K.I.S.S. We all know the acronym, Keep It Simple Stupid, and that certainly applies to oil painting. ALL artists at any level can experience the ‘materials trap’, whereby you compare yourself to other artists, see they’re using X materials and tell yourself ‘if only I had _____, then I’ll be able to paint like that!’. So you rush out and buy X thinking it’s going to magically transform the way you paint, but it doesn’t. What you should be focused on is your TECHNIQUE! You could potentially waste ALOT of time focusing on materials, instead of focusing primarily on building your individual vision and creative expression. You don’t want to end up with a cupboard full of supplies you’ve used once, or worse, never used at all!
A trompe l’oeil painting by Anthony Waichulis, who uses only WINTON student grade oil paint (pictured above) and paints on super cheap MDF board he prepares himself!
Don’t confuse the ‘materials trap’ with learning new skills! Researching how an artist achieves a particular technique has been extremely beneficial in my own painting journey. Find an artist who’s style you want to emulate and watch how they do it. Process pictures, videos/reels and sometimes descriptions of their process can give you insights into how they apply paint. Artists websites can have blog posts describing their painting process which you can learn from. You could potentially learn more from a 10 minute blog post than paying hundreds of dollars on online courses. Learn the technique, apply it to your own painting. Learn, apply, learn, apply. Applying learned skills + your unique visions = your art style.
After years of switching from acrylics to oils to gouache and pastels, I’ve brought it all back to the basics and only paint in oils:
12-15 oil paint colours, various brands, around $250-$350
a cup of brushes, most of them cheapos ranging from $2 - $10
medium (optional): refined linseed oil $15
a glass ‘palette’ ie. a cheap Kmart frame with glass in it $15
a paint scraper from the hardware store $3
primed wood panel artboards, ranging from $15 - $100 depending on size
Solvent container, or you can use a glass jar with a lid, and solvent, $40 total OR clean your brushes using soap $2
Varnish, gloss, $20
A word about mediums. Mediums are completely optional. Anthony Waichulis uses paint straight from the tube, no extra oil (medium) added. Working with stiffer paint can take some getting used to but it in no way affects the finished product.
I hope this blog post has inspired you to just get stuck into revealing your own unique creative expression with oil paints. If you have any questions, please let me know! Have a wonderful, painting-filled day XX Holly.
I’m not saying to not do ANY research at all! What I am saying is, while you develop your style, pick a surface, pick a range of colours, and just paint! Don’t overcomplicate the process. For surfaces, use prepared canvas, wood panel, fence palings, scraps of cardboard, paper or aluminium (again, it doesn’t matter, just paint). A ‘prepared’ surface just means it’s had a couple of coats of acrylic-based gesso or housepaint to seal the surface so the oil paint doesn’t sink into it. For paint, anything student grade is fine. You can pick up sets of oil paints, with a great range of colours, extremely cheap. For brushes, many professional artists have admitted to using cheap, Chinese brushes from the $2 shop. Another favourite is makeup brushes which are super soft and many realism painters use them for the perfect blending brush. Other materials include solvents or soap to clean your brushes with. Don’t like the idea of having smelly solvents around? Wipe your brushes on a cloth whenever you change colours, then at the end of the painting session, wash your brushes thoroughly in soap and water.
My piece, ‘Tethered Tides’ was the culmination of watching process videos by Anthony Waichulis, Natalie Featherston, and Julie Beck. I used their techniques to give creative expression to my own ideas.
Process for beginners: there are generally two ways to paint in oils - Direct (alla prima or wet-into-wet) and Indirect (working in layers). Anthony Waichulis paints somewhat directly, painting small sections at time, working each section to near completion before moving onto the next section. Then, at the end, he may only have small adjustments to make, if any. Natalie Featherston and Julie Beck use the indirect method. Paint a layer, let it dry, add another layer. You add depth and refine details with each layer. Whichever method you try, remember this: SLOW DOWN TO PAINT FAST! In other words, take your time in the beginning to avoid major corrections at the end.
FAT OVER LEAN Oil painting really only has one rule to stick by: you must paint ‘fat over lean’ to maintain the structural integrity of the paint film over time. Many artists will paint initial washes using oil paint and turps, which effectively ‘leans’ out the paint or reduces the oil content. The following layer they might use the paint straight from the tube, then the final layer is paint from the tube mixed with more linseed oil (or poppy oil, walnut, linseed oil + stand oil) to achieve the fattest layer.
Fat over lean simply refers to the oil content of the paint. Tubed paint is made up of pigment and linseed oil. Straight from the tube, oil paint is LEAN. By adding additional linseed oil (medium) to the paint, you make it fatter (it will have a larger proportion of oil to pigment ratio). So, I always paint my first layer straight from the tube (lean), 2nd layer add a small amount of medium, 3rd layer a little bit more, etc, until you’ve finished your painting. FAT (more linseed oil) over LEAN (less linseed oil).