Save Money on Oil Paint Supplies
In a rush of enthusiasm, many beginner artists spend a fortune on art supplies. Even amateurs will tend to spend more than they really need to. It's important to recognize that your devotion to art doesn't need to be matched with owning every possible piece of art equipment and paint color in stock; indeed, if anything, it's possible that owning everything will stifle your creative outlet as you're confronted by the paradox of too much choice!
This article will explain how a working person with a mortgage and household bills to pay can manage to satisfactorily balance the enthusiasm for overstocking on oil painting supplies with the realities of what will really get you on your way in this inspiring hobby.
Steps
- Acknowledge that you don't need to spend a fortune on a hobby. Although many books, videos and magazines have a tendency to advise you to buy the best equipment possible, it's really not necessary to spend a fortune on your supplies when you're learning how to paint. Temper the desire to buy shiny new things with the reality that it has only been in relatively recent times that artists have had access to such a huge selection of art goodies and that artists throughout time have achieved incredible things without this exceptional amount of choice before them. Indeed, question whether you will simply feel overwhelmed with wondering what to do with it all instead of creatively inspired. If your pocketbook can't handle the splurge, cease worrying. Your creativity can handle the budget road to oil painting.
- Decide what you're going to paint on. There are different media and you'll need to find which ones suit you best through playing around on them over time. However, you will note that the choices tend to be rather affordable:
- Canvas. This is the usual medium for painting on and it's available throughout many art, craft and hobby stores. When regularly using the same art and craft shop, don't be afraid to ask for a discount or to find out if they have a regular shopper card. Ask without any hesitation and you may get 20 percent off everything you buy. You could also take a look in the bargain "pound or dollar" shops which sell an A - Z of items. They sometimes offer a selection of smaller canvases for sale. And never overlook a sale or a closing down sale in such stores—canvases will often go on sale as part of such wider sales.
- As an alternative to canvas, you can oil paint on MDF board, plywood, Masonite, or even hardwood. Purchasing these products from your local DIY store will enable you to buy the exact size you need, cut specifically to your requirements. Of course, these surfaces need to be prepared correctly, so remember to rub down with sandpaper prior to applying the base coat. However, this is definitely part of the tactile experience of oil painting, so look forward to it.
- Practice on canvas pad sheets or inexpensive canvas boards before using expensive canvases. Home-gessoed MDF boards are inexpensive but cost a lot of labor. Canvas boards are great for small studies, practice and preliminary paintings. Canvas pads are sometimes gessoed heavy paper imprinted with a canvas texture. Better ones are real gessoed canvas and can be put on stretchers later if you like your painting.
- Consider learning to stretch your own canvas, especially if you want to work on large or unusual sizes.
- Learn about base coats. Many artists use Gesso, a chalk-based, white liquid that has been used for centuries by painters. However, this can be quite expensive (unless you're spotting the sales). Instead, you could use acrylic primer/undercoat, which is available from paint stores. It is water based and dries very quickly. A typical application would be an average of six coats, using sandpaper to rub down in between each coat.
- Get oil paints. This is the fun part of the oil painting: selecting your colours in many tubes. But here you can easily go overboard and by colours you like rather than colours you need. Before you even go crazy, have your painting project in mind and stick to the colours that you're actually going to be using. A list is budget rule number one for any sort of shopping! Other helpful ideas include:
- Although artist quality oil paint can cost as much as £12.00 a tube (due to the purity of the pigments), you can buy student's quality oil paint which comes in 38ml tubes and is priced at around £3.00 per tube depending on the colour. Try Rowney brand, as it is quite good overall, both in pigment and in price, making it ideal for hobby purposes. It's also good if you want to try it and you're not sure yet whether you'll like it, or if you like to paint small and don't expect to cover large areas.
- If you really enjoy painting often and want to experiment with different effects, purchase the Artist Grade paint in your most used colors and work with a smaller palette. The simplest palette would be Lemon Yellow, Permanent Rose (or Alizarin Crimson) and Ultramarine, with a larger tube of Titanium White and a tube of Burnt Sienna for building skin tones as a base, used as a thinner-thinned value painting first layer and as a darkener for yellow, orange and red colors that you don't want to turn too blue.
- Then, in order to get the most out of the Artist Grade paint, buy extra linseed oil. Squeeze out a very little bit of paint and thin it down with linseed oil until it's as thin as the student paint. It will cover a lot more area and give more versatile textures. Use the artist's linseed oil, though; the salad oils are not pure enough for painting. Some frugal decisions don't work very well.
- Get painting butter or Impasto Medium if you like using it thick with a palette knife, instead of using up the whole expensive tube. Artist Grade is cost effective if you need to cover more area and it makes techniques easier.
- As you discover what colors get used up fastest, purchase those in larger tubes and use the smallest size the paint comes in for colors you use less of. For most subjects, ultramarine and burnt sienna get used up very fast, while yellow and red, though used often, don't get used up as fast. Obviously, this will vary with your style and favorite subjects. A painter who likes sunflowers more than landscapes may use up lots of yellow, red and yellow ochre but relatively little ultramarine.
- Cadmium hues are the same color as expensive cadmium paints, but less opaque. If you don't care about them being opaque, even in artist grade, the cadmium hues will be among the cheap pigments and real Cadmiums more expensive. When you need a color like bright yellow or blue that isn't too greenish, look for whether there are more- or less-expensive versions.
- Watch in general for pigments in the low cost series range. Pigments rather than mediums or binders are what costs more in artist grade.
- Keep your paint supplies in top condition to help them last longer and go further.
- Clean the threads on paint tubes after using them. Use thinner to get off any clumps of dried paint.
- Clean out the caps on older tubes that have stuck. If a cap breaks, immediately contact the manufacturer to try to get a replacement cap. They may even replace the tube.
- Cap the tube with something that will seal it completely from the air, like a couple of layers of plastic wrap held on with twist wire or rubber bands, just keep the tube airtight until you can get a replacement cap.
- Save extra caps from empty tubes in case one cracks. Wash them out completely so old paint doesn't mix in with a different color.
- Purchase an inexpensive device called a tube roller. You can squeeze out the last bits of paint from old tubes this way. If a tube dries out and you can't get through the plug in the opening, poke through that thickened paint with an awl and use the tube roller to press the still soft paint out from beyond the plug. The plugs happen when the tubes aren't sealed properly.
- If a tube cracks, it will start to dry out inside the tube until it's unusable. Notice when this happens and do what you can to use it up while it's still soft. Sealing that hole in some way may save the tube. Or use the tube roller to roll the tube up past the crack and then seal it, so that you don't lose that expensive half tube of paint. Worst case, squeeze it all out and put it in the freezer in your palette with a kitchen plastic cover, and use it up within the next couple of weeks. Whatever that color is, choose a subject for your next painting that uses that color over a large area. If it was a red or yellow, think about doing a sunset with reflecting water; if it was a blue, think of doing a twilight scene where everything's tinted with blue or a monochrome blue portrait. It's better to use it than lose it.
- Empty tubes are sold for artists who like to grind their own pigments to make their own oil paint. These are another solution for cracked and broken oil paint tubes. If you get a set of them, you can transfer the paint into a fresh tube. Squeeze it out, fill the new tube with it and then crimp the end using the tool that came with the set of empty tubes.
- Choose your brushes. There is very little difference between the cheap and expensive brushes for the amateur painter, so buy mid-priced or student brushes. There is no need for dozens of them. You can complete a painting with around six brushes, one of which should be a fan brush used to soften the edges of the painting.
- Get the palette you are most comfortable with. Available in various shapes and sizes such as oblong, round, and kidney shaped, and in numerous materials plastic, wood etc, the kidney shaped palettes do look very arty, though they are cumbersome and heavy when using regularly.
- Cleaning and scraping palettes is time consuming, so if you would rather spend your valuable time painting, why not use disposable plastic or paper plates normally used at parties? The white background helps you to see the exact colour being mixed and there is no mess. You just thrown them away when you have finished with them. Grey is an even better color. If you can get paper plates in grey, you can see your values easier in light colors on grey.
- If you use a palette on the table instead of holding it in your hand (what the thumb hole type of palette is for), then a plain piece of glass with white or grey paper under it makes a good palette. Grey paper shows the exact colour and value of the mixture.
- Get a good thinner. At £3.00 for a small bottle, pure artist turpentine, made from pine trees, is widely available in art shops. You can use this mainly to clean brushes and not, in fact, to thin paint. For mixing with paint, use odorless mineral spirits or odorless substitutes like Winsor & Newton Sansodor, Turpenoid, etc.
- To avoid using too much thinner, go ahead and spend the money for a double dipper medium and oil container that clips on your palette. Seal the cups after painting so that any unused thinner doesn't evaporate. A one-time expense will save your wasting expensive odorless thinner and artist grade oils.
- To clean your brush using a minimum of thinner, use a rag or paper towel to squeeze most of the unwanted paint out of it. Dip the brush into the thinner cup and don't swish it around, lift it out and scrub with the rag again. Repeat several times and it's clean while you still have lots of thinner in the cup.
- Consider not cleaning your brush until you're done with the painting. Small traces of previous colors will mix with the color you're using to harmonize color throughout the painting. This is especially useful if you're using a small palette — very few colors — because they'll all have a trace of the other colors.
- Don't throw away the "palette mud" - the mixtures left over after you've painted. Scrape them together with a palette knife, cover with clear plastic kitchen wrap, then put the palette in your freezer. Warm it up again and you can paint once more. The neutral mixture is a good base for many elements in a painting. It can be tinted more toward one or the other colors with fresh paint and still used.
- Paint daily, at least a small painting. Again, this is a good use for left over paint when you're done.
- Get a good medium. Instead of using very thick paint for texture strokes and impasto, get a thickening medium like an impasto medium or painting butter to extend artist grade paint, which is concentrated.
- Try using the absolutely brilliant medium, Liquin Original, which is bought in appropriate quantities from art shops. It helps the paint to dry more quickly and at the same time provides a great glaze.
- Get the best or at least plenty of extras, cheap or free. A little time spent combing the places where people offload their unwanted hobby supplies can pay enormous dividends for building up your oil painting supplies. Here are some savvy finds:
- Check Craigslist, eBay and other auction and swap sites as well as car boot (trunk) sales for bundles of supplies when someone else has given up oil painting (it happens frequently). You can get quite expensive supplies used at boot, used wares sales or auction sites in a bundle. This is also a good way to try artist grade paint and determine if it's worth it given your styles and habits.
- If you use a lot of paint, snap up various lots and keep using what comes up as you discover how different brands behave. Most or all of them are compatible with each other.
- Watch for clearance sales at art shops, art shops that are closing and especially sales after the holidays or before they start coming out with the new holiday catalogue. Very often expensive student or artist gift sets with lots of supplies are bundled together cheaper in the gift set starters, sometimes with a lovely wooden box to carry it all in. It was already a good cost effective bundle when it first came out, but when it's discontinued in favor of the latest gift sets, it's a steal. Some of the wooden box sets are well designed to use for painting outdoors too.
- Online art supply companies like Jackson's in the UK or Dick Blick in the USA can often have regular prices at a steep discount from what they are in brick-and-mortar shops. For those of you living outside the USA, sometimes the biggest US art suppliers are cost-effective even with international shipping. Small and lightweight items may be more likely to come out worth the shipping cost. Get your easel locally but your most expensive paint tubes from those suppliers. It's also possible to split a large order and get extra savings by putting together a group order with other hobbyists, to take advantage of a 10% to 20% big order discount. Someone has to collect the money, place the order and have the rest over to pick up their stuff but it can save quite a lot.
- Recycle and reuse. If you don't like a painting you've done, gesso over it and do a new painting; it's a tradition as old as art itself. Let your turpentine settle in a jar until the sludge settles out. Then, when it's mostly clean, pour off most of it into a clean jar where it can be used for cleaning again. If you don't like a painting you did on gessoed MDF, it's important to gesso both sides anyway so it won't bend - so add a bit more gesso to the clean, unused side, sand it smooth again, gesso again, paint on the back. Or do this even if you like the first painting so that you've got an interesting double-sided painting to frame just on the edges and hang or mount somewhere people can see both sides.
- Ratty old brushes that are splayed out sometimes make good texture brushes and don't need to be thrown out. Just use them differently. You never know what new painting style you might discover when recycling drives your method.
- Be aware that these are just a few ways you can keep the cost of your art hobby to a minimum whilst fully enjoying your painting experience. No doubt you'll discover more ways to trim down the budget and still achieve all that you want out of your oil painting hobby.
Tips
- Join groups and spend time with other painters. Some of them may have supplies they don't like that you'd make better use of. Swapping and sharing can help stretch your budget. If you make your MDF panels, chances are less handy artist friends will be glad to get them in trade for things they tried and didn't like.
- Reuse canvases that you no longer like or want. Too many people throw them away. In fact, make a visit to your local charity shop/thrift store and grab a few unwanted art pieces on canvas to reuse. Again, this could spark some truly exciting creative results.
- Always ask for a discount. Many shops will give a minimum of 10%. If you don't ask, though, you'll never find out.
- Try painting on wood and board. You can often find great cheap wood, even reclaimed which will give your paintings a distinct feel.
- Consider using cleaned Styrofoam plates from meat purchases at you local grocery store for your palette. You can also use cut wax paper to cover your palette instead of buying a palette.
- Don't buy an easel unless you get one for a bargain. Use a table, or even a kitchen surface. These are usually the perfect height and are often located in light, bright rooms. For outdoor painting, consider a sketch box field easel and look for sales on them.
- Check out used easels in person even if it is a bargain - it's no bargain if it's so wobbly and ratty that you won't be able to use it unless it's free and you can get a last few uses before buying one. Or you're handy and can see obvious ways to mend it and make it sturdy again.
- When your paintings are good enough to sell, which is an intermediate level of skill, ask your commission client to purchase the supplies for their painting. Commission clients love to be involved in the process and often will get a kick out of knowing what goes into it. They may purchase more expensive colors like cobalt blue or real cadmium if you explain the properties of the more expensive paint to them. When their painting's done, the rest of the tube's yours to do what you like with.
- Sell your paintings on eBay or at art fairs, events, online. Your first sales will probably be to friends and family members, but don't be shy. After a while you'll realize that some of your friends are people who saw your art and bought a painting as how they met you.
- Use Liquin medium; the cost of the bottle will be offset by not needing as much paint. Medium is cheaper than pigment.
Warnings
- Don't exactly copy photographs unless you have permission from the photographer to use his or her image as a reference to create derivative works. Paint from your own photos, or look for photos online that have Creative Commons licensing and follow the photographer's instructions in their permission, credit them and so forth. Ask photographers' permission if nothing is listed. Many people like to know an artist is going to paint from their photo and are willing to give permission. It's courtesy to snap a photo of your finished painting to let them know how it turned out and credit the photographer when you display the painting, especially online.
- Always prepare painting surfaces well. A badly prepared surface can ruin a good painting and wastes your supplies.
- Keep good ventilation in your oil painting area or studio. Painting outdoors is good for this reason. Fumes from real turpentine and even from the odorless thinners can be bad for your health. Open windows and use a window fan pointing outwards as a way to blow the fumes away from you.
Things You'll Need
- Art and craft stores, hobby stories, online access to art supply stores
- Budget––set one and stick to it
- Storage boxes or place for items so that they stay well cared for when not in use
