Oil Painting Guide for beginners: PAINTS

When you walk into an art shop and are confronted with a number of different brands of paint, which should you choose? If price is your main consideration then this is an easy choice - the cheapest range that is still of reasonable quality is Windsor & Newton's 'Winton' range. This is what they call a 'student' range and the price is the same for every colour because only the cheaper pigments are used. When it comes to 'professional' or 'artists' ranges, you'll see that the price varies between different colours. This is because the different pigments are divided into categories depending on their level of expense to produce - from 'Series 1' (the cheapest) up to 'Series 4'.

Next up in expense if Daler-Rowney's 'Georgian' range, and then Windsor and Newton's 'Artists' Oil Colour' range. The price differences between the ranges reflects the refinement and quality of the pigments used, but also the amount of oil that's mixed with them. I like the Artists' Oil Colour range best because being a little more expensive than the Georgian paints, they have less oil mixed with them making them stiffer and with a nice buttery texture. Both Georgian and Winton paints are too thin and oily for my tastes - I find that as a portrait painter I quickly became sensitive to the particular feeling of different brands and you too will probably soon develop a preference for one of the makes over the others. It all depends a lot on your style and the kind of painting you want to make



If you want to spend more money, there are more expensive brands you can buy: for instance 'Rembrandt' paint (I find this a little too mousse-like in consistency), Daler-Rowney's 'Artists Oil Colours', 'Michael Harding Artist Oil Colours', and 'Old Holland Classic Oil Colours'. These brands will probably offer the greatest long-term stability. Each will feel a little different depending on which type of oils it is mixed with and how much is used, so try them out and see which you like the feel of best.

This is a new option for oil painting and one which I haven't tried myself, although those who have seem to speak highly of them. These paints are nearly identical to traditional oil paints - in other words they are a mixture of coloured pigment and a binding oil, sealed in a tube. The only difference is that one end of the oil molecule has been altered to make it adhere to water - in other words it's an oil that DOES mix with water. Water-dilutable, cleanable paints would be ideal from those allergic to spirits and turps or who just don't want the hassle of using these liquids. If you have little space to work in, I think they'd be a great option as they are so easy to clean up after.

I suppose the main disadvantage currently would be that with Artisan, the main range that's available, you only have a choice of 40 different colours which is less than most artists' ranges. However, as you can see above, there is a full range of mixers, solvents and cleaning fluids available and they are reasonably priced.

Oil paints take much longer than acrylics to dry (more on that below). Personally, I like the fact that the paint remains manipulable for at least 24 hours (or much longer, depending on the colour) but if you find this very frustrating, you could try Windsor & Newton's 'Griffin' range of fast-drying oil paints. This range is is a genuine oil range, but the oil that the pigment is mixed with is a fast drying 'oil modified alkyd resin'. You can mix them with regular oil paints and dilute them with the usual oils, turps and spirits. They will be touch dry in 6-8 hours which is longer than acrylics take to dry but quicker than regular oil paint.

So, should you use spirits/solvents or oils to dilute your paints? The answer is a mixture of both. If you add more oils to your paint (there will already be an oil mixed with the paint in it's tube) it will become very glossy, which you may not want. However if you dilute with purely spirits, your paint may become very matt and dull, and more importantly, it may crack in future. This is because the balance of pigment to oil will have been too diluted. What I like to do then is to mix my paints with spirits to thin them, but the more spirits I add, the more oil I also mix in - drop by drop. Here's an example to the left of a painting I have been restoring from the 1960's that seems to have been made without enough oils in it - you can see how the paint is flaking off badly.

Now you may be wondering - how much oil should I mix in exactly? How do I know when I've added enough? Well, remember that oil paint comes ready mixed with enough oil in the tube to bind it under usual circumstances if used neat from that tube. If you are wanting to paint in a very thick layer, then it may be worth adding a little extra. If you are adding spirits to dilute your paint a bit, even if you are just dipping a brush into the spirits after rinsing your brushes, I'd add exactly the same amount of oil to the mix - increasing the number of drops as you add more spirits. If you just want to add some oil to make your paint more glossy, or are adding a 'drying oil' (see below), then you wil just find that you get a feel for how much to add before your paint seems to oily to work with for the type of painting you want to do, which is the point to stop at.

Firstly, don't buy White Spirit or turpentine from a DIY store to dilute your paints with. Although much cheaper, they contain impurities which may stop your paints from fully drying and are much less refined than the spirits you'll buy in an art store.

However, it's fine to use DIY store White Spirit for cleaning your brushes. Art shops sell Artist's White Spirit, turpentine, or 'Sansador' which is a low-odor solvent. Turpentine is a little toxic  and can be absorbed through the skin so you may wish to avoid it for this reason.

The most common oils that you'll see are Linseed Oil, or Poppy Oil. Linseed is more yellowy in colour, so Poppy Oil may be better for lighter colours. You'll also see various artificially-created oil products for thinning paints such as 'Artists' Oil Medium'.

DRYING OILS TO SPEED YOUR PAINTING'S DRYING TIME


The oils that I like to mix with my paint are DRYING OILS, which will speed up the drying time of paint. I prefer these especially with paler mixes of colour, which I find tend to take longer to dry. The two main types of drying oil are 'Drying Linseed Oil' or 'Drying Poppy Oil' for lighter colours. These will speed up drying time by around 10%. The medium I prefer is 'Liquin', a range of mediums made from alkyd resins (which function in a very similar way to linseed oil) from Windsor & Newton. Liquin will speed up drying times by up to 50% and is clear and non-yellowing, so it's a very good option. 

Of course, the thicker the layer of paint you apply, the longer it will take to dry. If painting in several layers it's important to follow the 'fat over lean' rule when applying oil paint - this rule states that you shouldn't put a layer of thin oil paint over thick paint but instead should make each subsequent layer thicker. This will stop oil paint on top from drying before the paint below it, causing the top layer to crack as the paint below slowly dries and contracts. You'll find more information on this on my OIL PAINTING TECHNIQUES guide. 

The Windsor & Newton website has a very helpful explanation of paint drying times and the different ways you can speed paint drying up. You can view it by clicking here

As I mentioned above, cheap White Spirit from a DIY store is fine for getting paint off your hands, tables or anything else you may have got it on! It's best not to put Turpentine on your hands as it can be absorbed through the skin. However, you may prefer to use Washing-Up liquid (detergent) for your hands instead as it's much more gentle. Or if your art shop stocks them, there are various types of wipes or soap specifically made for getting oil paint off hands, like those to the right.

Anna Bregman specializes in child portraits. Resident in London, she studied design at Central Saint Martin's College, and Art History at University College London. She now works as a portrait artist for private clients and in the British film industry. She loves all kinds of art, design and art history and creates both oil portraits and portrait drawings, enjoying both pencil and paint equally.


For her other Squidoo Oil Painting Guides including her guide to canvases, see her recommendations panel, below.



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