How to Buy Oil Paints for Canvas Painting

Buying oil paint is much like buying a car - you get what you pay for. Generally, the more expensive the paint, the better quality it is.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Artist Palettes
• Artist's Canvases
• Oil Paint Set
• Oil Paintbrushes
• Palette Knives
• Palette Trays
• Clean Rags
• Easels
• Smocks
• Turpentine
• Clean Rags
• Linseed Oils

1. Select a palette of colors you'll use. This will vary depending on what you'll be painting - a landscape, a figure/portrait and so on.

2. Include on your list a good range for a beginner: cadmium yellow medium, cerulean blue, ultramarine blue, alizarin crimson, cadmium red medium, burnt umber, lamp black and white.

3. Decide which of the two different types of oil paint you'll get: ones made with pure pigment and binder or ones made with artificial pigment and binder. Artificial paints are good for beginning painters and for people who don't need to have their work last permanently.

4. Select pure pigment paints for college-level artwork and professional fine art. These paints will hold their colors when mixed with other colors and don't fade.

5. Buy oil paints online or at art and craft stores. Look for the pure colors behind the counter or locked behind glass.

6. Purchase turpentine to clean your brushes and thin your paint.

Tips & Warnings

• Artificial paints will generally be labeled "hue," as in "cobalt blue hue." These paints cost less than those made with pure pigment and range from $6 to $15. Artificial colors tend to fade over time (a long time - years, even - but they still fade) and don't keep their color in mixing. Often they get "muddy."
• Pure pigment paints are made with pigments ground from minerals and plants. They're generally much more expensive than artificial colors because of this. An example of a pure color is one that's called cadmium red or cobalt blue. They'll cost between $20 and $150.

[Tosa85]

on 6/1/2007 You do get what you pay for: It should be noted that there is a significant different in drying times between professional "artist" oils and student grade paints.

Student grade paints have less actual pigment, and more inert/colorless extenders and oil (the "binder") added.

As such lower quality paints will take much longer to dry. But oil paints don't really "dry": oils dry through oxidation and not evaporation (as with watercolors or acrylics).

Paintings made with professional oil colors are more durable/lightfast and also, because of increased pigment content, they will often (though not always) sell at higher prices.

on 11/22/2005 You can use old cotton shirts as inexpensive, effective cleaning rags. Also, some prefer to use paper towels or a roll of toilet paper to clean up with. Be sure to experiment and find which option suits you best.

on 11/22/2005 You may find that the odor of turpentine is overwhelming when painting in a confining space. Fortunately, there is odorless turpentine. It's just as good - and safer to the senses. An inexpensive brush cleaner soap is recommended, too.

on 11/22/2005 When glazing (slowly building up layers of transparent color), you often have to purchase the more expensive colors. Cheaper colors lose their intensity when mixed down to a thin glaze and become "muddy."

on 11/22/2005 When using a direct painting method (not thinning the color down with linseed oil), you can often buy the cheaper earth colors. They look just as good as the expensive ones. Save your money to buy the better cadmiums for intense bursts of color.