes, to manipulate drying time, and then to varnish. The basic oil painting mediums are solvents, oil, and varnish. Before I explain further, you just get started. List would be a 16 ounce bottle of Gamblinsam, 16 ounce bottle of Gamblin, Safflower oil, and three mason jars. Varnish won't be necessary for early on. Solvents can be used to thin down paint and to speed up dry time as well as to clean your brushes. I will teach you more about this in my fundamentals of wool painting course. My recommendation for solvent is Gamblings Gamsol. It's odorless and mild and it's made for all of Gamblins products, which is mostly why I love it. I would never recommend ever using commercial grade paint thinners or turpentine as they have associated health risks with them and compromise on quality. Gamsol is a safer alternative, but it is still solvent. I recommend storing it with caution. In jars that can be sealed and keeping it out of reach of children and pets, drying mediums are another way to thin down paint. The first and the most necessary is oil. It's oftentimes the same oil that your pigment is suspended in. Depending on the color, options for drying oil include linseed oil, walnut oil, poppy oil, and safflower oil. Each has different properties, such as color and dry time. After years of painting and oil, I have personally found I have no preference at all for everything that I do. I will be using safflower oil by gambling, There really isn't a wrong choice. You will need some containers to keep these in regular mason jars work great. I recommend keeping one jar for your oil and one jar for your solvent and then possibly a third for your dirty solvent. Over time, when it gets dirty, V particles will settle to the bottom and it will leave the clean solvent on top that you can pour out into your pull jar. 6. Varnish for Oil Painting: The last medium I want to talk to you about is varnish. After painting is finished, you can varnish it. I will teach you more about this in the fundamental class, and I would not recommend buying any varnish until you absolutely need it. At the beginning. You'll be doing a lot of practice. It doesn't really require varnish, but it's good to know about it anyways. Well, painting dries by oxidizing, and depending on the type of varnish that you use, varnishing too soon can impair the oxidizing process. The great thing about Gamvar is that it allows oxidation through it. As long as your painting does not move whenever you touch the thickest part with your thumb, it's safe to varnish. I know Gambar, but sounds very similar to Gamsol. Gambar is a varnish and it comes in matt, gloss, and satin. I prefer gloss because it brings up the bets of colors the most. There are other types of varnishes you can use as well. There are spray varnishes made especially for oil. There's acrylic varnish which you should not use if you're painting in oil because it will not stick to it. There's also varnish such as mar and other varieties as well. I won't be going into those in detail, but I just wanted to let you know they exist. Finally, you eventually want to varnish. I would recommend setting aside a separate brush for it. You can use a brush just from the hardware store or you can splurge and buy a brush mint to varnish, such as this one by gambling and tracheal. I have found investing in a quality varnish brush to be worth it, as sometimes your house paint brushes can shed and that's the last thing you want in your painting. 7. Palettes: Places to Mix Paint: Before I begin, I want to clarify something. There is a palette and then there is a palette. And this can be confusing. The palette I'm referring to here is the hard surface that you physically use to mix paint on a palette. Also can be the word used to describe the color paint on a painting or the colors that you choose. Those words are used interchangeably and they are spelled the same. However, for this module, I will just be talking about that one surface. And I will be talking about specific colors in the paint module as well as further in my fundamentals class. Next, you need a place for your paint to live. This is where your palette set, a place. I'm going to teach you all about the Pals that I like to use, including show you my very first palt when I started painting. If you are just getting started, I'd recommend something as simple as wax paper taped to a hard surface. Or my personal favorite, Jack Richardson's Gray matters palette paper. You can keep it in a palette saver which has a lid you can seal, which helps keep the paint wit longer and curious hands out of it. In this lesson, you will learn about options for palettes and oil painting. The first option is a wooden palette. These can be porous. I'd recommend taking a paper towel or a rag and coating it in oil before you first add paint to it. You can also wipe it down and clean it off with oil after every painting session. It gives it a nice shiny glean, which is really helpful whenever you're painting. Some artists do let the paint build up. This is my first palette. I was learning how to oil paint. While it looks really cool over time I found it makes the surface really hard to work with. I wouldn't recommend doing that, but that's the choice that you can make. Another type of palette that you might enjoy is a glass or marble palette. Glass palettes are tempered to withstand use and are also very comfortable to work with. They offer a really hard surface that makes it really easy to mix paint. They should be cleaned off after painting sessions with a rag or palette knife. I have personally found that cleaning them to be too much maintenance. However, they are a great option for some people. My personal favorite is palette paper because I often only have time to paint in short births. I don't like having to clean a palette after every session I use gray Matters Palette paper by Jack Richardson. And it's wonderful I store it in a plastic palette. Savor that lets me squeeze and mix paint while popping on the cover. If I need to store it for a couple hours or days, if the paint dries clean is super easy and I can a paint from the middle of the pile for future sessions and store on the next piece of paper. All you have to do is tear off the sheet and throw it away. Some artists even put the palette in the freezer or add a cotton ball with clove oil to help the paint dry slower in storage. Finally, if you want to keep it really simple, you can just use wax paper. You want to tape it to a surface so it doesn't slide a mix. It's a great way to start. Wax paper is white, which can sometimes make it hard to see value. I do like these middle gray colors if you haven't noticed in a palette. However, when you're just starting and you don't want to make a huge investment, wax paper works just fine. 8. Demystifying Brushes: Buying paint brushes is another really fun part of oil painting, but the options can be wide and overwhelming. Before we get into the nitty gritty of brushes, I want to give you my just get started list. My favorite brand for stiff brushes, which is really good for oil painting, is Princeton Catalyst. I would recommend, at a bare minimum, you get a round brush size two and a flat brush and sizes 24.10 Also, you need to get a palette knife. You can get a lot of really affordable sets in plastic or metal that will do great. Or if you just want to buy one, make sure it has straight edges. That way it's easier to mix paint with. I will include links to specific brushes in the book to make it easier to find what you need. Keep on watching for a more detailed discussion about brushes. Ultimately, this comes down to artists preference. And it's good to try as many things as you can. However, when you're just getting started, I recommend keeping it simple. At the end of this lesson, you will be able to identify different shapes of brushes, different stiffness, and have a good idea of what you need to purchase for the first time as you're getting started. Brushes can be distinguished by the shape. Types of brushes include round, flat, bright, Filbert, Eggbert, and liners. They can also come in synthetic or natural bristles. Both of those can come in hard and soft varieties. This truly comes down to preference, and I encourage you to try as much as you can to find what you like. However, to get started, I would recommend both the Liquitex freestyle and the Princeton catalysts as brushes that are good in quality, but still more affordable than some of the splurges. If you would like to splurge, I would recommend both kel and rosemary. They are exquisite brushes that hold their shape for a very long time. I want to point out a couple of differences with some of these brushes and how you can possibly use them. I like to use rounds for mostly drawing and sometimes covering space. Flatbushes flatbrushes and brights are very, very similar as they both have that square edge. However, as you can see, flatbrushes are much longer than brights. This gives you less control as a painter and has a much more painterly quality to your painting. The same goes with Filberts and Egberts. I don't personally use these too much in my painting, but once again here you can see these are the same size brushes, but the egg bird has a much longer bristle than the filbert. Both of those have a round shape. The type of brush mark you'll get will be a little bit different for the type of painting I'll be teaching here. I will be using rounds and flats, and usually in the stiffer options in the E book, I share a couple recommendations of which you can choose. Let's talk about knives. Mixing paint is much cleaner and more efficient. With a painting knife, you can find some extremely affordable plastic sets that work great, as well as metal ones if you don't want to purchase an entire set. A single medium sized knife like this will be very sufficient for all of your mixing needs. For the most part, I am not painting with a palte knife, so I don't need a whole lot. And I recommend that you start with the basics. One more thing. The artist I first learned to paint from used to tell me, big canvas, big brush, small canvas, big brush. I'll teach you more about how to use those larger brushes in my old painting courses. But until then, go ahead and get at least one larger size. 9. Surfaces, Substrates, and Canvas: My just get started recommendation is arches oil paper. The largest size they offer is 12 " by 16 ". And I would recommend sticking with the largest size. The best part about painting on paper is if you want to keep it. This brand is archival and it can last. However, it's also not too precious. It does absorb a little bit different than canvas and some artists don't prefer it. I will teach you in my fundamental scores how to prepare it so that it does receive paint very well. Just like brushes and paint, the options for painting and surfaces or straits are in. In this video, we're going to talk about paper versus canvas. Rough versus smooth, cotton versus linen. And acrylic primed versus oil primed. I would highly recommend starting with oil. Paper arches works great. And the best part is if you want to keep a painting on paper, it's still archival and is meant to last. However, it does absorb a little bit different than canvas, and some artists don't prefer it when you're just starting off. It can be helpful to use a surface that doesn't feel as precious. In my fundamentals of oil painting class, I'll be using oil paper for all of my demonstrations, and I will show you how to prepare in a way that makes it workable. If you prefer canvas, I'd recommend starting with panels. They offer a lower profile and take up less space. You want to keep them, you can also frame them. Finally, stretched canvas is a great option to consider. This does take up more space in your studio, but it also does not need to be framed. Even though it can be. You'll typically see these in 34 inch and 1.5 inch depths. You'll want to look for the ones that have the staples on the back, not on the sides. You will need to frame them if staples on the sides. When you're picking up canvas, you may notice some things like cotton and linen. Rough and smooth. This comes down to artist preference. For example, this is a very smooth cotton and this is linen, which is pretty much always smooth. Over the years, I personally have come to prefer a very smooth tooth. However, it really is something that you should try out and discover for yourself. I'll link all my recommendations in the book. Finally, you want to pay attention to how it's, if you buy primed panels in canvas, I'm not going to be teaching you how to prime them yourself. If you see something that's oil primed, only oil paint can be used with it. However, this is right here is acrylic prime, which means I can paint either acrylic or oil on top. It's just something to be aware of whenever you're buying it. Oil prime is typically more expensive. Buying something that's acrylic prime will work just great for your oil painting. 10. Safety Notes: There is a common misconception that oil paint is a toxic version of paint over others such as acrylics. The opposite is actually true. Acrylics are loaded with chemicals, plastics, and ammonia. But when using quality oil paint from a trusted manufacturer, the make up is actually very simple. It's oil and pigment hazard could come in the form of solvent that you use. However, Gam saw, as I mentioned earlier, is the sakes on the market as well as the pigments that you use. Some pigments can contain heavy metals in toxic compounds such as cobalts, cadmiums, leads, and arsenics. The reason why I trust Gamblins over all of their oil paint manufacturers is they're committed to safety. Colors that commonly use lead are flake white enables yellow. Gamblin was the first to develop alternatives to these lead based pigments. Gamblin does use cobalts and cadmiums in their color, but again, they are committed to safety. The pigments they use are insoluble. While it's not advised to eat paint, they are largely insoluble in the human digestive track. The hazard for these metals comes mostly if inhaled as a dust. But in this class, we won't be sanding any paintings. I'm not being paid to talk about gambling. It really is the brand that after years of research, I have come to know interest. I'm personally comfortable using heavy metals as long as they are in the Gamblings brand. If you're using a different brand, I can't guarantee the safety of it. I will be providing some alternatives to some of these beautiful colors. In my book, I will include gambling safety information in the book that's included with this mini course, so you can determine for yourself whether you are comfortable with using heavy metals or not. If you are still not comfortable, I will include a couple of alternatives that you can use. I would also recommend wearing gloves to protect your skin and working in a well ventilated room. Extra nice to haves can include space, space to make, and space to let things dry. A corner of the dining room definitely counts, depending on the needs of your household, you may have to have a space that you can close the door to. As a mother, I feel comfortable painting in my own home, but I do keep the doors closed and teach my children not to touch certain things in the studio. Another nice to have is a brush cleaner. When you clean your brushes, you will want to wipe your brush with paper towels and a rag to get as much of the pain off as possible. And then probably use the solvents such as gan salt, to get the remaining out. However, sometimes it still isn't clean enough. It's worth investing in a quality oil soap. I have tried many and by far my favorite one is the linseed oil soap by Trichl. I will include a link to it and some other varieties that you can try in the PDF. Next, it's really nice to have an easel. You can absolutely paint on the flat surface. That is all you have. However, if you have the means to, I would strongly urge you to invest in an easel. Good posture is important in oil painting, and you will want something that allows you to look at the canvas squarely. I recommend that you use a standing easel if your health allows. You don't have to buy anything expensive, but you will want to make sure it's dirty. For most painting I do, I use a basic less than $100.08 frame easel that I got online for extremely large paintings, I actually just placed them on the floor. The last thing you're going to want to have on hand is something to wipe your brush with as you're painting. And after you clean, paper towels work great. However, sometimes they can shed. For that reason, my absolute favorite thing to work with is cheesecloth, the kind that you get at the grocery store. 11. Conclusion: When you get your supplies, enjoy it. Opening up a box of fresh paint and brushes is about as satisfying as popping open a can of tennis balls for the first time. It's so full of promise and possibility and it smells good too. I know it can be tempting to save the best painting supplies for when it's special, but I really encourage you to resist that urge. One of my mentors told me something a long time ago that has helped me so much. I'm passing it on to you. The only waste to paint is the paint left in the tube. Don't be afraid to use it. And I can't wait to teach you how I have a fundamental opening course that I know would be helpful to you. In the course, I will teach you the fundamental rules of old painting and how to start and finish your very first old painting. My goal is to help you nistify the process and get you painting and falling in love as soon as possible.