Oil Painting Supplies for Beginners

Getting started with oil painting requires a few basic essentials, such as paints, brushes, and a canvas. However, having the right supporting supplies can make the painting process much easier and more enjoyable.

This guide covers the additional oil painting supplies you'll need and explains what each one is used for.

Latex gloves are a convenient way to keep your hands clean while painting.

They are especially useful for messy tasks like color mixing and brush washing, where rubbing brushes against your palm can irritate your skin.

Note:

If you use lightly powdered gloves, avoid touching your canvas directly so you don't leave residue on your artwork.

Always squeeze the tube from the bottom to release the paint, working your way up as it empties. Squeezing from the middle pushes paint backward, making it harder to get out smoothly.

Tip:

You can push paint back into the tube by holding it upright and gently tapping the bottom on your work surface.

After a painting session, you may have some paint left on your palette.

To keep it usable, place it in a freezer compartment. The cold slows the hardening process, allowing you to use the paint again later.

If stored in an airtight container, oil paints can remain usable for several weeks or even longer.

You can use a plastic container, a glass container, aluminum foil, or a disposable plastic plate wrapped tightly with plastic wrap. The important thing is to keep the paint sealed from the air.

Unlike watercolor or acrylic paint, oil paint does not dry by evaporation because it contains no water. Instead, it hardens when exposed to oxygen in the air (a process called oxidation).

Keep in mind:

Some oil paint pigments are toxic. Store them in a sealed container and keep them away from food!

If you are sensitive to odors from thinners and concerned about the toxicity of these materials, you can use dish soap and water.

Wash the brushes several times until no paint is coming out of them (put some dish soap on your gloved hand and rub the paintbrush on it, wash, repeat).

Then, dry gently with a towel and store with the bristles up to keep their shape.

Good to know:

If paint remains on the brush, it hardens and renders the brush useless.

For more info on paintbrushes, visit my guide for oil painting brush types.

Paper towels are great for cleaning paintbrushes and palette knives while painting or for opening and closing oil paint tubes in a clean way.

Another option is to use a cloth.

In addition, you can use them gently to remove excessive paint from the canvas.

A palette is a board for organizing and mixing oil paints.

A palette for oil paints is made of wood, plastic, and other hard materials. A glass palette or a specially designed glass table is easy to clean.

My favorite is a disposable palette made of impermeable, non-absorbent paper.

Disposable paper palettes come in different sizes and with different amounts of pages.

Arrange and mix oil paints on disposable paper. At the end of a painting session, tear off the disposable page and throw it (without having to clean it).

You can use a high-quality cotton canvas or a linen canvas, which is more expensive.

You do not have to frame your oil paintings when you want to hang them.

In that case, it is important to buy a canvas without pins that connect the fabric to the wood on the sides of the frame, but on the back of the frame (where they cannot be seen).

You can paint the sides of the canvas when hanging it without a frame.

Tip:

After a painting session, you can mix the remaining oil paints (that are left on the palette).

Use this mixture to paint the sides of your canvas.

Let the paint harden for several days, or more, before you hang it.

I do not use frames. I like to hang my painted canvases tight against the wall.

For that, I use nails.

If the width of the canvas is 40 cm or more, I use two nails.

When using two nails, I make sure they are balanced, using a spirit level.

The wooden frame of the canvas is suitable for hanging it on nails.

Pay attention that the nails do not stick out too much, so that they do not damage the canvas.

I find this the fastest and most convenient way to hang my paintings.

Supply for oil painting is not cheap. Compared to paper for pencil drawings, a canvas is expensive.

One solution is paper pads designed for oil paint. These paper sheets are NOT of high quality.

However, paper for oil paint is great for training, especially for beginners.

Another great use for them is for creating color palettes or color charts.

I start by drawing a grid with a black marker pen.

Next, I mix each pigment I have with an increasing amount of white pigment (titanium).

In addition, I mix two pigments (for example, blue and yellow) with an increasing amount of white.

Color palettes are a fast way to choose the color and brightness value I want to use.

Copyright law protects photographs, drawings, comics and images that you can find on the Internet.

In order to use images to get ideas for paintings or to draw them from observation, use royalty-free images.

There are websites that provide free images for use by artists or anybody else.

Some examples:

Pixabay

Unsplash

Pexels

In addition, with some experience in linear perspective, you can learn how to draw from imagination.

It is customary to sign finished artworks. You can sign using a synthetic round brush or a synthetic liner brush.

For a realistic painting, in which a signature can ruin its look, sign on the back of the canvas using a marker pen or a technical pen.

In addition to a signature, add contact details, such as a phone number, website address, or e-mail address, on the back of the canvas.

Add some technical details, like canvas dimensions, and a date.

Oil painting is a particularly forgiving medium. If something in the painting does not work, it is possible to wipe it with a paper towel or a cloth. Another solution is to paint over it once the lower layer of oil paint hardens.

Unlike other mediums, oil paints are very easy to mix and therefore create a huge amount of colors and shades.

With a limited palette of 5 colors (red, blue, yellow, brown, and white), you can mix many colors and shades.

Wet on wet, or alla prima, is a technique in which painting is done on top of a fresh layer of paint, and thus the layers can be mixed with one another.

Wet on dry means waiting for the bottom layer to harden and only then painting a new layer on top of it.

Divide and conquer is the perception that in a complex painting, it is better to work on small parts of it and make the task less complicated.

From time to time (when painting), remember to move back from the canvas in order to see the big picture.

Once you have some painting materials, it is time to learn how to mix oil paints.

For painting realism, visit my tutorial on how to paint realistically.

To learn more about the illusion of depth when painting, visit my depth drawing tutorial.