Materials List for Oil Painting for the True Beginner:
The list for this course is in Lesson 1 of the course. Please don't buy anything until you have gone through that lesson!
Materials Lists for March Zoom Class:
Check below and see what you already have. Please talk with me before you buy anything for this class, especially paint. I will do an individual telephone or zoom call with you for that if you haven't taken a recent course with me. There is nothing more frustrating than buying materials that end up not being used!
Note that at the bottom of this section, there are links to carts at dickblick.com with the suggested supplies. You can go to the appropriate link for your medium, delete what you already have, and save yourself some time!
You may work with traditional oil paints, water miscible oil paints, or acrylic paints in this class. See below for more information on each option.
At the bottom of this section there are links to carts on dickblick.com with the items recommended here. You can go to the link and delete the items that you don't need, add anything else you want and proceed to checkout.
GENERAL:
- Paper towels
- 6"x8" and 8"x10" canvas boards, stretched canvas, canvas on a pad, or Canvapaper
- 6"x8" Ampersand gessobord panels (3 pack - for knife painting)
- www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00JDUEG7Q/
- Brushes - I recommend flats, #s 4,6, 8 approximately. Note oil and acrylic brushes are longer than water color brushes. Princeton Best Natural Bristle brushes are my favorite for oils. Princeton SNAP are recommended for acrylics.
- A palette knife for mixing paint
- If you are painting with oils and would like to try painting with a knife, these three are my favorites and will work much better than your mixing knife:
- RGM 81 www.amazon.com/gp/product/B009ORKTCY/
- RGM 62 www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004O7EEGG/
- RGM 109 www.amazon.com/gp/product/B009ORN17E/
- A paper palette or several paper plates, masking tape and a hardboard panel to tape the palette to if you don't want to tape it to your table
- A tuna fish can or squat glass jar for holding thinning liquid specific to each type of paint
- Q-tips (useful for removing paint)
- A larger glass jar for solvent or water to clean your brushes in
- If you prefer to draw on your canvas with a pencil rather than a brush, you will need a water color pencil in any dark-ish color.
Graphite (your pencil lead) and paint do not mix well.
PAINT, SOLVENTS. MEDIUMS:
Paint Types:
- Oil paints: I like Gamblin oils, and to work with any oil paint, you’ll need Gamsol, Gamblin’s solvent. Gamblin has a student grade paint called 1980 which you can use if the professional grade (which I recommend) is too expensive or not available. Winsor & Newton, Graham, daVinci are all fine too. I do not recommend Winton, Winsor & Netwon's student grade.
This spring we will add mediums to our toolbox. Buy a small tube of Gamblin solvent free gel, here's a link on amazon:
- www.amazon.com/Gamblin-Solvent-Free-Medium-37Ml/dp/B00XJSMCDI/
- For water miscible oils I recommend Cobra, and I've used Winsor & Newton successfully. For these paints you will need the medium recommended by the manufacturer for thinning the paint, water does not work for thinning this paint, only for cleanup.
- Acrylics: I like Golden acrylics. The Golden Open Acrylics are more like oils in terms of how long they take to dry, and are most suitable for the wet in wet approach we will take in this course. If you want the fast drying usually associated with acrylics, get the Golden Heavy Body paints. Also get some Golden Acrylic Medium – regular gel gloss.
For knife painting with acrylics get some extender.
- www.amazon.com/Golden-0003580-5-Acrylic-Retarder-Additive/dp/B0009HAB58/
Paint Colors
- Cadmium red medium and quinacridone red
- Ultramarine blue and phthalo blue green shade (not red shade!)
- Cadmium yellow medium, and Hansa yellow light
- Titanium white
- Burnt sienna - We will use this color to do value underpaintings.
- For traditional oil painters, get the fast drying variety of the burnt sienna, Winsor & Newton Griffin Alkyd or Gamblin Fast Matte. I prefer the Winsor & Newton Alkyd because it's transparent and the Fast Matte is not.
Solvent/Mediums
- For traditional oil painters - Gamsol (solvent that you can use indoors)
- For painters using water miscible oils - each vendor makes a medium for their paint, get some for thinning your paint
- For acrylic painters - Golden Gac-100 can be used as a thinner for underpainting
Links to the materials in a cart on dickblick.com for Oils and for Acrylics - they do not include the knives and panels to paint on for the March 2022 weekly class. Those links are above.
Note that you must choose oils OR acrylics, you don't need both for my classes.
OILS - If you want water miscible oils change the paints to those made by Cobra and delete the Gamsol and Gamblin Solvent Free Gel.
https://www.dickblick.com/lists/blicku/hbthpkl6aijaf/
OPEN ACRYLICS - If you want regular acrylics, change the paints to Golden's Heavy Body rather than Open product line.
https://www.dickblick.com/lists/blicku/jd343ug37eyvh/
OTHER WORKSHOPS
Oils and Acrylics
In my classes and workshops most students paint with oil, acrylic, or water color. If you paint with water color, see the bottom of this page, and if you paint with gouache, or pastel, please email me for materials lists for those mediums.
- Sketch book and pencil or pens for drawing
- View Finder <- link to an one I recommend on amazon
- Paper towels (or rags), cups for water or medium
- Canvases, panels, or paper you can paint on, about 6 to 12 inches on a side, some rectangular, some square, a board to tape paper to for painting on paper and some tape
- For brushes I generally use flats, mostly #s 4 to 8, and a few smaller ones. I like the Robert Simmons Titanium. Oil painters might also like Robert Simmons Signet hog's hair brushes, they are stiffer but they hold lots of paint.
- At least one palette knife for mixing paint, more if you want to paint with them
Paints:
If you plan to paint with oils, and have both oils and acrylics, please bring them both. We often do some under painting in acrylic with oil or acrylic on top.
- I use two of each primary (one that leans towards each of the other two primaries, see below), plus white.
- If you are happy with the colors you can make with your palette, just bring the paints you normally use.
- If you aren’t, look through your paints and try to find these: a yellow red (e.g., cad red), a blue red (quinacridone [best] or alizarin crimson), a red blue (e.g., ultramarine), a green blue (e.g. phthalo [best] or cerulean), and two yellows (cadmium yellow, plus lemon or Hansa yellow) or yellow ochre and Indian yellow, and Titanium white.
- If you have only student grade paints, your color mixing will be limited. I recommend getting a non-student grade paint for at least your ultramarine blue and cad yellow medium (see below for brands).
- Paint recommendations - Oil Paints: I like Gamblin oils, and to work with any oil paint, you’ll need Gamsol, Gamblin’s solvent. Please use Gamsol rather then Odorless Mineral Spirit, this is a requirement to bring your wet paintings into the hotel for the Monhegan workshop. If you want to use a a medium, I recommend Gamblin Solvent Free Gel.
- Paint recommendations - Acrylic Paints: I like Golden acrylics. The Golden Open Acrylics are more like oils in terms of how long they take to dry, if you are looking for that. For water-based oils, any quality brand in a non-student grade will be fine. And for water-based oils especially, you will need the medium recommended by the manufacturer. If you are painting with acrylics, please bring all the mediums that you have. I particularly like the Golden Acrylic Medium – regular gel gloss.
Plein Air Classes and Workshops
For plein air classes and workshops you will also need:
- Your basic painting setup including an easel (or pochade box and tripod) with palette and holder for your painting
- Cups that attach to your palette for medium
- For acrylic, a Masterson box with lid and sponge insert
- A hat, sunscreen, bug spray, and a water bottle
- Long pants and boots or walking shoes and socks are recommended to minimize ticks
Water Color
- There are two ways to work with water color paints, using a paint box where dry paint is contained in small pans, or using tubes of wet paint. Unless one is going to paint every day, the wet paint squeezed out of tubes becomes dry, so I think it makes sense for beginners and travelers to use the pans.
- Paints
If you want to use the pans, this paint kit by Winsor Newton on Amazon, though student grade, is high quality.
If you want to buy individual tubes of paint, don't buy too many colors, get just a red that isn't pinkish or orange-ish, a yellow, burnt sienna, plus cobalt and ultramarine blue. As you become more proficient with water color, you'll want to move up from the student grade paints pretty quickly. Don't buy any paints with "hue" in the name, they aren't light fast.
- Palette: a plastic or enameled metal tray to mix the paint in. Here's one on Amazon. Anything that's white, flat, and has a small lip around the edge is fine, as long as the surface isn't going to absorb the paint. They don't need to have all the little sections, but those will keep the different mixes separate.
- Brushes: Go for synthetic rather than sable or other animal fur. Three good quality brushes are better than a set of a dozen brushes that will drop hairs while you're painting.
1" flat
#10 or #12 round
#4 or #6 round (optional, for detail)
- Paper: a water color pad 8"x10" or less, cold press unless you know you prefer hot press
- Sketch book and pencil or pens for drawing
- View Finder <- link to an one I recommend on amazon
- Paper towels
Drawing Class
I'd like you to have just a few supplies for our first session. I'll have others to show you, and for you to try out, before you decide what works best for you.
- Sketch book or paper
- At least one of your favorite drawing implements: charcoal, pencil, pen
- View Finder <- link to an one I recommend on amazon
- Straight edge
- Reference material such as printed photos or images on a tablet