In my intro post about How To Paint, I explained how I'll be taking a couple of posts to bleed out all my painting knowledge to all interested parties. I attempt to go into in depth coverage of the trade of painting as I know it, and this post is long and hopefully informative. If this bores you, go have fun with art!
If you've come back to learn or are along for the ride, kudos. I hope we can teach each other, and if you're new to painting I sincerely hope you can find the time and will to pick up a paintbrush and give one of the most rewarding pastimes I know a try. I know if I was reading a "how to" about painting or just about anything I'd be eager to jump right in. Well I don't blame you, and the way this tutorial will play out you can skip and jump to your heart's content. But one thing which must be addressed first is the materials. So without further ado let's get started.
Paint
One material I think we can all agree you can't do without is the paint. As I mentioned before a good bet is to get one of those starter kits that range in sizes and price. That way you usually can't go wrong with the color selection.
I use 37 ml oil paint for most of the colors but I always have 200 ml for white and burnt umber. White is the number color you will use. It is the base of every light color mixture, lightens everything, and helps turn certain pigments opaque (Some pigments like burnt sienna and alizarin crimson have a very high transparency, that is they are practically see-through unless applied in very thick layers. Adding a little white to these transparent colors instantly makes them opaque.) I also keep a 200 ml tube of burnt umber around. This is a versatile adn good looking earth color which can be added to a number of colors to darken them (never add black to darken a color, this will ruin the color- more on that later). Most of my paints are from Winton, and a few from Grumbacher (a little more expensive).
If you're just starting out you can get away with using a smaller size tube such as 8 or 12 ml, but you'll find the standard size is 37 ml. The paint available to you ranges from the very cheap to the very expensive. The cheaper paints are considered "Student" quality paints and are decent to use when experimenting. The quality of the pigments are lower and the paint is usually loaded up with more "filler" and medium than actual quality pigment. The more expensive paints are considered "Artist" quality and the colors can be very rich and the paint works and turns out much better. A way to distinguish these is there will be a number on the tube. Generally a lower number is more expensive.
Another reason paints differ in price is the rarity of the pigment involved. Certain pigments are much more expensive due to their scarcity and will raise the price considerably. A way for amateurs to get by without spending so much money is to buy the paint that has "Hue" in the title. For instance, cadmium being an expensive pigment, a student can buy "Cadmium Red Hue" for about half the price. This means more filler and less real pigment, and of course is not as good a quality and doesn't mix as well as the real thing, but it makes a suitable substitute for students' purposes. Earth tones are generally just as good in the "Students" grade paint.
As far as for which palette to use I have set up several sets of colors here. Resist the urge to just use your imagination in buying the colors, because when starting out you really only need a select few. Mixing is an exercise that needs to be started as early as possible but you're not going to want to mix basic colors this early in the game for several reasons: when finding the perfect color it is seldom easy to find the exact color again, and mixing sometimes results in wasted paint if you don't know what you're doing.
One thing is for sure, no matter what stage you're at you don't need to have a tube of every single color they sell. You should get by just fine on these palettes depending on your purpose and skill level, if the color is on the same level you may pick and choose any color on that level:
Palette A, beginners
* Titanium white
* Burnt umber
* Cadmium Red Hue
* Cadmium Yellow Pale Hue
* Yellow Ochre (a tan color, mixes many great colors or use by itself)
* Cobalt Blue, French Ultramarine
* Permanent Green Light
-Note the "hues" are generally cheaper.
-Different yellows and blues can be substituted (for instance cadmium yellow medium- a darker yellow) but I find these to be the most versatile. But I wouldn't even consider starting without these basics. Most starter kits would have at least these basic colors. A decent black can be made by mixing cobalt blue, burnt umber, and a very little of the red (I don't use black from the tube-more on that in the Color section)
Palette B, beginners
* Titanium white, Zinc white (zinc white is a little thicker and results in thicker, richer colors in my opinion, but may be a little harder to use at first)
* Burnt umber, Raw umber (Raw umber is also a nice earth tone, a little darker and makes an excellent gray mixed with a little white, and an excellent flesh shadow mixed with Flesh tone, more on Color later)
* Burnt Sienna (a reddish brown)
* Cadmium Red Hue, Cadmium Red Light Hue
* Cadmium Yellow Pale
* Cadmium Yellow Medium
* Yellow Ochre
* Cobalt Blue, French Ultramarine, Phthalo Blue, Prussian Blue (the synthetic blue)
* Cerulean Blue (a lighter blue, makes an excellent sky)
* Permanent Green Light, Sap Green (sap is a very transparent deeper green, good for evergreen trees, etc., found in Bob Ross™ supplies)
-So this palette just has a bit more options and you can easily keeper this selection the entire time you paint. Next we have a slightly more intermediate palette only because it involves mixing, once again more options, a little more expensive:
Palette C, Intermediate:
* Titanium White, Zinc White
* Burnt Umber, Raw umber
* Burnt Sienna, Raw Sienna (a very transparent ochre-like tan color)
* Cadmium Red Hue, Cadmium Red Light Hue, Vermillion Hue
* Alizarin Crimson, Permanent Rose
* Cadmium Orange Hue (mainly to neutralize and grey blues, mixes great with Cerulean)
* Cobalt Violet Hue (useful for neutralizing and/ore graying yellow)
* Cadmium Yellow Pale, Cadmium Yellow Medium
* Naples Yellow (an excellent light beige, I can't do without it)
* Yellow Ochre
* Cobalt Blue, French Ultramarine, Phthalo Blue, Prussian Blue
* Cerulean Blue
* Viridian (a bluish green)
* Permanent Green Light, Sap Green
* Ivory Black, Mars Black
* Flesh hue (Grumbacher makes a great flesh hue)
-So this assortment has a few more options which can help you make some great paintings. A lot of them can mix very interesting and useful colors all of which I will get into in the post about Color later on. Like I said earlier, you can get by with just the basic palette and it won't be so hard on your pocket. Most of the paints here you can buy for around $5- $6 for a 37 ml. Expect to pay more for colors like Viridian, but once again these are available in "Hues" for cheaper.
Brushes
Musicians have their instruments, writers have their keyboard or typewriter, and painters have their paint brushes. Brushes are the medium used to convey what's inside the artist's soul, they are an outlet. Much care should be put into choosing the right brush for you.
I'll cut right to the chase here and tell you what I use. Most of my brushes are American Painter® synthetic bristle brushes of varying sizes. Most professional artists will balk at the idea of using synthetic brushes, but these brushes have done me well and I will continue to use them. There are a variety of synthetic brushes but I must warn of one thing: if you buy very cheap brushes, you will produce very cheap results without fail.
Also available are bristle brushes such as hog bristle. These natural white hair brushes can last a very long time when taken care of. They are hard and hold the paint well in the bristles, but the strokes can look very painterly if not careful. I personally don't use them often for this reason, and I find them not very handy in painting people due to the bristles making their mark on the canvas so heavily. Hog bristles are great for really applying lots of paint and pushing it around.
Some other good brushes are sable brushes coming from the animal of the same name living in Northern Asia. These hair brushes are very soft as opposed to the bristle brushes, and are very springy. If using the hog bristles to apply tons of color, these sable brushes can be used to paint details and small patches of color.
Brushes come in many different shapes to include the
* round brush (which 90 % of my brushes are, they are very versatile and when used properly can paint very straight edges and large patches of color, the tips can be used for detailing, and can also be used for blending- its your one stop shop)
* flat brushes (square ends, I use large flats to paint backgrounds and other large areas)
* bright brushes (with shorter bristles or hairs)
* filberts (take a flat brush and round the edges inward a little, I don't even own one of these)
* fans (great for painting pine trees and blending)
* and small detail brushes (essentially tiny round brushes, many artists speak against using such small brushes even for tiny details, but I find them priceless in delivering a detailed final product)
All of these brushes come in different numbered sizes, with the higher the number the larger it is. It pays to generally have about 4 different rounds going up to very large, a small flat, and a large flat (for backgrounds), one or two brights and filberts mainly for details and small patches, one medium sized fan, and at least two very small detail brushes.
I'm going to go ahead and include a painting knife in the brushes category seeing that it can be used to apply paint. The knife is an invaluable piece of equipment and can be used for two reasons. One you can get by with only a knife to mix your paint on your wooden palette, two you can actually paint with it. Painting with a knife is a bit more intermediate, and I have yet to attempt an entire painting with it (it can be done!), but lately I have been utilizing the flat edge of the knife to paint entire backgrounds. It's great for backgrounds when you don't want any strokes showing, rather a smooth look, like skies. I also have many times used the edge or the very tip of a knife to paint tiny thin lines, and microscopic-like details.
Canvases
Now that you have your paints and brushes you need to figure out what you want to paint on. The possibilities are almost endless ranging from fake canvas paper to rocks and wood, as long as certain preparations are made (a surface must be gessoed and primed in order for the paint to stick, and for the oil to work properly and not get absorbed into the surface). You can't paint on absorbent surfaces such as cardboard or the oil will separate from the pigment.
Mostly you'll want to paint on a canvas. Once again there are several options here, with different types and sizes to chose from. I use pre-stretched Fredrix® canvases of different sizes. In the past I have used canvas boards (a stiff board wrapped in canvas and primed- perfect for beginners). I also have a canvas pad with real sheets of primed canvas ideal for sketches and practices (although most of my "practices" are actually finished products, I rarely paint studies- maybe it shows). I recently acquired large canvas stretcher bars which I plan on making the canvas from scratch from a roll of canvas. It seems easy, all you have to do is stretch the canvas and staple it in certain places in order to achieve a well-stretched canvas. I just need to get a staple gun, we'll see how that turns out.
When I first started painting I basically started out with small canvases and worked my way up. My first couple of pictures were on 5" x 7"s and my largest canvas to date is a 24" x 48" so I went from less than a sheet of paper to 4 feet in length. It takes practice and patience to paint on such a large area, and I definitely worked my way up. As a beginner, you can go my route or jump right in to your larger canvases, depending on what you plan on painting, but we'll get into Subject Matter and Composition in a later post. Any canvas will do when you first start out, but I would at least attempt the smaller size first: this means less paint mixing, less paint used, less time, etc.
Mediums, Solvents, and Thinners
Now that you have the paints, the brushes to paint them with, and the surface to paint on, you'll now need some essential elements in making the painting possible.
The paint in the tube is made up of two things: pigment and medium. The pigment is a natural or synthetic color ground up from elements into a fine powder. The pigment is next put into a "vehicle," which is no more than linseed oil, in a certain ratio to produce a usable paint. A separate medium can be added later by you to fatten the paint by adding more linseed oil. Knowledge of how the oil works is important for the painting procedure itself, and how the end product will look. More on that later, just know that adding extra oil can improve flow and gloss.
Thinners will be needed to clean off your brush from color to color. An odorless thinner is advised, so you can work indoors without worrying so much about harmful vapors. I use Weber Odorless Turpenoid, a turpentine substitute. This turpentine can be poured into a glass jar with a screen in it for easy brush cleaning, and as long as a lid is put on top, it can be used several times before becoming too muddy. Paint directly from the tube can be very thick, so you'll definitely want to thin it down just a bit most of the time in order for it to flow easily from your brush. A good solvent can be made easily by mixing a 60/40 mix of turpentine and linseed oil (make sure it's "cold pressed linseed oil").
Other Materials Needed
* Now you'll want to prop up your canvas so you can paint (although every now and then I'll hold the smaller canvases in my lap), so you'll need an easel. I recently got a large tripod easel which holds canvases up to about 40" tall, but I have been using a small Bob Ross travel easel for the longest time. All it really is is a plastic block with a slot in the front to hold the canvas and a bungie cord in the back which stretches and holds the top of the canvas tightly.
* Basic brush cleaning supplies are: (as mentioned above) turpentine, or other form of thinner in a jar suitable for beating the brushes without splashing, and a rag to wipe the turpentine off the brush after cleaning.
* As mentioned in the "Brushes" section, a painting knife is suitable for mixing paint, but a special palette knife is also available for this purpose.
* You'll need an actual palette to hold your paint. You can use a wooden palette brushed with linseed oil, but makes clean up a messy chore. Or you can do what I do and just purchase disposable palette sheets. I highly recommend this, as there is no other easily way. You simply put the paint on the non-absorbent sheets, mix right on the paper, and tear it off in the end to throw it away.
* A painting box can come in handy for storing your paints and can be used as a portable studio in Plein Aire painting outdoors. You can also keep a jar for your brushes (never store them bristle side down).
* Painting books- You can never have too many reference guides around, particularly color mixing guides.
* References- You may have pictures on the computer to look at, photos to paint from, people posing, a still-life setup, a mirror, etc.
* Music! Rarely do I paint without some tunes in the background.
* A desire to have fun. Without it you'll think of all this as a chore and you'll never do it again. Experiment and fail often, its how you learn. Know that what you create is unique and priceless, no one else out there can create what you can. Be satisfied and proud of yourself when you're done. Only after one perceived success, you'll want to come back for more, and I hope you do.
So in conclusion, your materials should consist of a few essential basics which can be bought for a fairly inexpensive amount. But do plan on spending some money, this is no cheap hobby. I must warn the more you paint, the more you'll want to spend on better materials and different paints. This is all well and good though, because the value you get from painting is priceless. Not to mention the priceless masterpieces you'll turn out! To this date I have not made a single penny off of painting and that's fine by me. The fun and satisfaction I receive from painting far outweigh any costs involved.
I hope you found this materials guide useful. Up next: Color! I hope to share some knowledge of color mixing as well as basic color psychology and color theory.
Until then, take care.
How to Paint Like a Master in Under a Year: Paperback on Amazon.com, or Kindle Edition.
If you've come back to learn or are along for the ride, kudos. I hope we can teach each other, and if you're new to painting I sincerely hope you can find the time and will to pick up a paintbrush and give one of the most rewarding pastimes I know a try. I know if I was reading a "how to" about painting or just about anything I'd be eager to jump right in. Well I don't blame you, and the way this tutorial will play out you can skip and jump to your heart's content. But one thing which must be addressed first is the materials. So without further ado let's get started.
Paint
One material I think we can all agree you can't do without is the paint. As I mentioned before a good bet is to get one of those starter kits that range in sizes and price. That way you usually can't go wrong with the color selection.
I use 37 ml oil paint for most of the colors but I always have 200 ml for white and burnt umber. White is the number color you will use. It is the base of every light color mixture, lightens everything, and helps turn certain pigments opaque (Some pigments like burnt sienna and alizarin crimson have a very high transparency, that is they are practically see-through unless applied in very thick layers. Adding a little white to these transparent colors instantly makes them opaque.) I also keep a 200 ml tube of burnt umber around. This is a versatile adn good looking earth color which can be added to a number of colors to darken them (never add black to darken a color, this will ruin the color- more on that later). Most of my paints are from Winton, and a few from Grumbacher (a little more expensive).
If you're just starting out you can get away with using a smaller size tube such as 8 or 12 ml, but you'll find the standard size is 37 ml. The paint available to you ranges from the very cheap to the very expensive. The cheaper paints are considered "Student" quality paints and are decent to use when experimenting. The quality of the pigments are lower and the paint is usually loaded up with more "filler" and medium than actual quality pigment. The more expensive paints are considered "Artist" quality and the colors can be very rich and the paint works and turns out much better. A way to distinguish these is there will be a number on the tube. Generally a lower number is more expensive.
Another reason paints differ in price is the rarity of the pigment involved. Certain pigments are much more expensive due to their scarcity and will raise the price considerably. A way for amateurs to get by without spending so much money is to buy the paint that has "Hue" in the title. For instance, cadmium being an expensive pigment, a student can buy "Cadmium Red Hue" for about half the price. This means more filler and less real pigment, and of course is not as good a quality and doesn't mix as well as the real thing, but it makes a suitable substitute for students' purposes. Earth tones are generally just as good in the "Students" grade paint.
As far as for which palette to use I have set up several sets of colors here. Resist the urge to just use your imagination in buying the colors, because when starting out you really only need a select few. Mixing is an exercise that needs to be started as early as possible but you're not going to want to mix basic colors this early in the game for several reasons: when finding the perfect color it is seldom easy to find the exact color again, and mixing sometimes results in wasted paint if you don't know what you're doing.
One thing is for sure, no matter what stage you're at you don't need to have a tube of every single color they sell. You should get by just fine on these palettes depending on your purpose and skill level, if the color is on the same level you may pick and choose any color on that level:
Palette A, beginners
* Titanium white
* Burnt umber
* Cadmium Red Hue
* Cadmium Yellow Pale Hue
* Yellow Ochre (a tan color, mixes many great colors or use by itself)
* Cobalt Blue, French Ultramarine
* Permanent Green Light
-Note the "hues" are generally cheaper.
-Different yellows and blues can be substituted (for instance cadmium yellow medium- a darker yellow) but I find these to be the most versatile. But I wouldn't even consider starting without these basics. Most starter kits would have at least these basic colors. A decent black can be made by mixing cobalt blue, burnt umber, and a very little of the red (I don't use black from the tube-more on that in the Color section)
Palette B, beginners
* Titanium white, Zinc white (zinc white is a little thicker and results in thicker, richer colors in my opinion, but may be a little harder to use at first)
* Burnt umber, Raw umber (Raw umber is also a nice earth tone, a little darker and makes an excellent gray mixed with a little white, and an excellent flesh shadow mixed with Flesh tone, more on Color later)
* Burnt Sienna (a reddish brown)
* Cadmium Red Hue, Cadmium Red Light Hue
* Cadmium Yellow Pale
* Cadmium Yellow Medium
* Yellow Ochre
* Cobalt Blue, French Ultramarine, Phthalo Blue, Prussian Blue (the synthetic blue)
* Cerulean Blue (a lighter blue, makes an excellent sky)
* Permanent Green Light, Sap Green (sap is a very transparent deeper green, good for evergreen trees, etc., found in Bob Ross™ supplies)
-So this palette just has a bit more options and you can easily keeper this selection the entire time you paint. Next we have a slightly more intermediate palette only because it involves mixing, once again more options, a little more expensive:
Palette C, Intermediate:
* Titanium White, Zinc White
* Burnt Umber, Raw umber
* Burnt Sienna, Raw Sienna (a very transparent ochre-like tan color)
* Cadmium Red Hue, Cadmium Red Light Hue, Vermillion Hue
* Alizarin Crimson, Permanent Rose
* Cadmium Orange Hue (mainly to neutralize and grey blues, mixes great with Cerulean)
* Cobalt Violet Hue (useful for neutralizing and/ore graying yellow)
* Cadmium Yellow Pale, Cadmium Yellow Medium
* Naples Yellow (an excellent light beige, I can't do without it)
* Yellow Ochre
* Cobalt Blue, French Ultramarine, Phthalo Blue, Prussian Blue
* Cerulean Blue
* Viridian (a bluish green)
* Permanent Green Light, Sap Green
* Ivory Black, Mars Black
* Flesh hue (Grumbacher makes a great flesh hue)
-So this assortment has a few more options which can help you make some great paintings. A lot of them can mix very interesting and useful colors all of which I will get into in the post about Color later on. Like I said earlier, you can get by with just the basic palette and it won't be so hard on your pocket. Most of the paints here you can buy for around $5- $6 for a 37 ml. Expect to pay more for colors like Viridian, but once again these are available in "Hues" for cheaper.
Brushes
Musicians have their instruments, writers have their keyboard or typewriter, and painters have their paint brushes. Brushes are the medium used to convey what's inside the artist's soul, they are an outlet. Much care should be put into choosing the right brush for you.
I'll cut right to the chase here and tell you what I use. Most of my brushes are American Painter® synthetic bristle brushes of varying sizes. Most professional artists will balk at the idea of using synthetic brushes, but these brushes have done me well and I will continue to use them. There are a variety of synthetic brushes but I must warn of one thing: if you buy very cheap brushes, you will produce very cheap results without fail.
Also available are bristle brushes such as hog bristle. These natural white hair brushes can last a very long time when taken care of. They are hard and hold the paint well in the bristles, but the strokes can look very painterly if not careful. I personally don't use them often for this reason, and I find them not very handy in painting people due to the bristles making their mark on the canvas so heavily. Hog bristles are great for really applying lots of paint and pushing it around.
Some other good brushes are sable brushes coming from the animal of the same name living in Northern Asia. These hair brushes are very soft as opposed to the bristle brushes, and are very springy. If using the hog bristles to apply tons of color, these sable brushes can be used to paint details and small patches of color.
Brushes come in many different shapes to include the
* round brush (which 90 % of my brushes are, they are very versatile and when used properly can paint very straight edges and large patches of color, the tips can be used for detailing, and can also be used for blending- its your one stop shop)
* flat brushes (square ends, I use large flats to paint backgrounds and other large areas)
* bright brushes (with shorter bristles or hairs)
* filberts (take a flat brush and round the edges inward a little, I don't even own one of these)
* fans (great for painting pine trees and blending)
* and small detail brushes (essentially tiny round brushes, many artists speak against using such small brushes even for tiny details, but I find them priceless in delivering a detailed final product)
All of these brushes come in different numbered sizes, with the higher the number the larger it is. It pays to generally have about 4 different rounds going up to very large, a small flat, and a large flat (for backgrounds), one or two brights and filberts mainly for details and small patches, one medium sized fan, and at least two very small detail brushes.
I'm going to go ahead and include a painting knife in the brushes category seeing that it can be used to apply paint. The knife is an invaluable piece of equipment and can be used for two reasons. One you can get by with only a knife to mix your paint on your wooden palette, two you can actually paint with it. Painting with a knife is a bit more intermediate, and I have yet to attempt an entire painting with it (it can be done!), but lately I have been utilizing the flat edge of the knife to paint entire backgrounds. It's great for backgrounds when you don't want any strokes showing, rather a smooth look, like skies. I also have many times used the edge or the very tip of a knife to paint tiny thin lines, and microscopic-like details.
Canvases
Now that you have your paints and brushes you need to figure out what you want to paint on. The possibilities are almost endless ranging from fake canvas paper to rocks and wood, as long as certain preparations are made (a surface must be gessoed and primed in order for the paint to stick, and for the oil to work properly and not get absorbed into the surface). You can't paint on absorbent surfaces such as cardboard or the oil will separate from the pigment.
Mostly you'll want to paint on a canvas. Once again there are several options here, with different types and sizes to chose from. I use pre-stretched Fredrix® canvases of different sizes. In the past I have used canvas boards (a stiff board wrapped in canvas and primed- perfect for beginners). I also have a canvas pad with real sheets of primed canvas ideal for sketches and practices (although most of my "practices" are actually finished products, I rarely paint studies- maybe it shows). I recently acquired large canvas stretcher bars which I plan on making the canvas from scratch from a roll of canvas. It seems easy, all you have to do is stretch the canvas and staple it in certain places in order to achieve a well-stretched canvas. I just need to get a staple gun, we'll see how that turns out.
When I first started painting I basically started out with small canvases and worked my way up. My first couple of pictures were on 5" x 7"s and my largest canvas to date is a 24" x 48" so I went from less than a sheet of paper to 4 feet in length. It takes practice and patience to paint on such a large area, and I definitely worked my way up. As a beginner, you can go my route or jump right in to your larger canvases, depending on what you plan on painting, but we'll get into Subject Matter and Composition in a later post. Any canvas will do when you first start out, but I would at least attempt the smaller size first: this means less paint mixing, less paint used, less time, etc.
Mediums, Solvents, and Thinners
Now that you have the paints, the brushes to paint them with, and the surface to paint on, you'll now need some essential elements in making the painting possible.
The paint in the tube is made up of two things: pigment and medium. The pigment is a natural or synthetic color ground up from elements into a fine powder. The pigment is next put into a "vehicle," which is no more than linseed oil, in a certain ratio to produce a usable paint. A separate medium can be added later by you to fatten the paint by adding more linseed oil. Knowledge of how the oil works is important for the painting procedure itself, and how the end product will look. More on that later, just know that adding extra oil can improve flow and gloss.
Thinners will be needed to clean off your brush from color to color. An odorless thinner is advised, so you can work indoors without worrying so much about harmful vapors. I use Weber Odorless Turpenoid, a turpentine substitute. This turpentine can be poured into a glass jar with a screen in it for easy brush cleaning, and as long as a lid is put on top, it can be used several times before becoming too muddy. Paint directly from the tube can be very thick, so you'll definitely want to thin it down just a bit most of the time in order for it to flow easily from your brush. A good solvent can be made easily by mixing a 60/40 mix of turpentine and linseed oil (make sure it's "cold pressed linseed oil").
Other Materials Needed
* Now you'll want to prop up your canvas so you can paint (although every now and then I'll hold the smaller canvases in my lap), so you'll need an easel. I recently got a large tripod easel which holds canvases up to about 40" tall, but I have been using a small Bob Ross travel easel for the longest time. All it really is is a plastic block with a slot in the front to hold the canvas and a bungie cord in the back which stretches and holds the top of the canvas tightly.
* Basic brush cleaning supplies are: (as mentioned above) turpentine, or other form of thinner in a jar suitable for beating the brushes without splashing, and a rag to wipe the turpentine off the brush after cleaning.
* As mentioned in the "Brushes" section, a painting knife is suitable for mixing paint, but a special palette knife is also available for this purpose.
* You'll need an actual palette to hold your paint. You can use a wooden palette brushed with linseed oil, but makes clean up a messy chore. Or you can do what I do and just purchase disposable palette sheets. I highly recommend this, as there is no other easily way. You simply put the paint on the non-absorbent sheets, mix right on the paper, and tear it off in the end to throw it away.
* A painting box can come in handy for storing your paints and can be used as a portable studio in Plein Aire painting outdoors. You can also keep a jar for your brushes (never store them bristle side down).
* Painting books- You can never have too many reference guides around, particularly color mixing guides.
* References- You may have pictures on the computer to look at, photos to paint from, people posing, a still-life setup, a mirror, etc.
* Music! Rarely do I paint without some tunes in the background.
* A desire to have fun. Without it you'll think of all this as a chore and you'll never do it again. Experiment and fail often, its how you learn. Know that what you create is unique and priceless, no one else out there can create what you can. Be satisfied and proud of yourself when you're done. Only after one perceived success, you'll want to come back for more, and I hope you do.
So in conclusion, your materials should consist of a few essential basics which can be bought for a fairly inexpensive amount. But do plan on spending some money, this is no cheap hobby. I must warn the more you paint, the more you'll want to spend on better materials and different paints. This is all well and good though, because the value you get from painting is priceless. Not to mention the priceless masterpieces you'll turn out! To this date I have not made a single penny off of painting and that's fine by me. The fun and satisfaction I receive from painting far outweigh any costs involved.
I hope you found this materials guide useful. Up next: Color! I hope to share some knowledge of color mixing as well as basic color psychology and color theory.
Until then, take care.
How to Paint Like a Master in Under a Year: Paperback on Amazon.com, or Kindle Edition.
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