Lately I’ve been hearing this question a lot: “I just want to try starting a painting for fun. What do I need?”
This question only leads to others, mainly, “How much experience do you have?” and “What is this for? What is your goal?” Like any “hobby” from rock climbing to knitting, painting is a skill that takes work. I feel like people don’t believe how much study and work the arts take. A lot of people seem to assume that once you have the materials, you can just go at it.
That is so NOT true. While I appreciate people who want to start up the “hobby”, I value those attempts more that really try to actually learn what they are about to attempt.
If you don’t have clear answers to those first two questions I’d ask you (experience? and why?) then it makes it a lot harder for me to help you get started. If you have a direction, I can draw you a map better than if you are more wanting to go “anywhere”.
However, in this blog entry, I’ll make an attempt to list some basic supplies you might need if you do indeed want to end up “anywhere” when picking up a paint brush for the first time.
PAINTS
This is my favorite subject, so I’ll start here. I paint with oils, but I recommend any novice to begin with ACRYLICS. Acrylics are a whole lot less testy than oils and are very easy to correct mistakes with- you can easily paint over them once they dry (and they dry FAST). They are easily manipulable and the color you see is the color you get when you put it on canvas. My favorite brand is Liquidex, the best value v. quality brand I know.
Color sets
This is a very tricky question that I love. If you have a small budget, just get a “basic” set that has the primary colors red, blue, and yellow. You can mix all other colors from there. This “basic set” should include:
– Cadmium Red (a bright opaque red-red).
– Ultramarine Blue (a bright royal blue).
– Lemon Yellow (a bright basic yellow).
– Cadmium Yellow (a more dense, opaque orange-y yellow)
– Naples yellow (a more neutral yellow used often for caucasian skin tones and neutral whites).
– Sevres Blue (or sky blue, light and bright).
– Alazarin Crimson (a deep, dark, rich royal crimson that is one of the best colors in all of existence. Trust me.)
– Titanium WHITE (get double the amount of white than you would any other color, it goes FAST).
optional
if you have a larger budget, please invest in these colors (you won’t regret):
– Burnt Sienna (a light neutral brown, sorta brown-yellow hints of green- great for mixing)
– Viridian green (a forest green that you shouldn’t use often, but is good when blue-yellow mixes don’t produce the right green).
– Prussian blue (a rich overwhelming blue, with a hint of deep green/turquoise) .
– Rosso Veneto/ Venetian Red (a neutral red great for mixing).
That there is almost all the colors I ever use. Mixing is your friend.
And did I forget black? NO! If I could give just one tip to any novice painter – NEVER EVER EVER USE BLACK!!! Never use it to mix colors. Use compliments to mix darks and shadows, what you would think of as “black”. In life, there is no such thing as pure black. Every dark and shadow has rich shades of other colors. Black should ONLY be used in monochrome black and white works or as solid color (such as a purposeful outline or drawing shape). NEVER mix it. For all intents and purposes just forget that black even exists while you start out. Once I completed the black and white practice pieces of painting 101, I don’t think I’ve ever purchased a single tube of black paint since then. Never use black.
Ok, now that that’s out of my system. Let’s move on.
CANVAS
Of course you need a canvas to paint on. If you are starting out, I’ll cringe, look away but allow you to buy a pre-made canvas from the store. Pre-made canvases suck, but they are easier than learning how to build your own canvas first. Pre-made canvases won’t hurt the novice painter. If anything, they’ll save valuable time.
BUT if you want to dare build your own canvas here’s what you need:
Stretchers – 4 pieces of wood that create the frame of the canvas.
Canvas material (cloth)- the actual cotton weave that you stretch on the stretchers. Haha. Get it. But really, you need a cloth to paint on.
Hammer and staple gun – to physically bind together the stretchers and canvas material.
GESSO – also called paint primer.. It’s a cheap white acrylic-ish base that you paint all over a canvas before you start painting. Some pre-made canvases are already primed, that means you don’t need gesso. Unprimed means you need gesso.
A gesso paint brush- gesso will ruin all your good paint brushes. You should have a large sponge brush or coarse house painters brush set aside for just gesso, so you don’t ruin any nice real paint brushes.
Gesso bucket – gesso usually comes heavily concentrated, so having an addition bucket to dump in and mix water into the gesso is recommended (but not totally needed necessary).
There are also illustration boards and wooden boards that are fun to paint on with acrylic as well. You don’t always need literal canvas. But canvas has a nice texture, so I highly recommend it.
WATER
Acrylic is water-based, so you need a can or cup of water to dip your brush, mix, and paint with. Oils are NOT water-soluble, so you need turpentine but that’s another story for another time. P.S. if you ever mix oil and water, oil floats to the top because it weighs less. So same with painting- you can always paint oils ontop of acrylics but NEVER acrylics ontop of oils. Leonardo Di Vinci made the mistake of painting a water-soluable material ontop of an oil based material, and that’s why the famous Last Supper needs to be restored every few years. Of course he was a genius, but just some experiments of his worked better than others.
PAINT BRUSHES
This is a subject that I love but also have the least amount of opinions about. For oil and acrylics you don’t need fancy brushes at all. Acrylics and oils are very caustic to brushes, so they get ruined really fast. So what I do is buy cheap brushes and often. Brushes are totally up to individual tastes in what you feel comfortable using.
I recommend a variety of sizes from large to medium to small, and a few differently shaped tips. I don’t have one brush I use more than others. It just depends on what stroke I’m trying to get. I am generally a fan of mostly square and rounded tips.
And as a general rule, I start a painting using the largest brushes than work my way down to smaller brushes as I get to more of the finishing details. Never start painting with details. Use large brushes to get general colors and swashes of shapes before you get down to the nitty gritty details. l always make sure I cover a canvas in color before I start really getting specific.
DISHRAGS
Lots of dishrags or paper towels. Paper towels are too weak for oils but just strong enough for acrylics if you wish. You need to have one on hand to really clean and adjust your mixes. They get dirty really fast, but that’s the fun of it. They have tons of uses, so use often as needed. When you go from using one color with one brush to another, you need to rinse with water and then clean with a towel… that’s about the jist of it, but there are even more subtle uses than that.
PALETTE
Nowadays I use disposable palettes, because I’m too lazy to clean up real ones. But in college I used a nice glass palette that was easy to mix on and smooth. But disposable palettes work fine and are relatively inexpensive and easy to clean up (you just dispose of them!). They are actually labeled as disposable palettes and come in all sizes, so that’s easy.
EASEL
Haha.. I almost forgot this one. It’s always better to paint standing up than sitting down. When a cavas is upright and not flat on a table, you can see the image and gauge perspective and composition better. I use an aluminum easel, just because it’s really easy to adjust and doesn’t break easily. Wooden is fine too. It’s just up to your own preferences there.
CABARET
Since the days of holding a palette by hand like Bob Ross are old… you need a shelf-like table thing to place your palette on and store other materials below. The fancy word for it is called a “cabaret”, and I don’t know why. But it’s nice to have if you’re painting on an easel standing up.
CHARCOAL
How do you get a sketch onto a canvas before you paint? Glad you asked! Charcoal is great. It draws easy on canvas, and you can erase easily by just wiping it off with a paper towel. And once you’re done you can paint over it, and voila! You have a sketch, like a map for easier painting. I use soft “linewand” charcoal.
DROP CLOTHS
– self-explanatory. Painting isn’t clean. Be careful.
That’s about it! See what I mean by needing a lot of supplies? That’s why I really think it’s better to really learn once you begin and not just “have a go” at it. To go in part way costs a lot and probably doesn’t have a lot of return as really taking your time and getting to know the craft and getting the right supplies.
Hope you enjoyed!
– Kate